One Montgomery
2016
An entire city block in downtown San Francisco was redeveloped in the early 1980s including removal of the top 10 floors of the Crocker Bank at the corner of Post and Montgomery Street as part of a planning bargain to allow construction of the Crocker Tower. What was left at the corner was what looked like the base of a building whose upper floors had disappeared. The New York owner approached us to examine the site for untapped value, and we found development rights remaining from the 1980s that could accommodate a 500 foot tall building. The hotel/housing proposal was intended to demonstrate the potential of the site for significant development, increasing its value leading to a higher sales price. It was successful in this regard.
The design was an exercise to show how a large tower could grow out of a historic base with minimal physical and architectural disruption. The tower is distinctively modern – a glass and steel box adorned by photovoltaic fins arrayed in a manner to optimize the sunlight on them. Due to the site orientation, the fins would have generated about 15% of the electrical demand of the tower.
STATUS:
Proposal
CLIENT:
601 W Companies, New York
SIZE:
250,000 SF
LOCATION:
1 Montgomery Street, San Francisco
PRESS:“500-foot-tall hotel-condo project proposed for Financial District,” J.K. Dineen, San Francisco Chronicle, September 08, 2016
“35-Story Hotel and Residential Tower Proposed atop Historic SF Corner,” Roland Li, San Francisco Business Times, August 22, 2016
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