San Francisco Ferry Building

"Great Nave" of the Ferry Building after its renovations

By 1992, the freeway had been removed and San Francisco began to create a comprehensive port development plan that would revitalize the newly cleared space, create public access, and reintroduce the ferry service.[7] As the most iconic element of the waterfront, the Ferry Building was central to the aesthetic and the overall success of the development plan, and its status as a historic landmark for both architecture and engineering made a sympathetic restoration essential. The 1898 Ferry Building was a symbol of San Francisco's history as a bustling port city, but with the redevelopment plan, the city was choosing to also make the structure a symbol of San Francisco's future.

The vastness of the project resulted in the selection of a group of firms that could each focus on a key aspect of the redevelopment plan. ROMA Design Group—site design architects—designed the bayside and cityside promenades and plazas and reoriented the public spaces of the area to the building and to the bay. ROMA Design Group also designed new ferry terminals and the main historic streetcar stop that re-established the area as a multi-modal transit hub and gateway into the city. Simon Martin-Vegue Winkelstein Moris Architects (SMWM), founded by Cathy Simon, created an overall plan for the building; Baldauf Catton Von Eckartsberg Architects (BCVE) examined and planned for the needs of new retail spaces; Page & Turnbull, specialists in historic preservation, dealt with the restoration, replacement, and recreation of the historic elements of the structure.[8][9]

Although the project was a restoration project, the structure would not be returned to its pure historic use as a nexus of bay transit. While the demand for ferry transit has experienced increasing demand in recent years by cross-bay commuters, the ferry service will never again reach historic levels. Therefore, in order to draw visitors, the Ferry Building has been transformed into a retail and restaurant space on the ground floor that focuses on local, sustainable products. The Port and the project developers believed that the combination of transit, office use, and unique retail would make the Ferry Building a destination for locals and tourists alike that would drive the greater goal of stimulating the waterfront.[10]

The focus on creating a viable economic use for the Ferry Building was fundamental in developing the final restoration plan and while important historic features that are key to the structure's integrity were largely restored, some adaptations were allowed more license to meet the needs of the reuse proposal. The restored Ferry Building was opened in 2003. The lead developer was EQ Office.[11] EQ Office was acquired by The Blackstone Group in 2007.

The ground floor of the building is occupied by a marketplace featuring about 50 restaurants, retail shops and food purveyors, most of which are open seven days a week.[12] The outdoor Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, which is run by CUESA, operates on the surrounding plaza on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.[12] As of October 9, 2020, the San Francisco online, community radio station BFF.fm broadcasts live from the Ferry Building.[13]

Ferry Building Marketplace

The original description of the Ferry Building as published in the Board of Harbor Commissioners' Biennial Report (1888) specified that "Passengers should pass from the upper decks of the ferries through the second story, with a bridge over the crowded and dangerous portion of East [now Embarcadero] Street."[15] The first floor was not intended for public viewing or access and was filled with the movement of baggage, mail, and freight. Instead, the public was meant to enter the structure from an elevated walkway and move through the more refined spaces of the second floor lit by the nave. By 1992, the nave had been turned into private offices and the loss of the foot bridge meant that all public approach to the building would be at street level, altering the way in which the building was understood and experienced.

With the restoration however, the developers argued that the public's historic interaction with the space was defined by the natural light cascading from the nave, not by the elevated entry way. With the movement of the primary public space to the first floor, it became essential to their proposal that this historic experience would be recreated.[16] Beyond removing an added third floor and restoring the 660-foot-long (200 m) nave to its two-story height, the proposal included cutting two openings, each at 33 by 150 feet (10 by 46 m), into the floor of the second level. These openings would allow for this historic feature to be extended to the visitor's experience of the first floor. This was a controversial choice, and due to the building's historic status, the proposal had to be approved by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO); this was the subject of multiple hearings.[17]

The greatest debate raised by the opening of the second floor cuts, however, surrounded the treatment of the historic mosaic tiling of the second floor. The second floor Grand Nave was tiled with a mosaic marble floor of white and gray tesserae with a border of red and purple. In the center of the space at the top of the main stairway is a reproduction of the Great Seal of the State of California worked entirely in mosaics. At the time of the restoration, this surface was primarily covered with linoleum, and some small sections had been lost to prior alterations.[18] This feature was considered integral to the historic character of the building, and as a primary public space, the tiling was a key component of community memory.

In allowing the amplification of one feature (the nave), the loss of another (the mosaics) was inherently tied. The final agreement reached between the SHPO and the development team found that as long as the important decorative portions of the flooring were restored and extra tesserae would be used to repair damaged sections, the cuts would be approved.[17]

In order to restore the mosaic, the applied linoleum surface had to be carefully peeled away and a mixture of crushed walnut shells was then used to clean the marble surface without damaging the material.[18]

In the process of removing of the 1947 and 1950 third-floor additions, Page & Turnbull discovered the extent of the damage to the brick and terra cotta arches of the nave. Twenty-two arches span the length of the nave on each side, and of the 44 total, 11 had been destroyed. Over 25 percent of the original material had been removed in the first remodel, including terra cotta scroll-work, the arches themselves, and sections of the surrounding brickwork.[8] In order to restore the highly significant nave, Page & Turnbull had to design and create replacements for these 11 arches that would be accurate enough not to detract from the sight line of the second story that these arches flank.

The prohibitive cost and effort of replacing these materials in kind led to the choice of a cast-stone with fiberglass support that mimics the buff brick in both color and finish. Through the use of a cast material, Page & Turnbull was able to create a fiberglass mold to be used for casting each arch as a unit that could then be inserted into sections where original fabric had been lost.[8] The addition of fiberglass as a support material—that allows for both flexibility and compressive strength—was seen as an added benefit in meeting concerns over the building's continued seismic safety.

Creating visual continuity between the new and the old was critical in this instance due to the significance of the long stretch of the nave; here an obvious alteration in material or color would detract from the pattern of springing arches that continues through the length of the structure. Page & Turnbull invited faux-finishing specialist Jacquelyn Giuffre to disguise the new sections and recreate the continuity of pattern and color.[8] Guiffre's job was made more difficult by the fact that the structure had not been completely sealed against the elements during the restoration and the salts of the bay air triggered a staining process that created green marks in the yellow and buff brick. In order to match the texture and patina of the old brick, Guiffre used six different pigments applied by hand, and then applied green shading to mimic the new staining process. Once the pieces were installed, a final stage of blending was completed on site to ensure the greatest possible accuracy.[8]

The original clock mechanism was refurbished in 2000; it is complete and intact, despite two previous modifications. The Ferry Building has its original Special #4 clock made in 1898 by the Boston clock maker E. Howard. It was the largest wind-up, mechanical dial clock in the world but is now powered by an electric motor. The four dials are each 22 feet (6.7 m) in diameter, and a portion of the dial appears to be back-lit at night. This is the effect of two concentric dials on each clock face, in which the inner dial is lit and visible at night.

Although the hands and a small portion of the works are now powered by an electric motor, the entire clock mechanism is still there. The huge weight hangs in its 48-foot (15 m) shaft; once wound, it formerly kept the clock running for eight days. The 16-foot (4.9 m) pendulum also remains, but it is motionless, replaced by electric power. There is also a set of horn loudspeakers above the clock that play Westminster Chimes on the hour and make a loud siren noise every Tuesday at noon on the hour.

Ferry Building in 1912 from R. J. Waters & Company