In just a few short years, UC San Francisco’s Parnassus Heights campus will be transformed by the arrival of new, state-of-the-art buildings including the UCSF Health Helen Diller Hospital and UCSF Barbara and Gerson Bakar Research and Academic Building.
Before that, construction cranes will raise pieces of the new buildings into their place – a skyward signal of the forward progress being made at UCSF’s historic campus.
“It’s very exciting to see the vision start coming together,” said Kelly Lyon, project manager in UCSF Real Estate’s Campus Design and Construction. “It’s the moment where it gets real to see it going vertical like that, where the buildings are actually taking a physical shape in the skyline. It will be much more real for everyone.”
‘A really exciting time’
The first of those cranes arrived at Parnassus Heights last month.
It’s a 278-foot “T” shaped crane situated at the center of the site where the Bakar Research and Academic Building will sit on the western side of campus.
The state-of-the-art structure will house research programs for cancer, microbiology, diabetes, immunology and cell biology, be the new home of the UCSF School of Nursing and support graduate-level education across UCSF. The building’s innovative space is designed to encourage collaboration between researchers across scientific disciplines to advance discoveries in health and science.
It’s scheduled to open in early 2028.
“We are building it for the UCSF community, the campus itself, the research and education communities, and the School of Nursing,” said Ron Blaj, director of UCSF Real Estate’s Campus Design and Construction, Major Capital Projects. “It obviously gives great pride to all of the architects, engineers, contractors and UCSF staff who are involved in designing and constructing this building. Many people from across the world have been involved in this project. It is a really exciting time for us.”
Twice the height of the neighboring Clinical Sciences Building, the crane will stay at the center of the building site as the steel structure rises up around it, then be dismantled from the inside once the exterior is completed roughly a year and a half from now.
Materials for the new research and academic building will be delivered to the crane using Koret Way, an elevated road that runs along Mount Sutro.
“You’ll be amazed when you see this crane in operation,” Blaj said. “This crane will be busy all day long, going back and forth. It will be very active.”
The team has been working at the site for about two years and was planning for the project another year before that. The work has included constructing a foundation system for the building and creating two shoring walls to “hold back the mountain and define the footprint of our site,” Lyon said.
When finished, the Bakar Research and Academic Building will be open to the public – part of UCSF's commitment to make the campus more accessible to all.
“Many people from across the world have been involved in this project. It is a really exciting time for us.”
Ron Blaj, director, UCSF Real Estate’s Campus Design and Construction, MAJOR CAPITAL PROJECTS
“Many people from across the world have been involved in this project. It is a really exciting time for us.”
Ron Blaj, director of UCSF Real Estate’s Campus Design and Construction, CAPITAL PROJECTS
Two more on the way
Down the road, on the east end of Parnassus Avenue, the future home of the UCSF Health Helen Diller Hospital is beginning to take shape.
That’s where a pair of new construction cranes will soon sit, the first of which is expected to be installed this month with the second coming in May.
“It’s been hard to see the tremendous progress we’re making if you can’t see what’s happening behind the construction fences,” said Fred Whitney, director, Project Delivery for the new Helen Diller Hospital. “I think these tower cranes represent a significant milestone. It is really, really exciting for our clinicians and patients, who will begin to see the building that they’ll get their care at in the future.”
The pair are two of only 10 in the world that can perform the type of lifting operations needed for the hospital’s construction, built and shipped to San Francisco from Germany.
“We have some unusually large, weighted loads on this project,” Whitney said. “Given the site logistics, we couldn’t put a crane in the middle of the project. They need to be on the perimeter. We have to be able to reach long distances.”
The first crane, listed at 280 feet tall, will sit adjacent to Parnassus Avenue on the north side of the hospital site. The second crane, a 260-foot structure, will be placed on the east side of Moffitt/Long Hospital. Both will reach as high as 400 feet when angled up during work hours.
The tower cranes will remain at the site for four and three years, respectively.
Crews are nearly finished with basement excavation work and are on the verge of starting construction on the new hospital’s foundations.
“Once we start laying the hospital’s foundation, bringing in steel to build the structure and hoisting materials for the exterior and interior build out, that’s what we need the tower cranes for. That is why you’ll see them arriving soon.”
The $4.3 billion, 15-story hospital will aggregate some of the most complex care capacity in the country in one city block to serve San Francisco, the Bay Area and beyond for coming generations. It will incorporate the latest technologies in diagnostics, robotics and surgical procedures into complex specialty care, including neurosurgery, cardiology, transplant and emergency medicine.
The hospital is scheduled to welcome its first patients in 2030.
“It is really, really exciting for our clinicians and patients, who will begin to see the building that they’ll get their care at in the future.”
Fred Whitney, director, Project Delivery, UCSF HEALTH Helen Diller Hospital
“It is really, really exciting for our clinicians and patients, who will begin to see the building that they’ll get their care at in the future.”
Fred Whitney, director, Project Delivery, UCSF HEALTH Helen Diller Hospital
Safety first
UCSF has used tower cranes on multiple projects, including several at UCSF Mission Bay.
Essential to support safe building development at both sites, tower cranes minimize the need to bring in multiple truck-mounted hydraulic cranes to lift from Parnassus Avenue, which would result in additional traffic and pedestrian disruptions. At both sites, crews are following strict safety controls, guidelines for work hours and noise reduction efforts. The cranes are also subject to regular safety checks from Cal OSHA, which will check them prior to use and recertify the structures every six months.
All three Parnassus cranes will be pushed freely by wind when not in use – a common practice called “weathervaning.” That allows for external forces to push the top of the cranes 360 degrees in poor weather conditions, preventing damage to the tower cranes or the projects themselves.
“On a windy day, people might see the horizontal part of the crane rotating,” Lyon said. “That might look a little scary, but it's actually an indication that the right process is happening. It’s letting that wind pass through and move freely as opposed to generating a lot of force that’s met with resistance at the bottom.”
As for the future, it’s clear the new tower cranes at Parnassus Heights are a temporary stop on the road to transform UCSF’s flagship campus and drive innovations in care delivery, discovery and health sciences education.
“We’re building something amazing that will be here a long time,” Whitney said.
