In summer 2017, a fleet of 11 construction barges converged on a small stretch of water off San Francisco’s Embarcadero, south of its iconic Ferry Building. Their mission: to demolish a rotting wooden pier and drive more than 100 piles near the city’s seawall without any land access.
The work was part of the ongoing $74-million expansion of the city’s downtown ferry terminal. Owned and operated by the Port of San Francisco, the project’s 60,000-sq-ft site is constricted by historic buildings and pedestrian walkways on land and by constant ferry traffic at sea.