The Salesforce Tower is a 1,070 foot tall office building with 61 floors in downtown San Francisco.  The building is adjacent to the Transbay Terminal project, which is also under construction, and is the centerpiece of the Transbay redevelopment plan in the South of Market district of San Francisco.  This redevelopment, which includes office buildings, transportation, retail, public spaces, represents a dramatic change to the skyline and a shift within the city – the financial district, which is the hub of downtown is moving locations and being occupied by tech companies looking to have roots in San Francisco, not just Silicon Valley.

The project is a joint venture between Clark Construction and Hathaway Dinwiddie.  It broke ground late 2013 and is scheduled to open in early 2018.  The development, which is a Boston Properties and Hines partnership, features 1.42 million square feet and has Salesforce as its anchor tenant.  The building designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli is composed of a clear glass curtainwall with an exterior lattice-work system and features a 130 foot tall crown that will house 11,000 LEDs as part of Jim Campbell’s public artwork.  The structure, which was designed by MKA, is the first performance-based-seismic design commercial office building in California.  The structural system of the tower features a gravity load-resisting system with structural steel columns and a steel composite deck. The foundation system, which is the deepest in the city, includes 42 loading bearing elements that extend as deep as 310 feet into bedrock.  The building is LEED platinum and the tower’s ventilation system pulls in outside air at each level through exterior louvers in the curtainwall system.  

Ellen Quigley is a Senior Project Manager with Clark Construction.  After graduation from Notre Dame in 2011 with a degree in Civil Engineering, she joined the project team of the Governor Deukmejian Court Building in Long Beach, CA.  This project was the first Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for a social infrastructure project in United States and emphasized the benefit of building with life-cycle costs at the forefront of design decisions.  She is currently completing the Salesforce Tower in downtown San Francisco, which at 1070 ft. is the tallest office building west of the Mississippi River.  Ellen has had a variety of roles on the project, including managing the design and construction of the exterior curtainwall, tower top and the main lobbies.  Ellen has received a certificate in Leadership and Management from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.  She gives back to her community by serving on the board of the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco and sponsoring events for the local clubhouses.  In addition, she organizes the annual charity golf tournament which has raised over $450K for local organizations such as Rebuilding Together, Boys and Girls Club and the North Bay Fire Relief Fund.