The Changing San Francisco Skyline
San Francisco’s iconic downtown skyline is dotted with extremely tall business buildings and lorded over by the easily identifiable Transamerica Pyramid building. At over 800 feet high, the Pyramid building is the highest manmade structure in the city and has been since 1972. But how much longer will it hold that distinguished title? Modifications in formerly inflexible “anti-high rise” measures, which include newly constructed residence towers, have begun to alter the landscape of the city’s downtown area- and hence, its view.
San Francisco’s building boom, which lasted from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, came to a halt when concerned citizens rallied against the “Manhattanization” of the city. Feeling that the skyscrapers were costing the city money, destroying the sundrenched beauty of certain areas, and making veritable wind tunnels out of many downtown streets, voters chose to take drastic measures in the November 1986 election. Proposition M- which was an initiative that served to preserve housing, small businesses, and neighborhood character- passed and San Francisco suddenly had some of the strictest building height limits in the country. That desire for structural and cityscape preservation gave birth to very rigid building guidelines throughout the city. These guidelines were followed to the letter until recent economic changes allowed for some of the limitations to be relaxed.
Already home to over 370 high-rises, there are 34 buildings over 400 feet high proposed, approved, or under construction in San Francisco. Following the trend of “New Urbanism”, which encourages developing high and mid-rise residences in the city center of bustling urban areas with good public transit and other necessities nearby, the city as a whole has between 25,000-30,000 condo units planned, proposed, or in various stages of completion. A vast number of these condos are in high-rise buildings in the downtown and South of Market area (SOMA).
People often think that it’s foolish to build skyscrapers in San Francisco because of earthquakes that occur along the San Andreas and Hayward Faults. Though the faults do not pass through the city, the seismic activity which results therein has heavily influenced the need for upgraded building codes, required retrofitting of older structures, and demanded higher engineering standards for new constructions. These combined changes have resulted in taller structures being more flexible and less likely than shorter buildings to topple or collapse as they sway during earthquakes.
The world will see if these structural engineering and design theories hold true soon enough: San Francisco has plans to construct a new Transbay Transit Center with adjoining towers by 2020. One of the towers has already received construction approval for 550 feet, and could wind up being more than 1,000 feet- which would make it the tallest structure on the West Coast.
