One company, two downtown Class A high-rises, and a single project that moved what was going to the new tower and cleared everything that was not. Here is how it was run.
By Pablo Giordano, Owner, Ontrack Moving® • June 2026 • 8 min read
A San Francisco company was relocating its office between two downtown Class A high-rises and needed two jobs handled as one: everything going to the new tower, and everything it was leaving behind. This is an anonymized account of how Ontrack Moving ran the relocation and the decommission as a single coordinated project.
In short: this was a move and a decommission combined. The crew relocated the active office from one downtown high-rise into another, broke down and cleared what the company was not taking, and recycled what was cleared, responsibly, as part of the same job. Electronics were routed as e-waste through legal disposal channels, with certificates of destruction provided for the hard drives where required. It ran after hours and over a weekend so the business stayed up during the workweek, using reusable crates, with the walls and floors protected at both buildings and parking permits coordinated at each tower.
Running it as one project meant the company worked with a single carrier instead of lining up separate vendors. For projects like this, see our Bay Area commercial movers and office relocation playbook.
The company was moving its office out of one downtown San Francisco Class A high-rise and into another. The space being vacated sat on the 12th floor, with a freight elevator that fed down to a garage below street level, so loading meant working items up a steep driveway to reach the trucks. Downtown access is tight at the best of times, and here it had to be solved at two separate towers, each with its own building rules, elevator schedule, and loading window.
On top of the move itself, the office was not taking everything with it. A large share of the furniture and contents was being retired with the old space. That meant the project was really two jobs at once: a relocation of what was going to the new tower, and a decommission of what was not, including responsibly recycling what was left and handling the electronics as e-waste. The company wanted both handled together, on a schedule that kept the business open during the workweek.
Most companies end up treating these as separate problems, hiring a mover for the relocation and then scrambling to line up separate vendors to clear and recycle the rest. Ontrack Moving provided the full solution for this project under a single plan and a single carrier: the relocation, the decommission, the responsible recycling, and the e-waste handling, with certificates of destruction for the hard drives where required. Keeping it all in one place kept the sequencing clean and the building coordination under one roof. It started, as every job of this size should, with a walk of both buildings to map what was moving, what was being cleared, what each building would require, and the order the work had to follow.
A project this size is planned on the ground, not on paper. On the survey date the move was scoped in person, walking the space with the on-site representative to see exactly what was going to the new tower and what was being retired with the old one. The company itself was based out of state, so it was not in the room. Ontrack Moving walked the buildings on the tenant's behalf, with the tenant's permission, representing them in the coordination with building management.
The most useful part of the survey was the path. The building manager walked the routes the crew would actually use, from the loading area through the freight elevator to the suite, so the plan could be built around the real distances and chokepoints rather than a floor plan. Seeing those pathways firsthand is what set the manpower, the equipment, and the wall and floor protection the job would require: how many movers the elevator throughput could keep busy, which dollies and crates fit the route, and exactly which corridors, door frames, and elevator interiors needed protection at each tower.
Before the main transport happened, the crew ran a preparation day during regular business hours. They took down the wall-mounted TVs and the wall-attached cabinets, and broke the cubicle systems and workstations down into manageable components. Getting the disassembly done ahead of time meant the after-hours and weekend window could be spent on what it is best used for, which is moving, not unbolting fixtures off the wall while the clock runs on a reserved elevator.
For the contents that were moving, the project used reusable E-crates rather than cardboard cartons. The crates were delivered to the office ahead of the move so staff could pack their own desks and materials, then rolled out on dollies, transported, and picked up after everything was in place at the new tower.
Reusable crates stack squarely on dollies, so a crew moves more per elevator trip and stages faster at both ends. They also leave almost no packing waste behind, which matters on a job that already includes clearing and recycling the old space. On an office relocation, that combination usually beats buying, building, and then disposing of hundreds of cardboard boxes.
A decommission is not finished when the furniture is off the floor. What leaves the building still has to go somewhere, and for an office that means two things handled with care: the bulk contents and the electronics. The cleared furniture and materials were recycled responsibly rather than simply hauled off, and the electronics were treated as e-waste and routed through legal disposal channels.
The part that matters most to a business is the data. Computers and the hard drives inside them carry company information, so they cannot be tossed in with general recycling. For the data-bearing devices on this job, certificates of destruction were provided for the hard drives where the client required documented proof. Handling the e-waste and that documentation inside the same decommission kept it with one carrier, rather than splitting the data risk across an outside vendor.
Two downtown towers meant two sets of building logistics. Ontrack Moving coordinated an SFMTA Temporary No Stopping parking permit at each building so the trucks had a legal place to load and unload on busy downtown streets, reserved the freight elevators at both ends, and protected the walls and floors along every path the crew used. Class A buildings expect that protection and a certificate of insurance on file before a crew ever arrives, which is covered in the section below.
Permit placement is not just about legality, it is about distance. At the origin tower the freight elevator fed up from a garage below street level, so the permit was positioned right at the top of that walk-up, putting the tail of the truck as close to the entrance as the street allowed. The shorter the distance between the truck's tail and the door, the less ground the crew covers on every single trip in and out, and across a full day of loading that saved distance adds up to real time.
One honest note from this job: in a high-rise, the freight elevator is the bottleneck. Everything the crew moves has to funnel through that one car, so the elevator's throughput sets the ceiling on how fast the whole job can go, no matter how many movers are working the floor. On one of the days, the building could only grant shared rather than exclusive use of that elevator, so the crew was waiting on the car between loads instead of running it continuously. That funnel effect cut the elevator's throughput and slowed the pace that day by about 20 percent. The crew worked the loading sequence around it to keep productive work going while the car was tied up, but it is a clear reminder of why exclusive elevator time is worth pinning down with building management in advance. When a building can only offer shared access, the realistic pace for that day should be planned around it.
An office cannot stop working for a move. The project was staged across multiple days, with the disassembly handled during business hours and the main relocation run after hours and over the weekend, so staff came back to a workspace that was ready rather than a workweek of downtime. This is the same phased thinking laid out in our office relocation playbook and the protocol breakdown on the commercial moving hub.
A two-tower move touches elevators, lobbies, corridors, floors, door frames, and shared loading areas at both buildings. Ontrack Moving carried its $10,000,000 Combined Protection Tower for building and property liability across the project, which is what satisfies a Class A landlord's certificate-of-insurance requirement and covers the premises and structures the crew works in and around. The contents themselves are covered separately under standard $0.60 per pound per article cargo liability under federal FMCSA rules, with additional valuation protection available for purchase.
Corporate tenants do not take a mover's insurance on faith. On a project this size, the certificate of insurance, the liability limits, and the carrier's credentials are reviewed in detail before any crew is allowed on site. An asset-based carrier with a real $10,000,000 building and property liability tower, standard $0.60 per pound per article cargo liability, and a clean 0% federal Out-of-Service record is built to stand up to that kind of enterprise due diligence.
| Coverage | What it applies to |
|---|---|
| $10M Combined Protection Tower | Buildings, premises, lobbies, floors, elevators, and shared loading areas at both towers; general liability and workers compensation for the work performed. This is what a Class A building names on the COI. |
| $0.60/lb cargo liability | The furniture, equipment, and items themselves, per article, under the federal FMCSA minimum. Additional valuation protection available for purchase. |
| 0% Out-of-Service Rate | The federal safety record under FMCSA inspection, verifiable under USDOT #2551548. |
The office was relocated into the new downtown tower, the old space was broken down and cleared, its contents were recycled responsibly, and the electronics were handled as e-waste with certificates of destruction provided for the hard drives, all under one project and one carrier. The disassembly was done ahead on a preparation day, the move ran after hours and over the weekend so the business kept operating, and reusable crates kept the pack clean at both ends. The one day of shared elevator access slowed that day's pace, the crew worked the sequence around it, and the relocation finished out as planned.
It is the kind of project that shows the value of an asset-based carrier that can deliver the whole solution: the move, the decommission, the recycling, and the e-waste handling, planned together rather than bolted on. If your organization is planning a downtown office move, a building-to-building relocation, or a decommission of a space you are leaving, our commercial moving and San Francisco commercial movers team can scope it with an on-site walkthrough.
Downtown high-rise relocations, building-to-building office moves, and decommissioning across San Francisco and the Bay Area, run by our own in-house crews. Asset-based direct carrier under USDOT #2551548. $10M Combined Protection Tower for building and property liability.
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