Rogers Partnership, and Arup revisited the issue in the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's 2001 Transbay Terminal Improvement Plan. Its focal point was a concept design for an intermodal (bus/train) replacement terminal on the current site of the 1930s Transbay Terminal building. Rethinking Transbay's Future, 2002–2003 In October 2003, a team led by SOM San Francisco issued the Transbay Redevelopment Project Area Design for Development, a detailed plan for the 39.2-acre set of publicly owned parcels. The plan reflects the active involvement of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, including the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, the San Francisco Planning Department, and the Mayor's Office of Economic Development. SMWM's 20/20 Plan had designated the Project Area as a transit hub and a direct extension of the Financial District, but by now San Francisco faced dramatically different financial conditions, including a more-than-20-percent vacancy rate for Class A office space. A market analysis of the Transbay Redevelopment Project Area by Sedway Group identified the potential for 3,300 new housing units there by 2025. Office space was another likely future use, but six new office buildings—1.5 million square feet—were already slated for development in the area. New hotel development was in a similar situation. New retail space was also a likely use, but only in conjunction with new housing and office space, which it would primarily serve. A high-density area with distinct neighborhoods SOM's plan posits a Transbay Redevelopment Project Area that mixes widely spaced residential towers with low- and midrise housing, open space elements and, along its western edge, infill development where it overlaps two conservation districts that preserve existing historic structures. From a skyline perspective, the intent is to preserve views to the north and avoid a wall of closely spaced towers. New housing at Transbay will follow the precedent of Vancouver's tall and slender residential towers, a model also cited in the San Francisco Planning Department's Rincon Hill Plan. SOM's plan borrows another idea from Russian Hill and other San Francisco residential neighborhoods—a pedestrian-scale street
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