650 California Street, also known as the Hartford Building, is a 34-story, 142 m (466 feet)

office An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a po ...

tower on the northwestern edge of San Francisco's

Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies, and other related finance corporations have their headquarters offices. In major cities, financial districts often host ...

. The tower is located on California Street on the edge of

Chinatown Chinatown ( zh, t=唐人街) is the catch-all name for an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, O ...

, and not far from

555 California Street 555 California Street, formerly Bank of America Center, is a 52- story skyscraper in San Francisco, California. It is the fourth tallest building in the city as of February 2021, and in 2013 was the largest by floor area. Completed in 1969, ...

. 650 California is visible from every direction except from the southeast, where the Financial District skyscrapers block the view.

Description

The building was designed by

Edward Charles Bassett Edward Charles "Chuck" Bassett (1921–1999) was an American architect based in San Francisco. History Edward Charles Bassett was born on September 12, 1921 in Port Huron, Michigan. Between high school and college Bassett worked for his father ...

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill SOM, an initialism of its original name Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, is a Chicago-based architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings. In 1939, they were joined by engineer ...

for Hartford Insurance, its initial tenant. It is architecturally significant, featuring a tall

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

lobby, high ceilings, and an exterior skeleton of floor-to-ceiling windows recessed into a square gridwork of

precast Precast concrete is a construction product produced by casting concrete in a reusable mold or "form" which is then cured in a controlled environment, transported to the construction site and maneuvered into place; examples include precast bea ...

white

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...

. When this tower was completed in 1964, it was the second in San Francisco larger than . For a time it was also California's tallest building, replacing both the

Russ Building __NOTOC__ The Russ Building is a Neo-Gothic office tower located in the Financial District of San Francisco, California. It was designed by architect George W. Kelham, who was responsible for many of San Francisco's other prominent high-rise buil ...

in San Francisco and the

Los Angeles City Hall Los Angeles City Hall, completed in 1928, is the center of the government of the city of Los Angeles, California, and houses the Mayor of Los Angeles, mayor's office and the meeting chambers and offices of the Los Angeles City Council. It is loca ...

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. It is one of 39 San Francisco high rises reported by the U.S. Geological Survey as potentially vulnerable to a large earthquake, due to a structural deficiency. 650 California was acquired for by the Pivotal Group in 2000, and later sold to private investors, A-650 California St. LLC, and

AEW Capital Management AEW Capital Management (AEW) is an American real estate investment firm headquartered in Boston. The firm is the real estate asset management platform of Natixis Investment Managers. In 2022, the firm was ranked by PERE (under Private Equity I ...

in 2007. The tower was acquired by

Tishman Speyer Tishman Speyer is an American multinational corporation based at 45 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan. The conglomerate invests in high-profile real estate properties, has developed multiple buildings around the world, and has owned famou ...

and partner Prudential Real Estate Investors in 2012 for about . Tishman undertook a renovation, which included a remodeled lobby by New York-based firm MdeAS Architects. Tishman sold 650 California to Columbia Property Trust Inc. in September 2014 for . 650 California Street passed the certification requirements for the Gold Level of the

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a Green building certification systems, green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating ...

(LEED) rating in June 2011. The LEED building certification system is a program for rating the design, construction and operation of environmentally and socially responsible buildings. The building is the fictional setting of Doris Martin's workplace in ''

The Doris Day Show ''The Doris Day Show'' is an American sitcom which was originally broadcast on CBS from September 1968 until March 1973, remaining on the air for five seasons and 128 episodes. The series is remembered for its multiple format and cast chang ...

''. After Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, the company ceased paying rent for its 30th floor office rental. In response, the building's landlord filed court papers in San Francisco State Court.

Tenants

Key tenants include Access Communications, Affirm, AppDirect,

Analysis Group Analysis Group, Inc. (AG), founded in 1981 by economists Bruce E. Stangle and Michael F. Koehn, is an economic consulting firm based in North America. It provides economic, financial, and strategic analysis and expert testimony to law firms, cor ...

, CrossInstall,

Credit Suisse Credit Suisse Group AG (, ) was a global Investment banking, investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland. According to UBS, eventually Credit Suisse was to be fully integrated into UBS. While the integration ...

Dentsu International Dentsu (previously Dentsu Aegis Network) is a Multinational corporation, multinational media and digital marketing, digital marketing communications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Japanese a ...

, Omnicom Group Inc., Recommind,

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, and Vector Capital."Significant 4Q10 Lease Transactions"
, '' MarketBeat San Francisco Office Report,'' Cushman & Wakefield, Oct-Dec 2010.

References

{{Buildings in San Francisco, state=collapsed Office buildings completed in 1964 Skyscraper office buildings in San Francisco Financial District, San Francisco Skidmore, Owings & Merrill buildings Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold certified buildings 1964 establishments in California

Description

Tenants

See also

References