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Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park – 2020 ULI Urban Open Space Awards Finalist
2020 ULI Urban Open Space Award finalist, Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park in Tampa has reconnected the community to the Hillsborough River.
Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Owner: Transbay Joint Powers Authority
Designers: Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects; Adamson Associates International, Inc.; PWP Landscape Architecture; WSP; Thornton Tomasetti
Site Size: 5.4 acres (2.2 hectares)
Number of People Served (within a half-mile): 1,100,000
Opened: August 10, 2018
Website: https://salesforcetransitcenter.com
Salesforce Park*, an average of 70 feet above the city streets, is a 5.4-acre public park lushly landscaped and programmed with attractions that include a 800-person amphitheater, children’s playground, public plaza, planned restaurant, and areas for quiet repose. The park sits atop the 1.5 million square foot Salesforce Transit Center, which runs along four blocks of downtown San Francisco south of the Financial District. The new transit center consolidated regional bus systems and will serve as the future rail terminus for the Caltrain commuter rail and California High Speed Rail connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Designed for beauty, mixed-uses, and sustainability, Salesforce Park has become a hub of community activity. The park has 15 entry points, including a privately-operated gondola, and bridges to surrounding buildings such as Salesforce Tower and 181 Fremont, all fully accessible to the public. A rigorous ground-level and building signage program ensures the public can easily and comfortably access the park along the entire length of the building. A half-mile public walking path circles the park. The spaces between the path and the undulating perimeter of the building create 13 different botanical gardens representing different Bay Area ecologies. These range from redwood groves, to a desert garden, to a Mediterranean garden, to a wetland marsh, and more.
Along the north path of the park, Ned Khan’s “Bus Fountain” provides an interactive public art installation: a 1,000 foot long series of water jets responding to sensors triggered by the movement of buses on the bus deck one level below. Three large skylights integrated into the contours of the landscape allow an abundance of natural light to flow from the park down to the bus deck level and further to the Grand Hall level at grade and even below to the future train levels. The main plaza floor is the largest exterior glass floor of its kind in the United States.
*Salesforce Transit Center and Salesforce Park are public properties and the name is the result of a naming rights agreement with saleforce.com
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