The ceremonial groundbreaking for the Transbay Terminal is already underway downtown, featuring Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Transportation Secretary Roy La Hood, and a slew of local politicians on stage.
Pelosi and Boxer on Hand for Transbay Groundbreaking, Willie Brown Arrives Late
Transbay Parking Lot Getting Sifted Through By Archaeologists
As some of you familiar with urban construction projects may know, one of the first steps in building something new in a city like ours is bringing in the archaeologists. Today, digging begins in the parking lot behind the existing Transbay Terminal, marking one of the beginning stages of the new Transbay center project, and archaeologists will spend the next couple of months sifting through the land there to make sure there aren't any important historic (or pre-historic!) items buried underneath.
Final Design for Transbay Terminal Unveiled
Here's the new rendering, folks, and today the architects at Pelli Clarke Pelli present their final designs for the terminal portion of the Transbay project to the Transbay Joint Powers Authority. The 1,000-foot tower remains up in the air, so to speak, but the terminal is moving forward with a projected opening date of 2017.
High-Speed Rail Must Terminate at Transbay, But Where Exactly?
Oh, god. Deputy State's Attorney General Christine Sproul has ruled that the proposed high-speed rail terminus must be at the Transbay Terminal, as was stipulated by the voters when they approved the bond measure. But in true lawyerly fashion, she adds that the measure still allows for some variation because it "does not define the Transbay Terminal." This means that the new Transbay Terminal as we know it, designed to be at the foot of the 1,200 ft. Cesar-Pelli-designed dildo tower, may need to be expanded to include that Beale Street wing that South Beach residents vehemently do not want, or the train traffic may have to be split between the Transbay and the existing CalTrain station on King Street. Buckle your seat belts for a whole lot more argument over this, but they'd better goddamn hurry up or else risk losing $400M in stimulus funds. [Chron, Curbed]
This Could Be Our Skyline, In a Couple of Decades
The Planning Department just released their 25-year plan for the Transbay Terminal-adjacent "Transit Center District." Above is a rendering of what the San Francisco skyline might look like, 20 or 25 years hence, if six new proposed skyscrapers actually get approved and built, including the central 950-foot Transbay Tower, which would be 100 feet taller than the TransAmerica Pyramid. This is just a plan of course, not a design, and the image above is meant only to illustrate relative heights. But wouldn't that be pretty? The view from Dolores Park? (Cue the anti-shadow, anti-tall-stuff whiners.)

