TMG Partners and Northwood Investors just picked Foster + Partners and Heller Manus Architects to design their 2M SF development at First and Mission. It will be the first residential and mixed-use project in S.F. for Foster + Partners, the architects behind the Apple Campus II in Cupertino and the Apple store in Union Square. We hear the office tower will have super-sized floor plates and a condo portion taller than any residential project on the West Coast, rising 850 feet. Above, a rendering of the “living room” lobby. (They assure us the real thing will be in 3D.)

We caught TMG chairman and CEO Michael Covarrubias before he was boarding a plane this morning to ask why he thinks the project will be a hit. He calls the Bay Area a dramatically unique region that draws the world to live, grow a business, or visit. The Transbay Terminal locale couldn’t be more illustrative of all there is to offer, and that defies any market cycle (everything about it is enduring, he says). With that in mind, he says "we set our sights on just a few world-class architects" and selected Foster because "we feel the ultimate design will be distinctively exceptional.”