The Salesforce Tower will stand for centuries, but the employees are gone

[Demovictory9]

The Salesforce Tower will stand for centuries, but the employees are gone





Here’s another funny joke — put your name on the most obtrusive and expensive thing San Francisco has ever seen, as the biggest private employer in the city … then three years later announce that the majority of your workforce will no longer be working in S.F. offices full time ever again. Zing.

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One of the weirdest pitches in building the tower was that it would help civic neighborhood life on the block, in the same way that a freeway helps a deer.

As anyone who has strolled around Mission and First knows, that didn’t happen. The streets shrouded under swaths of deep blue opaque glass at the fat end of the steely shaft do not provide a pleasant neighborhood stroll.

One of the strangest things about the tower is that, due to its wholly unnecessary height and location, there are some spots around the bay where San Francisco was always out of view, but now ONLY the Salesforce Tower is visible.

Strolling by the cliffs at Land’s End, driving out of SFO, hiking the western slope of Mount Diablo. From these vantage points the tip of the tower is now part of the horizon, while no other buildings creep into view.

An Instagram account, JustTheTipSF, highlights this phenomenon and has received more than 1,000 photo submissions of distant views that were once sky, and now are speared by glass. (Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff once tweeted a link to the website before deleting it, maybe realizing that the site wasn’t celebrating his tower but mocking its omnipresent phallic appearance.)

https://www.sfgate.com/local/editorspicks/article/salesforce-tower-tech-leaving-san-francisco-16053690.php

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. May be the only 'building' but there's an absolutely HUGE radio tower that's WAY taller

And almost certainly visible from anywhere you'd see the Salesforce building, barring an occasional anomaly in the clearness of the day.

Just sayin.

This still sucks, that's bad news for the local economy, all those people not being there.

Presumably they'll rent the space out?

[frazzled]

2. Rinse and repeat all over the nation

There’s a hella lot of skyscraper office towers (and other downtown buildings) that are sitting mostly vacant and may never fully come back. Thank you Pandemic and Zoom.

How will they be repurposed? Artists’ studios? Eyebrow threading parlors?

[FSogol]

3. Indoor bungee jumping.

[cinematicdiversions]

5. Base Jumping certainly NT

[poli-junkie]

4. ...a hideous butt-plug. Can't believe SF approved that thing.

Oh, and let's not forget the other hideous structure which you'll see in first pic on edge of right side, One Rincon Hill, a residential high rise that's sinking -- looks like a giant air filter!

[Tommy Carcetti]

6. It's not the worst when it comes to skyscrapers.

At least it's somewhat distinctive. Not quite as distinctive as the Transamerica Tower (or whatever they are calling it now) but at least it's not a forgettable block.

[Johnny2X2X]

7. Work From Home is here to stay

Everything is going to change in cities and office parks.

My office had about 1200 people on site daily, that's now 150 and might go back to 400 at the end of Summer. That's 800 people not driving to work, wasting gas, putting wear and tear on their cars and the roads, not spending money on lunch at the local restaurants. This is an absolute massive change for American culture and society. I'd guess that about half of all office workers will work from home going forward. 10s of millions of people no longer tied to the physical location of their job.

The implications are staggering and there's a ton we aren't even aware of yet. Mostly positive in my mind, but I'm sure there will be negative ones too.

[Yavin4]

9. The negatives include reduced pay for everyone since remote work can be done in cheap states.

Why would an employer pay SF salaries if most of their workers live in Nevada? Why not pay them Nevada-based salaries? Or even Utah based salaries? The corporation can re-located their HQ to a cheap state and pay wages based on the cost of living in that cheap state.

Also, many small retailers like dry cleaners, shoe repair, clothing retailers, restaurants catering to the lunch crowd, gas stations, etc. all will take a huge hit.

[Amishman]

8. The impact on real estate from Covid is going to be very interesting

If an employee is now 100% remote, there is no need to stay in high living expense metro areas.

Could we be looking at an outward migration to the suburbs and beyond?

[Yavin4]

10. If there's more migration to the suburbs from the city

where most people are home working all day, that will put a gigantic strain on our suburban infrastructure. For example, think about the massive increase in daily sewage needs or the increase in garbage collection. The wear and tear on roads just because everyone is working remotely that does not mean that they won't have daily travel needs.

[LonePirate]

11. In 20 years, there will probably a few more buildings of that height or more in SF.

So while people may mock or frown upon the building, there will come a time probably within 20 years when it is not the only building of its height in the city. As long as the human population continues to grow, people will need places to work and live. Could the developers have used twice as much ground real estate to build two buildings at half or three-quarters of the height? Maybe. Would people still dislike the building(s) then if they kept the same design? Maybe, maybe not.

The building will not remain empty for long. Either other businesses will move in or the build will be converted to housing. There are costs to recoup and profits to be made from that very expensive building.

[maxsolomon]

12. Remote work is not forever.

It feels like it during this last year, but 10 years from now, I doubt we'll still all be at home.

I know many of you are super awesome misanthropes and thrive when isolated from others, but some of us (me) are going fucking nuts working at home.

It is actually useful to be in the office occasionally, particularly when your work involves collaboration with others. Zoom isn't always great.

[genxlib]

14. I am with you

It will cause a shift temporarily but will swing back over the next 5 years. I think a lot more will come back eventually than people think.

In my line of work (consulting engineering) the loss in mentoring and internships is untenable over the long term. It has been bad breaking up established teams and will be even worse going forward with new employees that don't even have the familiarity with the team. Engineers require 4 years of internship before they can get a professional license. I have little doubt that this generation of engineers will have a great deal of trouble making that leap without physically being around the older people.

Ironically, the way it is shaking out for us is that the millenials want to stay home and all the older folks want to come back. That is actually the inverse of what could conceivably work. The older crowd knows what needs to be done while the younger ones need the guidance.

The other thing that will happen is that management will realize that people are not as productive when they have other shit to distract them. It could potentially balance out if some of the commute time was dedicated to work but you know people expect to claim that for themselves. So the nap in the middle of the day comes out of company time.

[NCjack]

13. Damn, it is ugly. Painting it fluorescent orange would tame that hard, cold look.

[eppur_se_muova]

15. Maybe the Thermos Co. would be interested in buying it.

People would soon be assuming they were the ones who had it built.

[speak easy]

16. Convert it to housing.