Type Commercial offices Roof 100 m (330 ft) Main contractor Dinwiddie Construction Floors 24 Floor area 3 ha | Completed 1988 Floor count 24 Height 130 m Opened 1988 Owner Deutsche Bank | |
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Architecture firm Skid, Owings & Merrill Similar McKesson Plaza, 580 California Street, 345 California Center, 425 Market Street, Embarcadero West | ||
505 Montgomery Street is a 24-storey, 100 m (330 ft) class-A office building in the financial district of San Francisco, California. The 98-foot (30 m) spire perched atop the building is thought to be a replica of the Empire State Building, but that association is mainly due to the publicity stunt during the opening of the building, which involved an inflatable 40-foot (12 m) gorilla perched on the spire.
Contents
- Map of 505 Montgomery Street 505 Montgomery St San Francisco CA 94111 USA
- History
- Design
- Grabhorn Park
- References
Map of 505 Montgomery Street, 505 Montgomery St, San Francisco, CA 94111, USA
History
505 Montgomery was developed by the Empire Group of San Francisco. Empire assembled ten contiguous parcels in 1978, and filed their initial design study on 7 January 1983 with the San Francisco Department of City Planning. The initial design called for a 28-story building, 416 feet (127 m) high including a 16-foot (4.9 m) mechanical penthouse and ground-floor commercial space. The design was revised to a 24-story building based on floor area ratio calculations, and the final conditional use authorization was granted in June 1984. During construction, Mitsui Fudosan acquired a controlling interest in the unfinished building from The Empire Group and development was completed under the management of AMB.
Retrofitting projects, including a 1994 lighting retrofit, earned the building an Energy Star label. National Office Partners (NOP), a partnership between Hines Interests LP and CalPERS, acquired 505 Montgomery from Mitsui Fudosan and The Empire Group in 1999. The building was subsequently sold by NOP to RREEF in 2005.
Design
505 Montgomery was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in homage to the Art Deco skyscrapers of the 1930s. It features a stepped-back trapezoidal (mansard) roof and the exterior is clad in polished Barre Gray granite.
Grabhorn Park
Grabhorn Park (now Empire Park) is located in the 600 block of Commercial Street, and was provided by the developers of 505 Montgomery as a privately-owned public open space. The initial building design included a pedestrian arcade at the site of 505 Montgomery connecting Sacramento and Commercial streets. However, the arcade would have been rather small, expensive, shaded, and the commercial atmosphere was thought to be unwelcoming for the neighboring community of Chinatown. Therefore, the public open space was moved to a nearby property in 1988, which also freed up additional leasable floor space in 505 Montgomery.