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Pelli Clarke & Partners completes 57-story Salesforce Tower in Chicago

2024-05-30T17:53:00-04:00

Pelli Clarke & Partners has completed work on their new Salesforce Tower project at Chicago's Wolf Point mixed-use development. The 852-foot tower is the final piece of the 15-year puzzle that transforms a four-acre portion of waterfront between the Riverwalk and Merchandise Mart and boasts a total of 1.2 million square feet of offices for the technology giant and leading national law firm Kirkland & Ellis.

Photo by Jason O'Rear

"It has been a privilege to shape the transformation of Wolf Point and contribute to the design of Chicago’s iconic skyline for nearly 15 years," Partner Darin Cook said of their second commercial project for the Windy City. "We have long been inspired by Chicago’s rich architectural tradition and history of innovation. In creating Salesforce Tower, we designed a tower that reaches boldly skyward, is imbued with lightness, and takes a sculptural form."

Photo by Jason O'Rear

Featuring an internal floor plate configuration that enables a max...

Chicago Mayor considers scaling back sign limits on office towers to lure Salesforce

2018-09-25T13:21:00-04:00

The 20-foot-tall letters spelling “T-R-U-M-P” on the city’s second-tallest building prompted Chicago aldermen four years ago to regulate the installation of large signs on office buildings. Now, Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to tweak that ordinance to help secure a huge expansion by software firm Salesforce in a new riverfront skyscraper. The city’s Department of Planning and Development [...] unveiled a plan that would allow larger signs on office towers, depending on how high signs are placed.

Who could forget the epic 2014 spat between Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin, backed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and New York-based real estate developer Donald Trump over the controversial "TRUMP" letters on his hotel and condo tower in the city (Kamin's tempestuous relationship with Trump goes even further back)?

John King reviews the newly opened Salesforce Tower, now San Francisco's tallest building

2018-01-19T14:26:00-05:00

All of which makes for a nuanced tower, conscientious and self-assured even as it reorients the skyline and redefines San Francisco’s visual image. But there’s also an air of detachment, as if the creators were so busy being tasteful they forgot that big buildings can be fun. In the works for a decade, and with plenty of work left to do, the 1.42 million-square-foot tower at First and Mission streets opened quietly Monday.

John King, the San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic, reviews Pelli Clarke Pelli's brand new Salesforce Tower which recently welcomed its first occupants. "And while it won’t ever gain visual swagger," King writes, "you might come to like it more than you expect."

At 1,070 feet, it's a slick steel and glass behemoth and dethroned the 853-foot Transamerica Pyramid from its top spot as San Francisco's tallest building — a title it managed to hold since 1972.

Salesforce Tower is set to become San Francisco's tallest, and most expensive, building

2017-04-12T12:17:00-04:00

Come July, the Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed Salesforce Tower in San Francisco is set to break two records: tallest building in the city and the most expensive. At 1,070-feet tall, the building cost its developer, Boston Properties, a whopping $1.1 billion. Actually, the Salesforce Tower isn’t just the tallest building in San Francisco—it’s the tallest building west of Chicago (capable of being occupied).

Salesforce, a cloud computing company, bought the naming rights for the building and will pay the developer around $560 million over 15 and a half years to lease 30 floors. Other tenants include Bain and Company, Accenture, and CBRE, a real estate group.

Check out this stunning 108 feet long video wall by Obscura Digital

2016-11-23T12:55:00-05:00

The San Francisco-based company Salesforce enlisted the creative studio Obscura Digital to craft a stunning LED video wall for the lobby of their flagship office. Stretching 108 feet long and containing over 7 million pixels, the video wall features incredibly sharp, HD video content that transforms the space. It’s the longest continuous 4mm LED screen in the United States.

“From capturing California’s Redwood National Forest in stunning 12K resolution, to a designing a convincing CG waterwall and more – we held nothing back in striving to impart a sense of wonder to everyone that enters the building," state Obscura Digita.

Watch a video of the wall in action here:

More infusions of the digital into architecture:

Salesforce plans a colorful jolt for Mission Bay

2011-06-07T02:34:54-04:00

[Legorreta and Legorreta] caught Salesforce founder Marc Benioff's eye with its UCSF community center, a red stucco cube enlivened by an oversized purple-walled courtyard and, at one corner, a steep sculptural tower. It's the only campus building that brings a smile; it also typifies the firm's knack for spirited buildings that strive to catch the eye.