San Francisco’s 1985 Downtown Plan “envisioned the area around the Transbay Terminal as the heart of the new downtown.” And the Fourth and King Street rail yard (and Caltrain station) is in need of “development.”
Have a vision, voice or thought that will help “[f]ulfill the vision of the Downtown Plan and the promise of a Transit First city to create a new downtown center anchored by a world class multimodal Transit Center and supported by a grand civic public realm?” Well, here’s your chance to be heard (and for tipsters to keep us plugged-in).
“Following detailed analysis and computer simulation (e.g. urban form, shadow, wind, circulation), the study will produce new planning policies and controls for land use, urban form, building design, and public realm improvements for private properties as well as for properties owned or to be owned by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority in and around the adopted Transbay Redevelopment Project Area and Transbay Terminal.”
“The study will [also] produce policies, conceptual site plans, and implementation mechanisms for air-rights development of the 4th/King Street station and railyards, particularly given the need to reconfigure the facilities to accommodate the Caltrain Downtown Extension and California High-Speed Rail.”
The public planning process kickoff is July 25th with workshops running through the end of the year. Our thanks to Jamie (over at the RinconHillSF) for keeping us (and you) plugged-in.
∙ Transit Center District Plan and Fourth and King Street Railyards Study [SFGov]
Uggh, sucks when you don’t have a 8-5 job.
In any rate, I’m really excited about the potential for these areas to become great neighborhoods. My only hope is that the people who attend voice ideas and strategies to not only make the area great, but to do so in a reasonable amount of time.
I just hope this meeting doesn’t mainly draw those NIMBYs with too much time on their hands, trying to stall the progress (such as 10th & Market).
What SFhighrise said.
I fear I might be on the road to Visalia to meet with clients in Tulare County that evening. If you do happen to attend, please mention the need for green space and sticking with the plans for at least the parks at Harrison and Fremont and Main and Howard Streets for the area. 🙂
Jamie & others –
I’d like to tap into your brains for an explanation on WHY there is a “need for green space?” This is a downtown, not a suburb. This is the financial district, not GG Park. I don’t think that there IS a need for green space – a nice plaza here and there yes, little bamboo garden like the JPMorgan building great, indoor atrium like the Anderson building would be cool, reflecting pool/sunny plaza ala Seagram Building – but why do San Franciscians always insist that there has to be all these parks everywhere? We live in a CITY. SF has no density to begin with, therefore we’re lacking in potential jobs. We have a huge deficit and cities rely on revenue from land sales and property taxes to survive, something that parks don’t bring in and only cost more to maintain (and you know that SF won’t maintain these two either). Business people eat at their desks and go to restaurants. I love to eat in a park too, but I’d walk a few blocks to Yerba Buena (which along with Union Sq and the Embarcadero, provide plenty of outdoor space for the whole downtown). We’re only talking about lunch anyway, right?
I don’t think that we should be going to these meetings and demanding open space. We should be upset that this plan has taken SOOO long to implement, we should be insisting on TALL buildings that attract industry, we should be demanding beautiful buildings! For those environmentalists – demand roof gardens (which would provide SO much more benefits than a corner park). Bring it on, you all, but I say to the environmentalists – you guys go to the meetings about the Presidio or GG Park (which is a huge green space that no one goes to because it is seriously lacking quality). Stay home and away from our downtown!
rg – your comments are so full of BS and lacking of real understanding of what an urban place is that I feel no need to respond to them anymore. To suggest that anyone who asks for green space in a new neighborhood of 20,000+ people is an environmentalist who doesn’t understand that we live in an urban city and not a suburb is crazy? Chicago and NYC better start paving over their parks – and soon!
Now BRUTUS, you of ALL people should know better than to bring up Chicago on this board!
We need outdoor gathering spaces in order to build our little village of Rincon Hill basically.
We don’t have the land to spare for another Washington Square Park, but just a good acre or so to share, for those days you’d like to take your shoes off, lie down on grass, and enjoy the breeze – maybe with a mini-bandshell for musicians (local or otherwise) to provide a soundtrack. Playground equipment may be pointless here, unless the demographics are way different from what I imagine for Rincon Hill (I did just get a Census survey – they’re apparently spreading the info. gathering over a 3 year period now instead of all at once every 10 years).
I believe parks build community – they give you a reason to stop and talk with others. This will be the greatest challenge for Rincon Hill – getting folks to invest a little, try to get to know their neighbors instead of just making a beeline from work to home to work again.
The grass covered land also gives rain (when it does pour down) somewhere to go where it can be absorbed instead of just running off into the bay or to flood some section of town on the downslope.
I know that we as Americans are wired to work, work, work and rarely if ever play (at least, that’s how working folks have been trained to behave), but life is too short to not stop and smell the flowers … and get to know your neighbors.
A community garden would be awesome – where we share in planting various veggies (don’t ask me how that works, but I’ve heard of it being done elsewhere). Again, that is a community building activity … and good for us all to eat more fresh veggies.
I’m sure others have better ideas than I do since I came from a suburban existence originally with over an acre of land as my backyard.
Just wanted to add that I hope that my neighbors in Rincon Hill would join me in keeping our neighborhood clean. I don’t expect maid service from the City on a regular basis. I stacked some cardboard beside the public trash can on the NW corner of Folsom and Main the other day – not because it is my job to pick up litter, but because I feel like I have a responsibility to keep my community clean.
There are plastic ties left over from Bay to Breakers (when did that happen?) that were used to put flags on wood poles around the parking lot fence around Howard and Main Street – one of these weekends, I plan on sweeping those darn things up if the City never gets around to it (until the next Bay to Breakers in 2008).
I have two jobs and my volunteer commitments are stacking up quickly – but I do hope others have the decency and common sense to also help keep Rincon Hill clean and not expect the City to do everything for them.
Jamie – what do you think of a large park in the current location of the large ballpark parking lot? It’s owned by the Port of San Francisco and the lease runs out in 2009.
Some have said that it would be nice to have a large, square park big enough to hold a good playground for the neighborhood. Most of the open space in SoMa and Mission Bay is linear and can’t host a playground.
On the other hand, Telco Park is getting pretty far from Rincon Hill.
Maybe they could expand what already exists of that China Basin park in the corner across from AT&T Park … the Port is definitely wanting to maximize the bucks out of that land after the AT&T Park lease expires in 2009.
It is a bit far for Rincon HIll folks to go …. depending on the activities available. For just lying around and reading, Rincon Park works for now … but with thousands more folks moving here, something tells me the days of easily finding a spot in the shade of the arrow or the bow will be gone soon. There’s a park between AT&T Park and Pier 40, but that’s more of a dog run it seems.
There was talk of a recreational park built out on either a new Brannan Street Wharf or maybe Piers 30/32… and I think $9 million is sitting in a bank account/investment somewhere from the Watermark builders as a start towards building something on the water there … but the piers are in such poor shape, even more dollars are needed just to fix the substructures.
1/2 an acre or so of grass, trees, benches, and maybe a little stage/band shell at Howard between Main and Beale would be perfect… and that’s what’s in the plans right now (I just want to encourage them keeping it in the final development)
Reading about this meeting in the Examiner today, it sounds like this is where they’ll be grabbing for an increase in height limits from the current 550′ to 1200′ or so.
Jamie.
Just wanted to 2nd your comment about the park and green space.
I’m not able to attend but hopefully, some “enviromentalist” types 🙂 will attend and put in a good word for parks.
Although we can all have more buildings and buildings and buildings so that every sq inch is efficiently utilized, is that what life is all about? Doesn’t science say something about trees and grass and nature helping out the environment for humans (ie, trees generate O2, right and suckup the C02.. though we need a forest down in that area to make a real dent).
Anyway, if there is an opportunity to allow for some open space, it seems as humans we should take it. I mean, build a few more stories on top of the existing buildings or here’s an idea, raze those single family homes which are totally inefficient use of space per human being!
(I am concerned though that parks sometimes tend to draw negative elements, and given the homeless problem in the city, wow, this sounds like homeless person heaven)
Always a tradeoff.
History has shown that urban parks can be good, and they can be bad — there is no black and white in this debate. The cliched “trees, grass and some benches” as what necessarily constitutes a good urban park is what should be questioned now (particularly in the 21st C.).
This plan isn’t really talking about Rincon Hill, though. And, to my knowledge, RH already as a decent plan, Jamie. This is about the Downtown/Transbay Term. The issues that this area is dealing with are mainly height limits – should we go all the way to a 1000′ tower – and a massive transit system in/out of SF. Are Rincon Hill residents really going to head down to Mission and 2nd for a weekend in the park??? No, so don’t act like if there was a 50’x50′ park on a corner, you’d use it every night! That is BS. I’m far from trying to pick on you, Jamie, but the CO2 point is making me laugh! You discredited that point yourself – it would take a forest to change levels in downtown. A downtown doesn’t have a responsibility to change CO2 levels, it’s about industry. And if new Rincon Hill residents really think that they have should have a say in changing downtown, then you moved to the wrong location! You’re living on top the Bay Bridge, deal with it. Rincon Hill has massive amounts of outdoor space between the ballpark area and Piers. This particular subject area has Yuerba Buena only one block away, so why are people asking for a “a mini-bandshell for musicians (local or otherwise)”! Do you even know many the services that this area provides, or are you just immediately jumping on the environmental bandwagon?
I think that the BS, Brutus, is that YOU don’t have any idea of an urban place. Did I say that GG Park should be paved over??? No. Is it TOO much to ask that a downtown lot not be wasted for a park when this city has plenty of outdoor space closeby. I’m sick of these San Franciscians that want their whole city to be a park and one-story houses. We’ll never solve our problems – budget, jobs, “world-class” or not – that way. A great idea would be to have a green roof on the new Transbay. I love green roofs! But my point is that the space below is BUILT. Don’t argue with me that NYC or even Chicago has parks on every block and we don’t! Chicago has an amazing lakefront and then tall buildings in the downtown. I haven’t found many corner parks in Chicago? Most residential neighborhoods in NYC have a one block size park – Union Square, Bryant Park, Gramercy (private to ONLY residents) – downtown doesn’t. City planning is about “highest and best use”, and if THAT’S “BS” then you are very ignorant.
I don’t think Jamie was asking for a huge park, just something like this:
http://sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/sfra/Projects/07_Main_Beale%20Precinct.pdf
Thank you Brutus … that link that shows some park space between Main and Beale at Folsom is EXACTLY what I hope to see REMAIN in the plan and not get shoved aside for more office/residential/retail space.
rg – I really don’t think I’m part of the crowd you seem to be so bitter towards. Also, I believe you’re confusing other folks’ comments with mine, but that’s neither here nor there. I do consider the “Transbay Area” to be a part of my quickly rising Rincon Hill neighborhood – and I do think folks living in the existing condos should definitely get their butts over to that meeting and put in their 2 cents (encouraging the 1200′-1400′ or maintaining 550′ heigh limits) – and make sure the park stays! 🙂
I actually agree with both sides on this one. I’m personally a proponent of further developing the area and allowing for the 1200 ft high rises. At the same time, while I can see the value of more urban parks to residents, I understand why it may not be in the best interest of developers. However, why can’t we encourage them to build rooftop parks? This is being done in downtown LA and makes a great use of space.
I’m not trying to put you in any “crowd”, Jamie. I think that your comments are incredibly shortsighted. The upcoming (because 90% haven’t even moved in yet) residents of Rincon Hill have plenty of outdoor space throughout the many parks I’ve already mentioned around there. If you wanted more green space, then you should have moved next to GG Park. What I don’t hear you acknowledging is the existing areas. All you’re doing is asking for more, and I’d bet money that you already don’t fully use the green space that is there now.
The park at Main/Beale is EXACTLY what I am commenting against – an entire block of a downtown area used for a park that will never get used and only attract SF’s thousands of homeless! Not to mention that the planning of this section of town (as well as their plans for Folsom) are completely out of context with the surrounding city. Our Planning Dept. has adopted this process of going to another city, drooling over how great their planning is, and then TRYING to DROP that style of streetscape wherever they may be redeveloping at the time! I believe that this Main/Beale plan (and the photos in the packet) are all based on Toronto? It’s a ridiculous way to work and won’t succeed. Keep downtown full of buildings and let the rest go – the best solution is usually the simplest.
I do use Rincon Point Park, thank you. I do go to Dolores Park regularly, thank you. On rare occasions (usually to volunteer for something, like AIDS Walk this past Sunday), I’ll go to the foggy side of the City and visit Golden Gate Park.
Transbay Square, as currently in the plans, is cut in the middle of townhomes planned for the block between Folsom and Beale and Howard and Main, not the entire square block.
I believe there is some senior citizen housing planned for a few of those townhomes. A park is good for the retail corridor planned for Folsom, frankly …. thirsty? Hungry? Let’s go around the corner for X from that eatery on Folsom Boulevard.
Anyway, we agree to disagree on this one I suppose. I’m a finance and economics guy, but I firmly believe that greenery and the 32′ wide sidewalks are really needed for folks to get to know their neighbors, to have some outdoor recreation, and to add overall vibrance and life to the Rincon Hill/Transbay Area portion of downtown. If people are just walking back and forth, there won’t be as much of a sense of community and the opportunity for criminals to do their thing will increase.
Again, more reason to get a neighborhood association going today instead of tomorrow …. http://www.rinconhillneighbors.org is the vehicle, if we can just get it moving … (I’m not directly associated with it at this moment, but have offered to join the Board).
“Our Planning Dept. has adopted this process of going to another city, drooling over how great their planning is, and then TRYING to DROP that style of streetscape wherever they may be redeveloping at the time! ”
RG, I could not have said it any better. Maybe this explains their obsession with canary palms also? What have they learned from all of their trips however? I remember reading how they went to Seattle to study their waterfront, Chicago to study the streetscapes, parks and architecture, and Europe to study Amsterdam for Mission Bay. So far, all I can figure out is they had some nice trips, dinners, and air miles, but perhaps in the future they could stick around here and study the current existing problems that need immediate attention.
Yeh, anom. It’s funny that they spend so much time looking at other cities, but never seem to spend any time out on the actual streets of San Francisco! These attempts at building a European “boulevard” for 5 blocks HERE, and making townhomes and a 32’wide(!) sidewalk for 4 block THERE are getting way too absurd.
rg-
How is it absurd that they’re trying to incorporate “best practices” into development here in San Francisco. Now, execution is a different story, but I don’t think its wrong of them to look elsewhere. SF doesn’t have a long history, of modern, large scale developments (at least a world-class one).
I think its very easy to write-off these new developments as “bland”, “un-San Francisco”, “ugly”, or whatever you like to call them. However, you have to realize that when the supervisors put so many restrictions on the developers and other things are considered, you’re not going to get Dubai-style excitement here.
I think for those that talk about using Seattle as a reference point, they’re not telling the whole story. Sure, Seattle has some nice boutique industrial-style developments (although we do here in SOMA as well). However, when you look at most of their modern high-rises (Belltown), I don’t think they’re all that different than here in SF.
Well, the first absurd point is that SF is NOT any of these other cities, so just because there’s a beautiful, townhouse part of town in Boston (Back Bay) doesn’t mean that SF can benefit from a “townhouse” street also. We really need to explore what makes each neighborhood HERE distinct and expand upon that, not try to recreate someone else, which is usually the exact opposite of what we currently have.
The MOST absurd part, though, is that we don’t have large redevelopment areas anymore, so it’s not possible to effectively change the streetscape of an area. Therefore, we wind up with these little “pockets” of one distinct design that has NO relationship with it’s surrounding. The 5 blocks of Octavia is a prime example of this. You turn off of any street onto this European style boulevard and think, “what the hell?” It cost millions and destroys the neighborhood. If they really wanted to do something wonderful for that historic neighborhood, they would have kept the light-filled streets when the overpasses were gone, sold 25’x100′ lots along Octavia to residents, and had them each build comp sized homes to match the Victorians. They should do the same to the UC Extension campus. Instead, we’ll have 5 blocks that are barren and a “boulevard,” 4 city blocks that will have some large, stucco, earthtoned, developer-special condo block, and the rest Victorians. Main/Beale will be the same – you’ll turn the corner from your large office tower with an 8′-12′ sidewalk, and, WAM!-A 32′ wide residential “sidewalk” with trees! Twilight Zone, anyone? All the while, none of these proposals MAKE revenue for the city, they just waste space and cost money to maintain.
RG, your thoughts about Octavia are worth exploring. I won’t mention the city because it causes insane passions (you know, San Francisco is more “world class”, etc.), but in this city, they destroyed some projects that were in the middle of a neighborhood with very similar density to the Octavia neighborhood. That city, then split the land up into lots similar in size to what existed in the surrounding area, sold them at a reasonable profit, and took that money to build new low income housing in another district. The neighborhood now has some of the most interesting new residential construction, and has become one of the most desirable parts of town. Some of the homes are rather Victorian, while others make creative modern statements, some have apts. , others are 4 unit condos, but they all fit into the existing context and fabric very well. I still cannot understand why some people feel the answer to San Francisco’s housing problems can ONLY be solved by tall ugly “luxury” towers, why can’t we have more urban in-fill projects also?
If you need an explanation of why Octavia had to be the way that it came out – it’s because car owners would not even consider having something less than a six lane street connect to Fell. Look up the battles that were involved and then tell me that your “easy” plan could have happened, rg. Some of us live in reality here – you can complain all you want about the city – but doing nothing to change it isn’t helping. I was heavily involved in the Market/Octavia plan, and it was one headache after another.
And as soon as we get something somewhat decent put together, here comes Don Fisher and his cronies with the “Cars at all Cost”, er I mean “Parking for Neighborhoods” initiative this fall – which will destroy the Market/Octavia plan, as well as Rincon Hill and Transbay plans.
Well, we’ve got a few years to box it out over Transbay Square … it will be a temporary bus terminal while the existing Transbay Transit Center is demolished and a new one is built. That would be the period of 2009 – 2014, as planned.
Jamie, I thought I read that the high-speed trains were now dead? (Funding for research cut out of 2007-8 state budget) Do you know if that is true? Where is the money from the new station actually going to come from?
“Reality”, Brutus, is that nothing happens in this city BECAUSE we allow people like you to be involved in this process, dragging plans on for years and destroying the city along the way. I may disagree with Don Fisher on a lot of items, but the idea that removing parking spaces is going to make people bike to work – GIVE ME A F**KING BREAK! You’re amusing me today, Brutus, thank you for the laugh. I had a bad morning with the Building Department and I really needed that.
Now, on Octavia – yes, traffic needed a 6 lane highway to get to the outer neighborhoods, but don’t tell me that it needed those side lanes (which no one knows how to use! why do the middle lanes have a red light, but the side lanes have a stop sign??? I’ve seen so many people stop and then proceed out into oncoming traffic!) My “easy” plan could still happen if we just bulldozed those side lanes and sold the lots as separate, standard sized lots. Instead, we’ll have large, impersonal condo blocks that only make the streetscape worse (and I LOVE Stanley Saitowitz). The point is, this city owns the land and should have the personnel in the Planning Dept. to make decisions themselves in the best interest of the city and without being bribed by developers and neighborhood activists.
This city never worked better than when it had the central freeway cutting thru it! I bemoan that on-ramp that used to be on Gough everytime I have to drive to the Bay Bridge. I remember when I’d zip onto it (halfway the distance that you now have to drive to get on the freeway from Pac Heights) and be on the bridge in 2 minutes. I had an elevated freeway as much as anyone else, but sometimes you just have to work WITH IT (a dogpark underneath?). As for parking, take 3 or 4 25′ wide blocks in Hayes Valley and build a 3 story parking garage in scale with the surrounding Victorians. Sell monthly parking permits to residents only. Design it’s facade to be a cool statement. Done! Don Fisher has parking, the neighborhood keeps its scale and character, hundreds of cars are off the street, making the streetscape even better. Nuff said.
Morgan,
HSR is not dead, a budget has yet to even be passed. Regardless, the money for the terminal would come from a variety of places, one of which would be a ballot initiative for HSR, possibly in 2008. The funding in the budget this year has nothing to do with the Transbay Transit Center.
rg,
If you genuinely believe that adding a parking garage “takes cars off the street”, please take a course on “induced demand” from a good traffic planner.
Octavia is two lanes in each direction, plus the outside lanes – making it six total – that was what I was talking about – I didn’t want the outside lanes anymore than you. And please, if you think that I’m an obstructionist, you really need to go to some planning meetings here. We have too much democracy here – I think it was Morgan before that compared Daley in Chicago to a mini-dictator. I do wish that we could have something like that here – then something could actually get done.
re: funding for the Transbay Transit Center, from http://www.transbaycenter.org
“How much will this project cost?
The project’s capital cost is estimated at $3.4 billion, escalated to the year of expenditure (YOE). It is funded by local, regional, state and federal funds. The first phase, which completes the above-ground portion of the Transit Center building, is funded at $983 million (YOE).”
So, they have the bucks in the bank for the building the termporary terminal, demolishing the existing terminal, and building a new terminal (well, the projected costs at least).
I’d say they’re counting on some big time bucks from the condos going up, up, and away (last I heard was a desire to make the main Transit Tower 1400 feet tall instead of 550 feet tall) and the various fees they will be entitled to via that development.
I should add that the second phase ($2.4 billion or so chunk) is to connect CalTrain from 4th and King over to the new Transbay Transit Terminal.
They’re building the tunnels in for a high speed rail … whether or not California ever gets a high speed rail that comes into San Francisco’s downtown is up in the air and a good example of why term limits on legislators is a horrendously myopic idea. When you have a huge project like high speed rail, you really need some champions for that project who will be there over the years … not revolving door, in and out. The big test will be November 2008 when the first $10 billion bond for high speed rail is up for a simple majority vote.
You’re correct Jamie, on all counts.