Today, the Embarcadero Center sits over five city blocks in San Francisco.

By Allison Landa

Editors Note: This new column showcases the origins and current status of REIT-owned landmarks.

San Francisco shoppers might be surprised to learn the unique history that underlies the city's landmark Embarcadero Center. Today, the Embarcadero Center is a city-within-a-city as well as a waterfront icon—approximately 3.5 million square feet of office and retail space encompassing four buildings interconnected over five city blocks in the Central Business District. Additionally, the center houses an ice skating rink, art galleries, a hotel, movie theater and several restaurants.

Since November 1998 it has been owned and operated by REIT Boston Properties (NYSE: BXP). The $1.22 billion transaction with Prudential Insurance Company of America and Rockefeller & Associates gave Boston Properties an instant 5 percent stake in San Francisco's downtown market. The sale was a milestone for public REITs.

The last of the four buildings was completed in the early 1980’s.

The transaction included two other buildings—the old Federal Reserve building at 400 Sansome St., and the 275 Battery building that was developed in 1989. Boston Properties sold both in 2005.

Today, the Embarcadero Center's four towers boast a daily population of 14,000 people working and visiting it, according to Boston Properties senior vice president for property management Steve Colvin.

The Four-building Embarcadero Center was developed from 1968 to 1982.

"We're a major component of the Central Business District in San Francisco, about 8.5 percent of the north and south Financial District combined," Colvin says.

San Francisco's Financial District was once known as the Barbary Coast—a wild, seedy territory born out of the mid-1800s Gold Rush. "In the late 1840s, this area was developed as ship berths and warehouses and saloons," Colvin says. "The first commercial enterprise in the city was the Barbary Coast waterfront. In the 1860s, you had ships that were moored around this harbor; the commercial area was fraught with everything from prostitution and bars to dance halls and crime. It was a really rough area of San Francisco."

In 1912, then-San Francisco mayor James Rolph decided a cleanup was in order. "The Barbary Coast was shut down and cleaned up. That was the beginning of the Financial District," Colvin says.

The Embarcadero Center itself began to take shape in the 1950s, when San Francisco city planner Justin Herman spearheaded a redevelopment plan for its current site. "He was going to develop something called a city-within-a-city. David Rockefeller, John Portman and Trammell Crow submitted a winning proposal to develop 8.5 acres of real estate, which is now the Embarcadero Center," Colvin says.

The property's four towers were then developed over more than a decade, from 1968 to 1982. According to Colvin, it gained its name because embarcadero is Spanish for "a wharf or other landing place."

The teardown of the Embarcadero Freeway, damaged beyond repair by the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, proved a boon for the Embarcadero Center and its surrounding area. "It was a blight on view space everywhere surrounding the waterfront here, and when it was removed, it opened things up for the Embarcadero," Colvin says.

Currently, a new bus line uses the Embarcadero Center as a transit hub, and the renovation of San Francisco's historic Ferry Building has proven favorable to the property since it is located across the street.

The four-building Embarcadero Center is approximately 3.5 million square feet of office and retail space. The third building was completed in the 1970s.

"There are cruise-ship terminals within walking distance of the center as well as tons of hotels, which just opened up the world to the Embarcadero Center," Colvin says. "It's been a tremendous value enhancement to the center—great proximity."

As an editor for real estate blog Curbed.com, Philip Ferrato watches the San Francisco property scene. "The Embarcadero Center has a mid-century glamour," Ferrato says. "It's always beautifully maintained and has an otherworldly quality to it."

Ferrato points to the Embarcadero Center's marriage of property and place as one of its most successful elements. "The massing of the towers is impeccable, especially coming over the Bay Bridge," he says. "So is the integration of streetscape and retail down below. The Embarcadero Center is one of the most successful of the big Rockefeller projects."

Colvin foresees the Embarcadero Center as remaining a city icon for years to come. "This is arguably one of the finest properties in the country to work at, an absolutely top-class asset with top-tier tenants and top-tier services," he says. "There is an outstanding group of assets here."