Speaking of mega-yachts, from the Business Times with respect to Pier 38:
The Port of San Francisco is evicting a cluster of technology companies and a venture capital firm from Pier 38 after wrestling control of the property from a man the city contended leased space to subtenants without authorization.
Tenants, including popular WordPress blogging maker Automattic Inc., the Dogpatch Labs technology incubator run by Massachussetts-based Polaris Venture Partners, 99 Designs and others, have been given until Sept. 30 to vacate the premises, which are located just north of the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark and the Caltrain station.
The eviction notices delivered Tuesday afternoon follow the Port’s recent victory in its lawsuit to regain control of the decaying Pier from Carl Ernst and his Pier 38 Maritime Recreation Center Inc., with whom the Port has sparred repeatedly over a more than 15 year period.
Ernst claims Port officials have purposely frustrated his attempts to develop Pier 38 because they want to steal his vision for developing the property into a home for mega-yachts.
Port spokeswoman Renée Dunn said this week’s evictions were prompted by safety concerns regarding Pier 38 that were identified by the city Fire Marshal and outside experts.
From Automattic’s CEO: “There might be perfectly good reasons why they’re doing this, but because they are not talking about it, there’s all kinds of conspiracy theories forming that they just want to give the pier to Larry Ellison for his America’s Cup thing.”
It could be even juicier if one of the tech companies had a product that was competing with Oracle…
^^^ Except that startups don’t compete with behemoths like Oracle. Rather they provide fodder for acquisition.
The article doesn’t event mention they are evicted because of the building is red tagged. I don’t know the detail of this process. But if there is safety concern it seems a good judgment to close it down. There is no need to invoke any Ellison conspiracy theory.
My guess, with the Brannan Street pier to be demolished next door (you can see it in the photo), that leaves a clear unobstructed view from Pier 38 to 30/32, where the AC boats will be parked. Probably the Pier 38 owner is dreaming up upgrading the pier and leasing out space to AC specific businesses – maybe shops, restaurants, etc, to get a cut of the 200K people per day who are supposedly going to be in SF watching the races.
wasn’t this leased (at extremely low rents for 36 years) to a company affiliated with the nephew of Frank Jordan ( who was the mayor when the lease was awarded) Answer YES http://www.sfweekly.com/2002-11-20/news/griftin-on-the-dock-of-the-bay/
Carl has been fighting with the port for years. He got a sweetheart deal to lease the pier and was supposed to make major repairs as a trade of cheap rent. He ran out of money and didn’t make the necessary repairs. He had dreams of constructing a mega-yacht facility. The port has been attempting to evict him ever since the deal went south.
Now that AC34 is coming to town the port sees an opportunity to get better rents for the pier as the location is next to pier’s 30-32 and that is where the teams will have their pits in 2013.
The code violations is a ruse. If they wanted to evict they could have done it years ago.
It’s a no brainer ……Ellison or no Ellison
It’s all about $$$$$$$$$$
Port’s response here, including the alleged violations in a linked PDF. The way that ship is moored on the end of the pier looks a bit scary.
http://www.sfport.com/index.aspx?page=1497&recordid=65&returnURL=%2findex.aspx