The pivotal first residential development that will eventually form the cornerstone of San Francisco’s new Mission Rock neighborhood topped out last week, representing a milestone for the city and designers MVRDV.

Featuring a suite of ground-floor retail spaces and 50,000 square feet of offices in addition to its 283 residential units (of which 102 are considered below market rate), The Canyon is the first of four buildings comprising the initial phase of a comprehensive masterplan developed by the San Francisco Giants baseball team and Tishman Speyer that will deliver a new 28-acre mixed-use neighborhood to the area south of Oracle Park. 

The culmination of a 14-month construction period that began in late February of last year, the new development is defined by a topographically-inspired design developed in collaboration with Studio Gang, Henning Larsen, and WORKac. The Canyon takes its name from the cavern-like interior void leading into its terraced western facade and will anchor the neighborhood in a way vaguely reminiscent of the larger Confucius Plaza building in Chinatown, New York City.

The Canyon also forms one edge of a new “handshake” public square that connects to the 3rd Street Bridge and a corner of China Basin Park, helping to establish a dialogue between the waterfront area and iconic baseball stadium located across from the neighborhood on the other side of Mission Bay.

This is the third building to top out in the development overall. Mission Rock is also the home of the newly-finished VISA global headquarters and will eventually feature a total of 11 new buildings and 1,200 residential units. 

We achieved a milestone on Monday: the topping out of The Canyon (Parcel A), the inaugural residential building at Mission Rock—San Francisco’s dynamic new waterfront neighborhood that will also be home to retail, open space and scenic parks. https://t.co/OoHTl0Vib6 pic.twitter.com/ObQ4msx6O4

— Tishman Speyer (@tishmanspeyer) April 15, 2022