Salesforce Tower claims title of tallest building in San Francisco

Dive Brief:

Developers of the Pelli Clarke Pelli–designed Salesforce Tower in San Francisco have announced that the building is now the tallest in the city, Commercial Property Executive reported.
Construction so far has taken the tower to 867 feet, besting the iconic Transamerica Pyramid by 13 feet. When complete in approximately one year, the 61-story Salesforce Tower will be 1,070 feet tall, making it the tallest office building west of Chicago.
Developers Boston Properties and Hines broke ground on the skyscraper three years ago. Since that time, they scored cloud-computing company Salesforce as its 714,000-square-foot anchor tenant — the largest office least in the city's history — and garnered commitments for another 89,000 square feet.

Dive Insight:

In addition to its status as tallest high-rise in San Francisco, project officials announced that the building will be LEED Platinum-certified, with fifth-floor retail space opening onto a 5.4-acre park atop the new Transbay Transit Center, scheduled to open in 2017, according to Commercial Property Executive.

Another recent achievement by the city in the building arena is the LEED Neighborhood Development Platinum-certification of the high-density Treasure Island development in San Francisco Bay. LEED's ND designation is reserved for sustainable communities that are designed and built to maximize resident health. In terms of square feet, the community, which is still under construction, is the largest LEED-v4-certified property ever and will feature up to 8,000 residential units, commercial and retail space, hotels and design elements that intend to reduce residents' reliance on automobiles.

This positive news for the San Francisco construction industry comes on the heels of an investigation into another of the city's high-rises, the 58-story Millennium Tower, a luxury residential building that has sunk 16 inches since construction was completed in 2009. Project engineers initially predicted that the tower would settle a total of 4 to 6 inches, but a subsequent review indicated that it could sink as much as 30 inches. The Department of Building Inspection came under fire from city officials last month after it was revealed that that building inspectors took no action on the building, which also leans 15 inches, until a citizen called 311, the city's non-emergency government information hotline.