Piers 27-31 Development

Recently published in the San Francisco Examiner: Sightlines could sink mega-ships deal

UPDATE AS OF 2/15/07

At the 2/13/07 Port Commission meeting, the Port calendared for its Feb. 27th meeting an item to extend Shorenstein/Farallon's Exclusive Rights to Negotiate for Piers 27-31 for another several months (the current ERN expires Feb. 28).

It appears that Shorenstein/Farallon do not intend to ask the Commission to approve their current project as proposed in the immediate future. However, Shorenstein/Farallon have also indicated that they are not planning to drop the project and are pursuing alternative ideas.

In addition, at the 2/13/07 meeting Port staff presented a revised 10 Year Capital Plan that including an interesting new section entitled "Revision of the Port Development Model" that seems largely the result of the experiences of Piers 27-31. The section begins: "One of the most significant new developments over the past year has been the realization by Port staff that the Port's development model has become 'broken' . . . developing the City's waterfront will require an investment in public funds and more of an effort to reach consensus . . . "

Finally, Port staff also announced that they are pursuing the possibility of having 7 waterfront open space/park projects, including the Northewast Wharf Plaza at Pier 27, funded in part or whole by getting them included in a possible SF City Parks & Rec Bond in the June 2008 ballot and another on a future ballot.

A relevant SF Examiner story about this is included below.

Port seeks $61M in bonds for parks Bonnie Eslinger, S.F. Examiner Feb 14, 2007 SAN FRANCISCO - The financially struggling Port of San Francisco is hoping to add $61 million of its open space projects to two city-sponsored parks bond measures proposed for 2008 and 2013. On Monday, port officials met with a city committee charged with developing two separate $150 million bond measure proposals to support San Francisco's Recreation and Park Department. At a meeting of the Port Commission on Tuesday, Senior Waterfront Planner Dan Hodapp said that port officials "tried to show the bond committee that the public does not view the port as a different place from the rest of The City." "We're trying to get recognized as being part of The City's open space system and look for funding for projects in that way, which would also advance port facilities," Hodapp said. The port's annual operating budget is just over $73 million. On Monday, Tina Olson, the port's deputy director of finance and administration, presented a balanced budget for next year that includes an operating reserve of $8 million. The port, however, has a 10-year capital plan that includes nearly $1.5 billion in needs, including overall repairs, replacement and seismic needs - and to date, it has only identified $491 million in funding for the anticipated work. Port Executive Director Monique Moyer told commission members that the port doesn't have the resources to invest in projects that would generate new revenue and that allocated capital funds are "spent ... to maintain the status quo." Additionally, potential revenue-generating commercial projects along the waterfront have stalled due to the high cost of rehabilitating city piers, as well as concerns that the projects don't strike a balance between the developer's profit needs and a state mandate that the area serve the public, among other issues. Moyer said studies of development projects in other areas show that when a city or other local jurisdiction invests in "keystone projects" - projects such as parks that spur development - it sends a signal to builders and investors that the public agency was serious about transforming the area. To that end, the port is asking The City’s Recreation and Park Department to set aside some of its own needs in order to provide funding for $61 million in open space projects at the waterfront. Olson told commission members that the proposed $150 million figure was researched as the most that voters might be willing to bear twice within five years, for $300 million in total bonds. "If the number goes up beyond $150 million and it doesn’t poll well, then we might kill the park projects," she said. Among the waterfront open space projects the Port Commission hopes to include in the bond measures are putting a new center plaza in Fisherman's Wharf, a new three-acre waterfront plaza at the edge of piers 23 and 27, a 400-foot long lawn at Brannan Street Wharf, improving conditions at the Bayfront Park at Mission Bay, a series of parks at the Blue Greenway and extensive restoration of Pier 70. beslinger@examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/a-564543%7EPort_seeks__61M_in_bonds_for_parks.html

Update as of August 15, 2006

Click here to see the proposed Shorenstein plans for Piers 27-31 as presented to the Port Commission the week of August 14, 2006. (PDF, 1.13 MB)

Update as of June 4, 2006

Five years of controversy over Mills Corporation's proposed project on San Francisco's historic northeast waterfront finally came to an end in March 2006 when the San Francisco Port Commission voted 4-0 to cancel the Mills Corporation's plans for Piers 27-31.

Following an intense campaign of organizing and activism by the THD, Sierra Club, the Citizens to Save the Waterfront coalition and hundreds of dedicated volunteers and concerned citizens, the Port finally agreed that the proposal by national mall developer Mills was a plan doomed to failure. Many local organizations had opposed the Mills Project from the start because of a variety of flaws in the Mills proposal, ranging from massive traffic and transit impacts to a plan for a water recreation area in the path of a city sewage pipe.

On March 14, 2006 the S.F. Port Commission voted to end the Mills Corp's exclusive rights agreement for Piers 27-31 and to enter into a new six-month agreement with the Shorenstein Corporation and Farallon Capital Management, who have pledged to design a recreation and office project that will comply with the voter-mandated Waterfront Land Use Plan. Shorenstein and Farallon now have until September 30, 2006 to come up with a truly recreation-oriented plan and bring it before the Port Commission and then the S.F. Board of Supervisors for approval - if they fail to win those approvals, the agreement will expire and the Port will put the Piers 27-31 recreation project back out for bid.

On July 1, 2006 Shorenstein Properties and Farallon Capital Management are scheduled to submit their proposed Piers 27-31 development plans to the Port of San Francisco. When the Port Commission voted in March to approve the transfer of exclusive negotiating rights from Mills to Shorenstein/Farallon, it granted the new developers several months to design a truly recreation-oriented proposal for Piers 27-31. The new plan must be consistent both with the original Port proposal for a recreation project at Piers 27-31 and with the voter-mandated Waterfront Land Use Plan.

Any major development on San Francisco's historic piers must also be approved by state waterfront regulators and deemed consistent with the state's Public Trust law. Recent news reports indicate that the proposed Piers 27-31 developers and/or the Port Commission may be seeking state legislation to advance their project.

Important Upcoming Dates:

• Proposed plan of development, development schedule, community outreach program, trust consistency proposal, and regulatory approval strategy by July 1, 2006.
• Letter of intent with Active Recreation Operator by September 1, 2006.
• Port Commission endorsement resolution regarding Revised Development Memorandum by September 30, 2006.

Click here to view the actual amended & renewed 6 month exclusive rights agreement for Shorenstein/Farallon. We encourage everyone to read the actual agreement to know where things stand right now.

(This file is in PDF format. You can download a free PDF reader here.)

For local articles on this development:
    CSW Analysis of Traffic Impact
    Newsom in hot seat over Mills Corp. project
    Waterfront development fight continues
    Mills, foes adrift at big Piers project

For more information: Email Jon Golinger at savesfwaterfront@aol.com.

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