If you’ve spent any time in the Bay Area over the last decade, you’ve seen it. It’s unavoidable. The Salesforce Tower in San Francisco stands like a giant, glass obelisk, looming over the fog. It changed everything about how the city looks. Honestly, some people still hate it. Others see it as the ultimate symbol of the tech gold rush that reshaped Northern California. But whether you think it’s a masterpiece or an eyesore, there is a lot more to this 1,070-foot pillar than just office desks and software engineers.
It's tall. Really tall.
When it officially opened in 2018, it snatched the title of the tallest building in San Francisco from the Transamerica Pyramid, which had held the crown since 1972. That’s a long time to be number one. Pushing the Pyramid into second place felt like a changing of the guard—from the old-school financial district vibes to the new, cloud-computing era.
Why the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco is a Feat of Engineering
Building something this massive in a zone where the earth literally likes to move is a nightmare. San Francisco isn't exactly known for its stable ground. To make sure the tower doesn't just topple over during the next "Big One," the engineers had to get creative. They didn't just dig a hole; they went deep.
We are talking about 42 load-bearing elements called "barrettes" that are socketed into the bedrock. This isn't just a foundation; it’s a root system. The core of the building is made of massive reinforced concrete walls that are four feet thick in some places. If you were standing on the top floor during a windstorm, you’d barely feel a nudge, even though the building is designed to flex. That’s the secret. If a building is too rigid, it snaps. If it’s flexible, it survives.
Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the firm behind the design, wanted the tower to look like it was tapering off into the sky. It doesn’t have a flat roof. It has this curved, lattice-top that hides the heavy machinery—the cooling towers and BMU cranes that usually make skyscrapers look ugly at the peak.
The "Day for Night" Art Installation
Have you noticed the top of the building at night? It’s not just a glowing tip. It’s actually the tallest public art piece in the United States. Artist Jim Campbell designed "Day for Night," which uses 11,000 LED lights to project low-resolution videos of the city itself.
It’s meta.
The cameras around the city capture footage of people walking, the movement of the clouds, or the waves at Ocean Beach, and then they beam those images onto the top 150 feet of the tower. It’s grainy. It looks like a dream sequence. It’s a far cry from the harsh, neon corporate logos you see on skyscrapers in cities like New York or Chicago. Sometimes it looks like a flickering candle; other times it looks like a blurry ocean. It makes the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco feel a little less like a corporate monolith and a little more like a part of the atmosphere.
✨ Don't miss: What Time in South Korea: Why the Peninsula Stays Nine Hours Ahead
Life Inside the Cloud: The Ohana Floor
Most people will never get to see the best part of the building. That would be the 61st floor, known as the "Ohana Floor." In Hawaiian culture, Ohana means family, and Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, is famously obsessed with the concept.
Instead of putting a swanky executive suite or a high-priced penthouse at the very top, the company turned the highest habitable floor into a community space. During the work week, it’s a lounge for employees. But the cool part? Salesforce lets non-profits and community groups use the space for free. It has 360-degree views of the Farallon Islands, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the East Bay hills.
It's basically a jungle up there.
The interior design is heavy on "Biophilia." That's a fancy way of saying they put a ton of plants inside because humans feel better when they aren't surrounded by just cold steel and whiteboards. There are living walls, wooden textures, and a coffee bar that looks more like a high-end resort than a tech headquarters. It’s a deliberate move to make the workspace feel "soft."
The Controversy and the Sinking Neighbor
You can’t talk about the Salesforce Tower without mentioning its neighbor, the Millennium Tower. For a while, the headlines were brutal. While Salesforce was rising, the Millennium Tower was sinking and tilting.
People blamed the construction of the Salesforce Transit Center (the massive bus terminal and park at the base of the tower). There were lawsuits, finger-pointing, and a lot of nervous billionaires. The "Leaner of San Francisco" became a cautionary tale of what happens when you don't drill down to bedrock in a city built on landfill and mud.
Thankfully, the Salesforce Tower doesn't have that problem. Because it is keyed into the Franciscan decollement (the actual rock underneath the city), it’s not going anywhere. But the drama surrounding the construction site definitely soured the mood for a few years. It highlighted the tension between the "New San Francisco" of glass towers and the "Old San Francisco" that was worried about the city literally falling apart.
Sustainability Isn't Just a Buzzword Here
Skyscrapers are usually environmental disasters. They take massive amounts of energy to cool and heat. However, the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco actually tries to be a bit more responsible.
🔗 Read more: Where to Stay in Seoul: What Most People Get Wrong
- It has the largest onsite water recycling system in a commercial high-rise in the U.S.
- The building filters its own blackwater (yes, that includes toilet water) to reuse for irrigation and cooling.
- The windows aren't just glass; they are high-performance "low-e" glass that keeps the heat out while letting the light in.
- Outdoor air is pulled in and filtered for every single floor, which was a huge deal during the pandemic and the California wildfires.
The "blackwater" system alone saves about 7.8 million gallons of water a year. In a state that is perpetually on the verge of a drought, that’s actually a significant number. It’s not just about being "green" for the PR; it’s about making the building functional in a changing climate.
The Salesforce Transit Center: The "Grand Central of the West"
Directly attached to the tower is the Salesforce Transit Center. It’s a four-block-long stretch of infrastructure that cost billions. The highlight is the 5.4-acre rooftop park.
If you are visiting the city, skip the expensive observation decks and just go to the rooftop park. It’s free. It has an amphitheater, a restaurant, and a walking trail that takes you through different botanical zones—everything from desert plants to redwood trees. There’s even a fountain that is triggered by the movement of the buses on the levels below. It’s a weird, beautiful, elevated escape from the noise of the Financial District.
It hasn't been all sunshine and roses, though. In 2018, shortly after opening, engineers found cracks in the steel beams of the Transit Center. They had to shut the whole thing down for months. It was an embarrassing moment for a project that was supposed to represent the future of American transit. They fixed it, reinforced it, and it’s open now, but it was a reminder that even billion-day projects are prone to human error.
The Economic Impact on Downtown
The presence of the tower completely shifted the gravity of the city. For decades, the heart of San Francisco was around Montgomery Street. Now, it’s clearly South of Market (SoMa).
When Salesforce moved in, other tech giants followed. Slack, Adobe, and Google all took up massive footprints in the surrounding blocks. But then, 2020 happened. The "work from home" revolution hit San Francisco harder than almost any other city in America.
Suddenly, the tallest building in the city was half-empty.
There was a lot of talk about "the death of the office." Honestly, the area is still recovering. You’ll see fewer suits and more tourists these days. Salesforce itself has trimmed some of its office space, but the tower remains the anchor. It’s the lighthouse for the city's economy. Whether it will ever be as bustling as it was in 2019 is a question nobody has a real answer to yet.
💡 You might also like: Red Bank Battlefield Park: Why This Small Jersey Bluff Actually Changed the Revolution
Visiting the Tower: What You Need to Know
You can't just walk into the Salesforce Tower and head to the top. Security is tight. It’s a private office building, not a tourist attraction. However, there are ways to experience it.
- Public Tours: Every once in a while, Salesforce opens up registration for public tours of the Ohana Floor. They fill up in seconds. You have to watch their official blog like a hawk.
- The Transit Center Park: This is the easiest way to get close. You can take a gondola (yes, a free glass elevator/gondola) from the ground level at Mission and Fremont up to the park.
- The Salesforce East Building: Across the street, there are often public-facing lobby areas or retail spots that give you a sense of the "Salesforce Campus" vibe.
- The Light Show: Just look up. The best view of the artwork is actually from a distance—try Twin Peaks or the Embarcadero at twilight.
Fact Check: Is it sinking?
No. Despite the rumors and the confusion with the Millennium Tower, the Salesforce Tower is stable. It is anchored to bedrock. If the city floods, it will be one of the last things standing.
Fact Check: Can you see it from Oakland?
Yes, clearly. On a clear day, you can see the tower from as far away as the hills in Berkeley and even parts of the South Bay. It has fundamentally altered the navigation of the region. If you can see the tower, you know exactly where "downtown" is.
Beyond the Glass and Steel
What makes the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco interesting isn't just the height. It's what it represents. It’s a monument to the era of Big Tech. It represents a time when software companies had so much capital they could literally reshape the horizon of one of the most iconic cities in the world.
Some people find it arrogant. They think it ruins the classic "painted lady" and "foggy wharf" vibe of San Francisco. Others see it as a sign of progress—a modern, sustainable masterpiece that proves the city is still a hub of innovation.
The reality is probably somewhere in the middle. It’s a very tall, very expensive office building that happens to have some really cool art on top and a world-class park at its feet. It has survived cracks in the transit center, a global pandemic, and the "doom loop" narrative of 2023.
If you're planning to check it out, don't just stare at it from the bottom. Walk the rooftop park. Watch the "Day for Night" projections at 9:00 PM. Look at how the glass reflects the Bay fog. It’s a part of the city’s DNA now, for better or worse.
Actionable Steps for Your Visit
- Check the Tour Schedule: Bookmark the Salesforce Tower Ohana Floor tour page. They usually release spots monthly.
- Time Your Visit: Go to the Salesforce Park around sunset. The transition from the natural light to the LED art installation on the tower is the best time for photos.
- Explore the Garden: Use the QR codes on the plants in the rooftop park. They have a really detailed guide on the species they’ve planted, many of which are native to California.
- Eat Nearby: The area around the tower (East Cut/SoMa) has some of the best high-end food in the city. Check out Spero or the food trucks that often park near the terminal.
- Walk to the Waterfront: The tower is only a few blocks from the Embarcadero. After seeing the tower, walk down to the Ferry Building for a complete San Francisco afternoon.
The tower isn't going anywhere. It’s the new North Star for San Francisco. Whether you're there for a tech conference or just wandering through as a tourist, it’s worth a look—just remember to look all the way up.