A first look at San Francisco’s sensational new elevated park

Designed by PWP Landscape Architecture, the designers behind the 9/11 Memorial, the Salesforce Transit Center Park opened in a part of the city desperate for green space–and even helped change local zoning regulations.

After more than a decade of planning, the first stage of San Francisco’s new transit hub is almost complete. The new Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects-designed Salesforce Transit Center, which spans several blocks in downtown San Francisco, will bring together 11 bus lines and eventually trains from around the Bay Area, organizing the city’s sprawling public transportation system. But all attention over the weekend was on the hub’s rooftop park, which opened to the public August 11.

The 5.4-acre Salesforce Transit Center Park, which occupies the entire roof of the transit center, is one of the largest stretches of greenery to open in San Francisco in years. It brings much-needed public, open space to a newly named neighborhood called the East Cut, a dense, heavily commercial area of the city that has few parks. The park has a public plaza that also connects via a skybridge to the fifth floor of the Salesforce Tower next door, along with an amphitheater, lawns, and botanical gardens.

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