By Wyatt Kroopf – Intern, San Francisco Business Times
an hour ago
Nearly a year after the Salesforce Transit Center closed due to the discovery of cracked steel beams, the beleaguered transit hub will resume full bus service this Sunday.
AC Transit’s 27 Transbay bus lines, Westcat Lynx and the Muni 25-Treasure Island line will drop off and pick up passengers on the third-level bus deck starting on Sunday. Normal, weekday service will resume on Monday, August 12 — a year to the day that the Salesforce Transit Center first opened.
The Transit Center connects directly to the Bay Bridge via a transit-only ramp, which will reduce travel time and congestion. “We expect our nearly 13,000 daily Transbay riders to experience a time savings,” said Robert Lyles, a spokesperson for AC Transit, by avoiding bumper-to-bumper traffic on San Francisco’s busy streets. “We see it as yet another opportunity for East Bay commuters to leave cars behind and help alleviate Bay Bridge traffic congestion,” Lyles said.
In September 2018, the $2.2-billion Transit Center suddenly closed just six weeks after its opening when crews discovered two cracked steel beams above Fremont Street. Buses shifted service back to the nearby Temporary Transbay Terminal between Howard and Folsom Streets, while the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA), which oversees the Transit Center’s operation, sought answers on the cracked steel beams.
Since then, construction workers have reinforced the cracked beams by installing eight steel plate "sandwiches" on the beams above Fremont Street and bolstering a similarly designed beam above First Street. In June, an independent, five-person committee of engineers and experts — appointed by the Metropolitan Transportation Committee — declared that the center was safe to reopen and restart operations.
The months of closure have not been cheap. The TJPA said that the costs incurred for design, reviews, testing and other charges associated with the temporary closure come in at $6 million. TJPA spokesperson Christine Falvey said that costs incurred during the repair of the beams have not yet been shared with the TJPA by the general contractor, a joint venture between Webcor Builders and Obayashi Corp.
Service comes after the 5.4-acre public rooftop park at the Salesforce Transit Center reopened on July 1. Some bus lines have already shifted back to the Transit Center; Muni and Golden Gate Transit started using the ground floor in mid-July. The rooftop park also required some pricey renovation work: replacing the eco-friendly paths with new materials cost $1 million.
The delay between the park reopening and the resumption of bus service was to train bus drivers on the new routes into and out of the Transit Center.
Earlier this week, the TJPA approved three new leases to help fill the 92,000 square feet of available retail space in the Transit Center, which has been a slow-moving process. Artisan chocolate maker Feve Chocolates has a 742-square-foot lease, Italian restaurant Acquolina has a 2,073-square-foot lease, and dim sum restaurant Dim Baos has a 1,877-square-foot lease. The new leases bring the total space leased up to 59,000 square feet, according to the TJPA.
Working with Lincoln Property Group and Colliers, TJPA originally targeted June 2019 to fully lease the retail space. Earlier this year, they announced a new target of June 2020. Falvey said that stores in the Transit Center will start opening in the fall.
As for the Temporary Transbay Terminal, it will no longer provide any transit services. The terminal will be split into three blocks, each with its own development plan. Block 4 is being developed by Hines and Urban Pacific Development, with initial project plans for over 500 units in a 450-foot tower. Block 2, which is still owned by San Francisco’s Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure (OCII), has a proposal for over 240 affordable units, but not developer signed on yet. Block 3 — which is in between Block 2 and 4 — will be turned into a public park.