Hines is giving its plans to build San Francisco’s tallest building another shot.
The Houston-based firm has submitted a proposal to build a 1,225-foot-tall office tower at the site of Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s former headquarters at 77 Beale Street, the San Francisco Business Times reported. Hines first floated building such a structure in 2021 after acquiring the PG&E site that same year for $800 million.
If completed, Hines’ skyscraper would be about 155 feet — or about 15 stories — taller than Salesforce Tower, currently the tallest building in San Francisco at 1,070 feet tall. The offices would span 1.7 million square feet.
It would be “a significant, long-term investment toward the revitalization of downtown San Francisco” that “encapsulates Hines’ belief in the strength of the San Francisco real estate market in the coming years,” a spokesperson for Hines said in a statement to the Business Times.
The location spans a full block in the Financial District bounded by Market, Main, Mission and Beale streets. When Hines first proposed redeveloping the site, it included a four-part plan that involved the preservation of two existing historic office buildings at 215 and 245 Market Street; the demolition of a 1-million-square-foot obsolete office building at 77 Beale Street and replacement with a new 1.3-million-square-foot tower; construction of a new high-rise residential building at 50 Main Street; and the creation of a roughly one-acre open space for locals.
Hines’ latest proposal, submitted to the city July 11, eliminates the residential project at 50 Main Street, which previously called for more than 800 units. Housing won’t be gone entirely if approved, however. Instead of a new building, Hines is hoping to go the route of the increasingly popular office-to-residential conversion. On its recent application, Hines looks to turn an existing 90,000-square-foot office building on the block at 25 Beale Street into 120 residential units. Retail and restaurant space would also be included, though details around those additions remain light.
A timeline for the block redevelopment project would be determined after it receives city approval, according to a Hines spokesperson.
