An aerial rendering of Elevation Sky Park.
By Barbee Planning & Design
In half a year, a cluster of geodesic domes might be San Francisco’s hottest new nightlife destination.
By early 2026, a new entertainment complex called Elevation Sky Park is slated to open on Pier 70. Located in Dogpatch, it will consist of a pyramid and three geodesic domes, ranging in size from 2,000 square feet to 6,340 square feet.
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Elevation XR, a company that deals in immersive experiences, originally wanted to bring the domes to Pier 70 in 2017, but setting up shop in San Francisco was too expensive. So they popped up in Los Angeles instead, setting up Wisdome in 2018. That complex hosted a SZA concert, fashion shows and a Steve Aoki NFT event. The company has brought its domes to Coachella, as well.
Now, with development plans on the pier delayed, the timing is right for the domes to at last come to SF, said Sean Ahearn, the company’s founder and CEO, who lived in San Francisco for two decades. Elevation Sky Park will call Pier 70 home for up to five years, and will cost an estimated $7 million to build.
“We couldn’t have done this five years ago,” Ahearn told SFGATE. “We probably won’t be able to do it five years from now. So now’s the perfect time.”
For years, Elevation XR has made annual pilgrimages to Burning Man, where the company would set up its domes in the Nevada desert alongside other large-scale artworks. Cirque du Soleil billionaire Guy Laliberté even DJed at the domes for his birthday in 2017.
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Elevation XR’s complex in Los Angeles, Wisdome, hosted SZA and Steve Aoki.
Jim Kara
Like the Sphere in Las Vegas, the domes feature 360-degree audiovisual displays. The medium-sized dome could serve as an IMAX-style movie theater while the large dome hosts a Grateful Dead cover band in concert, complete with all-encompassing psychedelic visuals. A patron could stop by in the morning for a healing sound bath and circle back in the evening for a tech house DJ set or a TEDx talk.
“We can literally draw across any demographic,” Ahearn said. “We can have kids and grandparents and Burning Man hipsters all enjoying our venue in the same weekend.”
In spite of the similarities, the structures are not miniature versions of Las Vegas’s Sphere, but rather large geodesic domes, said Greg Gordon, the chief operating officer of Elevation. It’s a distinction that places the structures in the tradition of the Bay Area’s 1960s and ’70s counterculture movement, which took a liking to the domes after the famous architect R. Buckminster Fuller popularized the structure.
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An aerial rendering of Elevation Sky Park.
By Barbee Planning & Design
The pier will temporarily host Elevation Sky Park while Brookfield Properties, the real estate company that manages the pier, makes progress on its long-term plans to redevelop the complex’s site into housing, Tim Bacon, vice president of development for Brookfield, told SFGATE.
Last year, the first vendors moved into the site’s Building 12, a sprawling building that is being revived for retail and housing as part of the redevelopment. Now that building is home to padel courts, a local ceramics company, a newly opened Standard Deviant Brewing location and more. That building is a two-minute walk from the future site of Elevation Sky Park.
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“I think first and foremost, it’s about giving people a reason to come down to the project,” Bacon said of the entertainment complex.
The domes are scheduled to open by early 2026, but Ahearn hopes to have them set up by New Year’s Eve and open to the public in time for the Super Bowl, which will take place at Levi’s Stadium in 2026. From there on out, he hopes that they’ll prove a fruitful venue for San Francisco event promoters of all stripes.
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