Levi's Plaza

Levi Strauss Plaza, also known as Levi Plaza or Levi's Plaza, is an office complex located in North Waterfront district of San Francisco, west of The Embarcadero. It houses the headquarters of Levi Strauss & Co. As of 1998 the company Blue Jeans Equity West is the landlord of the complex. In 1998 the ownership of the company consisted of Equitable Real Estate, Gerson Bakar, Jim Joseph, and Al Wilsey. Steve Ginsberg of the San Francisco Business Times said in 1998 that the complex is "the only true corporate campus" in San Francisco. History The site was originally known as Frederick Griffing's wharf. Eventually, the land was built up and the wharf was buried along with Frederick Griffing's ship. When Levi's Plaza was under construction, the buried ship was rediscovered. Levi Strauss Plaza was developed by Interland Development Corp., owned by Jim Joseph, the franchise owner of the Los Angeles football franchise of the United States Football League. Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum Inc. (HOK) designed the structure. Levi Strauss & Co. did the interior design, and Gensler and Associates supervised Levi Strauss's efforts. The construction of the 763,000-square-foot (70,900 m2), seven story facility began in 1979 and was completed in 1981. $110 million was spent on the exterior building, and Levi Strauss spent $120 million on interior improvements. Levi Strauss & Co. first moved to the facility in 1981. Around 1995 arbitration proceedings between Levi Strauss and the owners occurred, due to negotiations over an increase in rent. Steve Ginsberg of the San Francisco Business Times said that some real estate insiders predicted that Levi Strauss may leave the complex due to the arbitration. The Levi Strauss company, in the 1990s, hired Staubach Co. so it could consider its headquarters options. Ginsberg said that despite the arbitration proceedings that previously took place, Levi Strauss "never seriously considered leaving" the City of San Francisco nor the Levi's Plaza complex. In a two-year period until 1998 the company workforce had declined slightly to 1,700 employees. Ginsberg said that this was a reflection of a 1997 revenue slump. In 1998 Levi Straus signed a letter of intent stating that it would renew its lease for 620,000 square feet (58,000 m2). In terms of the square footage, as of March 8, 1998 it was the largest lease deal in San Francisco of the 1990s. Because a decline in the company's workforce, the company reduced the amount of square footage that it held. Levi Strauss announced that it would invest several million additional dollars to renovate the complex, which at the time was 17 years old. The renovation work, scheduled to begin in 1999, was to affect all three major Levi's Plaza buildings, including the one housing the executive offices. Ginsberg said that the new "new, open look" design to be implemented in the renovations was to be "more conducive to team interaction." In 2008 the San Francisco Business Times reported that Levi Strauss & Co. would consider moving the headquarters out of San Francisco once the lease in Levi's Plaza expired at the end of 2012. In 2009 the company renewed its lease through the end of 2022; the company had 1,200 employees at the facility at the time. In 2019, the whole building complex was acquired by Jamestown L.P. for an estimated $820 million. In 2021 it renewed the lease yet again, for 354,000 square feet (32,900 m2) square feet (of which one third was subleased by Levi's to other companies), and announced a $50 million project to make the offices carbon neutral. Design Bill Valentine, a designer at HOK, said "Someone at Levi's said they wanted it to feel like a well-worn pair of blue jeans. And that's what we tried to do -- it's off the cuff, never symmetrical, it's easy-going and relaxed." The concept of the complex borrows the idea of buildings within larger buildings. The corridor gives the atmosphere of "small street in a little town." Each campus building houses a "mini plaza", "sort of like the den in a home." Contrasting materials, such as rubber tile flooring, set off major circulation areas within the campus. The patterned flooring uses an impressionist-like coloring. A large atrium in one of the buildings is placed so that employees of all ranks receive the same view, and not just the higher up employees. Decks providing views of the surrounding city were used to integrate the inside and outside areas. The campus houses an exercise room and various kitchenettes with different themes. The garden den has furniture styled like those used in outdoor settings. The Levi Strauss cafeteria has 30-foot (9.1 m) by 40-foot (12 m) pavilion spaces, each of which have distinct colors and identities. Levi's Plaza incorporated the Italian Swiss Colony Building into its design, and the complex was designed to fit into the surrounding neighborhood, with its red bricks reminiscent of historic warehouses. Buildings Buildings at the main campus, which is centered on the intersection of Filbert and Battery, are divided into five major blocks: The complex includes a small retail center that serves residents of the area and employees. In addition, there were two additional blocks to the northwest which were planned for mixed residential and commercial use: Levi's Plaza formerly had the Ice House, a 200,000 square feet (19,000 m2) facility. In 1991 Levi Strauss & Co. acquired it. In 1998 the company planned to redesign the facility. Hard and Soft Parks As of 1998, 66% of the space at Levi Plaza is dedicated to open plazas and park land. Lawrence Halprin, a landscape architect, helped design the Levi Strauss Plaza parks. To coincide with the completion of the Levi Strauss Plaza, several of his design sketches were placed on exhibit. Various community events are held at the park, including Off the Grid food trucks which visit during lunch hours Monday through Thursday. It is divided by Battery Street into two distinct parts. East of Battery, in a triangular space bounded by The Embarcadero and Union, is the Soft Park, which Halprin described as a "transplanted piece of the Sierras" with a meandering artificial stream, fed by a small waterfall, and winding paths through grassy knolls and rough granite boulders. The Hard Park is west of Battery, hemmed in by the Stern Building (to the north) and the Levi's Plaza Store (to the south) characterized by its hardscaped plaza and large central fountain, with water flowing out of a large pink carnelian granite boulder. Liz Allen of the Public Library of Science calls the Soft Park "a Zen oasis of willow trees, water, rocks and a meandering path in the busy city." John King, urban design critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, says the Soft Park is the best park along the Embarcadero. The fountain in the Hard Park features a "hulking piece of carnelian granite" taken from the same quarry that supplied the FDR Memorial in Washington DC. References External links Mark Hinshaw and Marilyn Clemens (June 2007), "Oh, San Francisco! The City by the Bay is a treasure trove of parks and gardens", Landscape Architecture, American Society of Landscape Architects