Don’t sweat it if you weren’t invited to the Transbay Transit Center Groundbreaking, we’ve got the next best thing: the groundbreaking video SocketSite “premier.”
You know, that video produced by Steel Blue and Neorama that plugged-in people actually had the chance to be immortalized in. Feel free to point yourself out if you are.
∙ So You Want To Be In Renderings… [SocketSite]
∙ Transbay Transit Center Groundbreaking, Fat Mike & Infinity All In One [SocketSite]
OMG a funicular! Just like in Budapest. Great video. In the words of Mickey from Natural Born Killers – I say go for it.
The transbay tower is most certainly going to be 1200′, with the crown included, at least by these videos it will be. I only see 1 ORH tower in the renderings, though, that worries me. The planned skyline looks absolutely amazing and it will finally bring us into the 21st (20th?) century. Weird choice of music, though.
That is one expensive animation! Why is it hard for me to be convinced this will all really happen? What would be the completion date of the entire project with high speed rail as shown in the video?
It can happen if construction laborers in all trades agree to take pay cuts along the lines of UAW. The me me me me me era is dead (and good riddance).
I did not notice that Fremont street will be closed off on either side of the new terminal. That should be an added perk for residents of Millennium, to be able to stroll out front and not be in the middle of a freeway off- ramp, as is currently the case. Pity the residents who buy units on the west side, however, as every view will be blocked by the transbay. It appears that only the top 20 floors, and only those facing north and east, will have views. That will be kind of tricky to market as a luxury tower.
Wow, incredible. Those people movers are cool.
I want to live in that world, so clean and quiet.
Nice Animations! I can’t wait to visit the terminal park.
Very nice. I hope it gets built, even if the tower does look like a huge uncut….cue scene from Austin Powers.
I would really love if the neighborhood transform into something even close to the video.
The city is broke. The ballet and opera are to have their budgets cut by 50% next year, yet despite everything, one cannot but hope this really gets built. But how? and with what money?
If only the world could be like this video; always summer, always sunshine, no poverty, no trash or crime, just happy people embracing, talking and riding clean, on time, safe and efficient public transit.
It reminds me of Walt Disney’s original EPCOT movies from the 1960’s. What was dreamed of as a future green city with no smog or poverty eventually turned into just another theme park with more rides, lines, popcorn and gift shops.
Maybe, for once, the final outcome will be as nice as the design images?
or at least have rides
Stunning video. I hope this moves forward on all accounts. It will be such a great thing for San Francisco.
I hope I’m alive to see this built and finished!
What is the final completion date? Someone mentioned before that it was 2017 (with Caltrain and High Speed Rail actually running to the Transbay Station). Is this true?
2019 is the date posted on Transbay’s website for final completion.
Hurry up and get this #$&% housing on the market! Will all of the housing be condos, or rentals? I guess the market will dictate at the time of opening, as is the case now throughout the city. Is 2019 the date for the entire project to be completed, with the Transbay Park and the surrounding developments on Rincon Hill? I keep hearing so many different things.
Where are all of the bums, panhandlers, shopping carts full or worldly possessions, and people sleeping on the sidewalk in the video? At least they could have made the video realistic for this part of SF.
“Is 2019 the date for the entire project to be completed?”
From the site; “Phase II of the project, the rail extension, is planned to begin in 2012 and open to rail service in 2019.” The Terminal Building begins operation for busses in 2014, therefore I would imagine the housing and park, where Transbay “temporary” is about to be, would finish near the 2019 deadline.
Why so slow? They built the Golden Gate Bridge in 4 years. They built Walt Disney World (1969-71) in 2.5 years. WDW construction included the railroad and stations, subways, monorail, Magic Kingdom, 3 hotels, roads tunnels and bridges, lakes and levees, electrical power grid and generations plants, on a project site size equal to about the entire city of San Francisco. Maybe we should have Disney build Transbay?
First posted on June 12, 2007
The Millennium Tower is going to be the most sought after residential building since 2006 Washington was offered in 1925.
Still, today 2006 Washington is recognized as the pre-eminent apartment building in Northern California. With values from $7M to $25M (the penthouse was offered for $25M last year in a private sale) this building has no piers.
Now comes The Millennium Tower. The location alone is the most powerful draw. Located across the street from the New Trans Bay Terminal, this will replace Pacific Heights in the decades to come, as “The Address”. It may be 12 years or longer away to see, (www.transbaycenter.org/transbay/content.aspx?id=40)
but you will be taking high speed rail to the SF Airport in 15 minutes, 30 minutes to San Jose and LA in 2 1/2 hours.
This will be the most important change in San Francisco in the next 20 years.
In July, the competition to win the rights to design the new “Grand Central West” will begin, with a Panel Comprised of Renowned Experts to Select the Architect to Build the New Transbay Transit Center and Transit Tower. This process will bring this location at Mission and Fremont into the forefront.
Now what type of building could sit next to the future of San Francisco?
Today, I met Mr. Glenn Rescalvo, the designer of The Millennium and principal of Handel Architecture. A native of San Francisco.
In a 1 1/2 hour presentation he presented a truly exciting building. Its glass skin is akin to a prism, the building has 8 corners. All the facets are first class, from the parking and ingress for cars to the various lobbies, to the restaurant, to the owners private 2nd level facilities (in a class by themselves), to the various floor plans, to the finishes, lighting and appliances.
This IS the building to live in beginning in 2009. Over the top! Built by the same group that built the Four Seasons Hotel and Condominiums (144 units offered in 1st quarter 2000), “The Mill” my quote (Frederick) will have 419 new homes.
My advice, for those of you that are betting on the future at 1 Rincon Hill or The Infinity, call your broker and get a reservation at a “real building”.
Frederick
Posted by: Frederick at June 12, 2007 7:24 PM
Funny how the world has changed since I wrote about the Terminal and “The Mill”.
Gas went up and down!! The equities markets have come off a liquidity high!!
And the World is rejoicing over our new President!!
The Terminal and our TVG is about to get a real shot of $$$$$.
Our new President wants the USA to join Europe and Asia in the benefits of High Speed Rail.
Will he propose Hi-Speed from Vancouver to Mexico City, Vermont to Cuba??
The first phase of the California Hi-Speed is to go from S.F. to San Jose, with a new Cal-Train that is electric and will go up to 120 mph, half as quick as the Hi-Speed, but with all the new grade crossings, Cal-Train and the Hi-Speed will make commuting from S.F. to the Peninsula and San Jose a dream.
In addition to our new transportation system, watch for Mr Macris, the Planning Dept and Parks and Recreation to plan for our future on the Waterfront. This vision will really knock your socks off.
A Chicago style “Millennium Park” for Mission Street to Broadway”. S. F. Chronicle November 18, 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/18/DD5713QDGN.DTL
“The goal is to create a lively crossroads of enticing fun, rather than the 20 acres of scenic but little-used space that now spills inland from the Ferry Building. Chicago’s lakefront is a model: Millennium Park, where 24.5 acres of train tracks were transformed into a wildly popular phantasmagoria that draws locals and tourists alike.”
The future is in front of you.
Frederick
Frederick, would you want to live next to a construction site for the next 12 years?
Agreed, that IF it gets done with HSR, it will be fantastic, but I would live in 2006 Washington and and enjoy the quiet until 2019.
Fredrick, have you been drinking the Kool-Aid?
Mixing and serving the Kool Aid, for everyone else to drink, is more like it.
He’s not drinking it at all, unless he’s purchased a couple of units for himself at MT.
Ah! In the future, everyone will be white. Even their cars will all be white, except for the ones driven by old people, those will be silver. Their building interiors will be white, too!
“Ah! In the future, everyone will be white. Even their cars will all be white, except for the ones driven by old people, those will be silver. Their building interiors will be white, too!”
Yes, these are certainly the details of this sample video that one should focus on (regardless of whether, as you correctly state, they are not necessarily PC)…
…you wouldn’t happen to be a member of the SF Board of Supervisors would you? Hello…Chris? Chris Daly?
Screw Chris Daly. One only focuses on the creepily Logan’s Run-ness of the video because its producers made such a bizarro Logan’s Run hash of it. Remember, these aren’t accidents of photography, this is their fake world they made. Every last imaginary window and parking spot of it. They thought it out this way.
“Hey we need a smooching couple to get off a train…”
“Make ’em young and white. mmmkay?”
“How about the produce browser?”
“That’d be young and white.”
“Can’t I even put in an attractive and successful African American?”
“No. That’s what the Transit Building is for. It already shipped out all the colored people.”
“How ’bout if he’s running a shoe shine stand?”
“NO!”
“What if you just see him from the back? It could be kinda edgy and ambiguous, ya know? Like maybe he’s got the black, maybe not? Or an Asian? Maybe one? We could do her young and hot for all the yellow fever types.”
“Nooooo! The future is only for white people and their white cars! Make it so!”
The movie doesn’t seem any more strange than a McDonald’s commercial (or any other tv commercial from corporate America) that showcases four young friends playing together on a nice playground – there’s always one black kid, one Asian kid, one white kid (usually with red hair), and one Hispanic kid. At the end of the commercial you typically have a couple of the interracial groups of parents come up…look at how enlightened McDonalds is! They completely ignore reality and hope for a perfect future! I’m really hungry for a Big Mac now!
There are people of color in this video vox. Maybe not very many, but they are in there.
1:13, crossing from left to right, holding a cup of coffee, what color is this guy?
2:05, in the middle, crossing from left to right, what color is the woman with the black hair, in the black dress?
2:34, on the right, in a white skirt, with a black top, wearing black boots.
2:36, look at the whole crowd on the further back platform, probably 1/3 of those faces are non-white (not much detail here, but you can see the contrast of facial colors).
Now, almost all the close-ups are of white people, this is true. Remember when they called for volunteers? Did you show up?
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
“Screw Chris Daly”
Don’t worry, I intend to give vox his or her fair share of the royalties from the bumper stickers, buttons and posters that I now intend sell, with great success I suspect, that bear this simple, yet oh so spot on, little phrase…
…As a District 6 resident, I have been searching for some time for something so pithy yet so descriptive…
Who knows what the demographic make up of this city will be in 2019 (completion date)?
An example; this city WAS the gay mecca in the 70’s, now there is nothing left of the Castro but historic markers of where fun used to take place. If you are young and gay, you do not want to live in a museum, but probably will move to West Hollywood, Miami or even Chicago (larger Gay Community than S.F. now).
San Francisco was at one time majority Irish, Italian and Catholic, now Asian and Hispanic communities are growing, but by 2019 it could be Indian? 2019 is a long way away.
NVJ, I’m looking and it still looks like North Dakota to me. There is one guy who might have some flavor trying to cross a street. The producers obviously wanted to pan away from him before he asked them for some change ™.
The more I watch, the worse it gets! There’s one dude with dark hair and a bald spot. Otherwise the future is free of middle aged and old people.
In the future there are no children, either.
And there will be just one pug in the park at any one time.
Pine trees under a glass ceiling? No. Pine trees would not like that. Love the roof, but shouldn’t there be some solar there? Isn’t that a lot of glass for earthquake country?
Here’s one where Foster and Partners get busted for nuking the blacks out of Washington DC’s National’s stadium area. God knows blacks never got to ball games or malls, even when they make up the majority of the local population.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/28/AR2008032800964.html?nav=rss_print/style
Here’s another one where the architects booted all the bros. out of Harlem! LOL!
http://curbed.com/archives/2007/09/20/harlems_box_actively_recruiting.php
Architecture: where bias is just a term of art.
Uh… where are the security checkpoints?
Looks great … will be exciting to watch develop over the next several years … I’m already excited just watching the progress on the sidewalk being widened out to 30 feet across on Spear Street between Folsom and Harrison.
Uh… where are the security checkpoints?
Uh… at the airport. Haven’t noticed too may security checkpoints to get onto BART, Amtrak, or Caltrain. Amtrak and Caltrain are FAR more potentially dangerous than HSR will be since they have grade crossings.
Only the white kids showed up to be a part of the video. Sorry you gotta be ahead of the game to play this one.