With the height and bulk limits for the proposed 550-unit apartment tower to rise on the former Goodwill site at the corner of Mission and South Van Ness Avenue having been raised and the building permits for the 396-foot-tall tower having been approved, the 1580 Mission Street site is being cleared as captured by a plugged-in reader above.

1500 Mission Street Rendering

The historic Coca-Cola Bottling Plant clock tower in the background will be saved and incorporated into the greater Hub District development which includes a 500,000-square-foot building for the city that will wrap around the corner tower, stretching from 11th Street to South Van Ness Avenue

1500 Mission Street Rendering: City Building

50 thoughts on “Iconic Goodwill Razed for First Hub District Tower to Rise”
  1. Can we please get a 1100 ft tower in the Hub to cancel out the boring crap that is salesforce tower? it does not deserve to be our tallest building…

    1. I could not agree more. I cant wait for the claw complex (oceanwide) to get going as it’ll at least take some focus off that thing. Its sooooo boring!

      1. The Claw is a more interesting design but it is bulky/not slender enough. It will have a small viewing platform at the top which, IIRC, can fir like 6 people at once. Some such. The SOM tower would have had a large public viewing lounge at the top. The real deal. The Saelsforce tower has no such – small or large.

        1. Dave – Salesforce has designated the top two floors of the tower as Ohana space, meaning its accessible to the broader community including the public.

    2. Salesforce Tower is a gorgeous building that our boring skyline really needed. Together with 151 Fremont they have radically improved the skyline fro so many parts of the city

    1. Iconic in this case as in recognizable or distinguishable in the same way the FEDERAL building is Iconic because it’s so hideous.

  2. @donjuan – agree the Salesforce tower is boring. If you go back to the 3 finalist buildings, the city chose the worst/least imaginative design. The money from the developer made the difference one assumes.

    As to another 1000 foot tower in SF, it’s “never” going to happen. Never in quotes as that is qualified by in our lifetimes. As it is 500 plus feet will likely be about the highest we see going forward in SF. There won’t be many of those as few sites remain in the city so zoned. The FiDi now built out as well as the TTC area about built out.

    Even the city’s Central SOMA plan, where it up-zones, is “only” going to about 350 feet max and – with all the pushback – those proposed heights hopefully will get lowered some.

    [Editor’s Note: The proposed Central SoMa Plan heights reach 400 feet while the main Oceanwide Center tower will rise over 900. And of course, there are plans for an 800-foot-tall tower to rise on Transbay Parcel F.]

    1. Dave I dont know how old you are, but Im nearly certian that after this cycle ends, then during the next boon some new plan will be unvieled, just like the transbay plans….maybe they could build a few more 1000+ to fund a new bart tube hmmmm…

      I think this all happens over the next 10 years and we have a few more 1000+ in the next 15. Im pretty sure I will be around then.

      1. Agree – wouldn’t be surprised if it happens near the 4th and King Caltrain station along with a removal of the last mile or two of 280. At least I *hope* something like that happens, and continues to push grimy SoMa upward.

        1. I’d be startled, let alone surprised – what possible economic justification is there for a 1000′ tower at 4th & King?

          1. Every train is packed, Caltrain is only real regional rail terminus, electrification proceeding, plenty of low-rise or vacant land, tech companies in expansion mode are pressured by staff who wants to work in SF, etc. etc. etc.

          2. I’d be surprised as well, but I never thought that Salesforce tower would happen either so…

    2. whille the salesforce tower is a little uninspired, the other two proposed awful bus terminals with no added open space. the giant roof park wins the gold medal. who cares about the tower (also that richard rogers one was ridiculous)

        1. The erector set was by far the best design IMO, but the park they had was awful. An erector set with the current park would have been awesome! I like the park design we got but the tower is a yawner.

          Claw complex will be great and I’ll call it whatever I want, and you are free to as well thank you. Clearly you and I have differing opinions and thats ok! Thats fun!

    3. @Editor: my comments were that, going forward, no more 1000 foot towers will be built and 500 feet will be the max height but only at a few locations. Oceanwide and Parcel F are cooked in the books so I was excluding them. They will be the last of their breed.

  3. When I first saw the picture above, I thought it was a new modern design museum or something. Good to see progress on this site and can’t wait for the full build out of the Central hub plan.

  4. 550 units is about 1000 people. That would encompass the entire Facebook AND Dropbox expansion increase in residents. How did something that big get allowed?

    And so much for the “San Francisco is fully built out” argument. Wow, what a huge increase on what was already developed property. I assume its neighbors will soon do the same?

    1. 12,000 new residents will result from the hub. Everyone here seems to be having an orgasm about it. For those of you living near this area, come back in a decade and comment on the density.

    1. Same here. It’s an elegant, very minimalist solution to a tall tower: no tricky twists or turns, no awkward angles, no cut outs. no multi-colored panels; but refined close up detailed, beautiful curved corners that so quietly tapers to the top.

      Just a pure, modern form for a tower designed by the very talented PCP (Pelli Clarke Pelli).

      1. Thank you! I was reading the comments and asking myself: are they seeing the same building? Especially in the context of the flat-topped boxes so prevalent over the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s.

  5. Photo caption:
    “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

  6. The irony of this pile of 9000 little boxes and thousands more little office cubicles rising just high enough to block out daylight for a whole swath of mid-market, right next to Daniel Burnham’s legacy project — our Civic Center — oy.

    I believe there will be some serious comeuppance for foisting of ‘the hub’ on our city. Its nothing but a get rich quick scheme. And just to nip the paid commenters in the bud, everyone knows that in tiny, super rich super crowded SF, “blight” is more often than not a tactic developers and their minions in SFGov use to wear down residents to accept any old thing that comes along to replace it.

    1. This building site is several blocks away from Civic Center—are you even from SF?. There is nothing at that intersection now but junky buildings and a tangled and pedestrian unfriendly road crossing. A tactical nuclear bomb would be the easiest way to improve the area, but building 9,000 new units is probably a better approach.

      1. Posh. The City is now so unlivable he is forced to comment from his cul de sac in the lovely suburban vastness of Plano, Texas (or something of that ilk).

    2. I have been curious for years about what the city would look like if people like you had their way. What I imagine is 5 million $ Victorians and bicycle paths and not much more.

      1. those people do not ride bikes; SF cyclists are mostly urbanists (pro-transit, density, etc.) They want private horse-drawn carriages with free parking for locals only.

      1. Good point – with the lengthy process of development it would at best be a “make your grandkids rich scheme” 🙂

  7. Iconic. Really?

    I guess I’m not sure what iconic means anymore, but if this building is any indication of what people are hoping for when they hear about a new development, it’s no wonder we end up with the nonsensical hodge podge of architecture that we do.

      1. If that is your criteria, then homeless encampments are also “iconic” as they, too, define many parts of San Francisco.

  8. Iconic, only in the minds of those whose brains are baked beyond the capacity to deal with the least significant of changes, which, come to think of it, is a significant percentage of the SF population. Imagine the horror when the Honda dealership comes down. Iconic! Sad!

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