What will bring people back to downtown S.F.? This developer is betting on redwood trees

An audacious bet on post-pandemic downtown San Francisco could be coming as a proposed, full-block development at Main and Market streets that will include a nearly 1,000-foot tower with 808 apartments and 1.5 million square feet of office space with sliding glass windows that create “air porches.”

But while such an ambitious scheme may be a balm to city planners weary of hearing about the Financial District’s vacant buildings and shuttered storefronts, the proposed project at the old PG&E headquarters at 50 Main St. will offer something that could even attract city residents who don’t care about state-of-the-art office space or high-rise living: a mini Muir Woods smack in the middle of a concrete jungle.

The developer Hines is proposing to create a mid-block oasis with 75 redwood trees, which will tower over publicly accessible, well-lit gardens with places to sit and eat and hang out. The development will be called the City Grove.

Designed by PWP Landscape Architecture — the same landscape architect that designed Salesforce Park — the forest would be accessible from three sides of the property and would take up 70% of the block. Adam Greenspan, a partner with PWP, said the space beneath the redwoods would feature “ferns and flowering material” and would “feel comfortable and cozy at all times of the year and all times of the day.”

“A great redwood forest has a power to it that can stand up to buildings on either side,” Greenspan said. “But closer in, these redwoods create and make an outdoor room where the trunks are like columns and their canopy is like the ceiling.”

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