Federal Office Building – San Francisco CA

City:
San Francisco, CA

Site Type:
Civic Facilities, Auxiliary Civic Facilities

New Deal Agencies:
Public Works Funding, Public Works Administration (PWA)

Started:
1934

Completed:
1936

Designers:
Arthur Brown Jr., Louis A Simon - Supervising Architect

Quality of Information:
Very Good

Site Survival:
Extant

Description

“This large structure covering an entire city block was built by the Public Buildings Branch of the Procurement Division to house various Federal offices in San Francisco. It houses the Navy Department, Veterans’ Bureau, War Department, Interior Department, the Weather Bureau, Forest Service, Public Roads Administration, Civil Service Commission, and the Employment Compensation Commission. The building is fireproof, constructed entirely of steel and reinforced concrete with the exterior walls faced with stone, and is designed to resist earthquake shocks. The lobbies have marble floors and walls, and the corridors have tile floors, marble base, and plaster walls. The project was completed in May 1936 at a construction cost of $2,763,447.52 and a project cost of $3,039,706.” (Short and Stanley-Brown, p. 634.)

This building has been vacant since workers moved to the new federal building on Mission Street in 2007. However, in 2009, it received 121 million dollars from Obama’s federal stimulus plan, “an infusion of cash that will allow the mothballed federal office building to be brought back to life, according to the General Services Administration.”
(sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com.)

A Jan 3 1934 article in the Clovis Independent details how 200 people were being employed locally in order to supply granite for the Federal building in San Francisco. The quarry is located at 23050 Rd 209, Madera, CA 93636. The Raymond museum mentioned that they have a large saw that was used in the quarry in the 1930s.

Source notes

Short, C. W. (Charles Wilkins) and Stanley-Brown, R. (Rudolph). Public Buildings : a Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration. Washington, D.C. : Public Works Administration : U.S. G.P.O., 1939.

Location Info


50 United Nations Plaza
San Francisco, CA 94102
San Francisco County

Location notes: McAllister and Hyde St.

Coordinates: 37.780242, -122.41452

Site Details

Total Cost
$3,039,706.00

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