The three blocks of Powell Street between the cable-car turnaround and Union Square are set to see some light installations, cafe tables, new paving and more under a new proposed revamp.
The first schematic designs were released in June, and designers from Field Operations — the landscape design firm behind the Tunnel Tops park and New York's High Line — and Site Lab have imagined a revived foot of Powell Street with plenty of new illumination, including a striking, almost pixelated globe of suspended LEDs hanging over the cable-car turnaround.
As the Chronicle reports, Field Operations associate Xiaoye Zhang made a presentation of the design to the SF Arts Commission on Monday, and the commission unanimously approved it.
The new streetscaping will also include white globe lights strung up the length of the three blocks, new sparkling charcoal concrete running along the red brick under the central cable car tracks — with the brick extending up to Union Square — new plantings, new leaning rails for those in line for the cable car, and new gold bench seating.
Sidewalks on the three-block stretch would all be widened to 21 feet, the same width as the parklet segments between Geary and Ellis streets.
Of the lantern orb, Field Operations' Richard Kennedy earlier said, "We want it to have an abstraction and lightness, rather than a specific form. We want it to be timeless."
And as Site Lab founder Laura Crescimano said during the design's unveiling in June, the revamp has a lot of help from what's already there in the urban streetscape.
"The cable car is already there. The historic buildings are already there. We are not starting from scratch," Crescimano said, per the Chronicle.
The project, which is estimated to cost $40 million (up from $30 million estimated just a few months ago), is currently halfway funded, per the Chronicle — remaining funds would likely come from a $390 civic improvement bond that is headed for the November ballot. $3.5 million in initial funds are already reserved for Powell Street in the city budget, as part of an improvement program in the area.
Sponsoring the project is the Union Square Alliance, formerly known as the Union Square Business Improvement District, which is funded through special assessments from local building and business owners.
Union Square Alliance CEO Marisa Rodriguez tells the Chronicle that she's confident funding will be secured and that the project will break ground next fall.
More city approvals will, naturally, also be required before then. And, hopefully, more of the vacant storefronts on these blocks of Powell will be filled before the project is ultimately complete.
"Just imagine having a drink or a snack and watching the cable cars sitting under the beautiful lanterns,” Zhang said in Monday's presentation. “We really want Powell Street to be a place people want to be, to spend time, to celebrate all that San Francisco has to offer."
