The newly formed Mission Bay Alliance, a nonprofit funded by an anonymous group of individuals who have been described as “big-bucks donors to UCSF,” has been organizing to block the Golden State Warriors’ plans for a Mission Bay Arena.
Concerned about the impact of traffic and congestion from the proposed arena project – which includes two office buildings and parking for 950 cars – on the new UCSF Medical Center across the street, the Alliance is positioning to mount a legal challenge of the development’s forthcoming Environmental Impact Report and potentially pursue a ballot measure to either block or downsize the project.
According to Mayor Ed Lee’s press secretary by way of the Chronicle, the Warriors’ arena “has broad support across the city and in the Mission Bay neighborhood, including from UCSF.” That being said, the Warriors’ Pier 30-32 plans were thwarted despite “broad support across the city” and the Mayor declaring it his legacy project as well.
What a bunch of idiots.
MAYBE WE CAN NOW MOVE IT BACK TO PIERS 30-32 — WHICH IS WHAT ANY WELL-MANAGED CITY WITH A SANE ELECTORATE WOULD DO.
G*****N THESE IDIOTS.
please release the caps lock and step away from the keyboard.
For better or worse, we live in a democracy. “Idiots” can influence outcomes if they choose to do so.
As the old saying goes, in a democracy you get the government you deserve. More persuasion, less name-calling.
NIMBYs are actively hurting the city for the majority of residents. Therefore, they are idiots (to say the least), from my point of view as one of those residents. I want an arena, I want more housing, I want better public transit, and I’m far from alone in wanting those things. Meanwhile, NIMBYs constantly do everything in their power to block this stuff, and half the time they have the nerve to pretend it’s for the greater good
Here we go again.
There’s actually an easy way to stop the NIMBYs: Vote for a different Board of Supervisors. Donate to candidates who won’t be NIMBYs.
Or keep complaining on internet chat boards.
Uggh.
Instead of blocking the project, they could advocate FOR improved transit & traffic management. If that’s what they’re concerned about.
That is a good test of whether this org’s stated mission is what they really intend to accomplish. Define what you want and look at the options that would accomplish that goal. Don’t prescribe a solution immediately.
The Warriors and the City and UCSF have already worked out extensive transit and traffic management plans, at no small cost to the Warriors. A summary of these agreements are already easily searchable and accessible to the public and has been the focus of a good 6 months of community meetings. I don’t think the lack of a plan is the legitimate issue: instead, it seems to be just one of those easy reasons to oppose the project.
[Editor’s Note: Warriors’ Plan For Managing New Arena Traffic In Mission Bay.]
Ha! The “plan” is for 55% of people to arrive by car.
that’s right: sort of. The Plan is to induce transit ridership and reduce driving, but they needed to be pragmatic and plan for a “worst-case scenario” as required by CEQA. This means ensuring adequate alternatives are in place, can be operated and have the capacity. When you read their plan, you’ll note they could not assume ferry service from 16th Street, although that’s a plan now underway…or that Caltrain nearby will increase its service above today’s after electrification in 2020. They couldn’t assume either because they’re not yet environmentally cleared or schedule-certain.
For comparison’s sake, ferries carry about 20% of all the transit riders for the Giants, and AT&T Park is twice the crowd the Warriors need to handle. And Caltrain runs an extra train for Giants games…again, both of these possibilities not permitted by CEQA to be assumed here.
+1
spend their money on studies for improved transit service, not litigation and fighting.
hey the city is investing heavily in buses and bike lanes. im sure that’ll take care of all the problems. LOL.
. the sfMTA is a joke and needs to be completely overhauled with transit engineering professionals and visionaries. its such a joke for these to be the solutions in a high tech extremely wealthy city
Dat grammar.
Visionaries? ST is the last place that would allow for that! Any slightly exciting (or boring) project is derailed by the NIMBYs.
No. That sounds like a good idea. They can’t do that.
An NBA size arena across the street from a major hospital creates real traffic and noise concerns. I hope these issues can be worked out.
Actually, a large hospital across from an arena and near housing creates all sorts of traffic problems, congestion, ambulance noise and other nuisances.
Would be much better to have 3,000 housing units on this site, with dispersed arrival and departure times. Of course, a sports arena is not even remotely comparable (i.e. it’s orders of magnitude worse) in traffic generation to a hospital, which also has dispersed arrivals and departures.
Thankfully the Warriors play at 7:30 PST
There are17 other arenas around the country within a few blocks of a hospital, including in major cities like Atlanta, Brooklyn and Chicago that seem to co-exist with out any problems. This issue in a red herring.
A bunch of rich people have basically decided that SF isn’t allowed to have an arena…what the hell. I’m pretty sure most SF residents would like having the arena, but we all know how few people vote, and what happened last time.
What is UCSF Medical Center’s position on this issue?
Do they have one? Or would their position be the same as whatever the big bucks donors say? Are those medical offices and hospital busy and packed now? If so, why does UCSF keep sending me mailers about their services when my hospital is CPMC?
The article says that UCSF won’t oppose it as long as they get an air rights easement so their views aren’t blocked. I kid you not.
No, you misread the article. According to M&R, UCSF claims they already have “an enforceable and binding view easement” over a portion of the arena site protecting the hospital’s views. And in a February letter to the Warriors and Mayor Lee, UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood “hinted” they would use it to stop the project unless “certain reasonable conditions” were met.
May I add that one of the biggest donors to UCSF is Marc Benioff, who is in fact the man who sold the land to the Warriors in the first place? I would highly doubt Mr. Benioff would be a part of this group and if there was complaints he would have a lot of influence. Would Benioff sell the land to the Warriors only to in turn join the group that wants to oppose it?? This all sounds shady to me.
Why are these big buck donors allowed to be anonymous? I want names. They are obstructionists and nothing more.
It would be awesome if it could go back to original design and back to pier 30. That location was so much better for managing the influx with much better access to public transit
Amen. The original design and location were truly memorable and about as accessible as you could possibly get. I find it hard to care whether the new location succeeds — even the current Oakland location has a BART stop. And this design, while fine, is not even close to the class of what had been proposed for pier 30.
@Moto, I’ll agree with better access to public transit, but I’m doubtful about managing the influx, especially if 2nd street is turned into a two lane, traffic calmed street. The traffic spillover is going to be big and I believe effect traffic for surrounding blocks, including 30/32.
Not that there’s going to be any move back to 30/32. Just don’t see it happening.
i know it wont happen, butit was definitely a better location for transportation.
the 2nd street plan is idiotic and going to cause mass congestion whether or not there is a stadium.
Never gonna happen with the 5+ years of Federal review for the pier location. I’m betting the pier ultimately is torn down because it will be too expensive to build there and involve way too much red tape.
The way the warriors are playing, what morons will want to keep them out of the city
This year, anyhow.
I’m with Moto mayhem, actually. First site was far better, transit-wise. BCDC would kill it though. Oakland must be happy with this wrinkle.
i’m getting really sick of this s***. we really need to overhaul the approval process and the weight that these neighborhood groups have. this is insane. leave it to the planners people.
Agreed. San Francisco is continuing its horrible record of not getting stuff done. Can’t building new housing, can’t build bus rapid transit, can’t build tall buildings, can’t build an arena.
These neighborhood groups? You mean a group of wealthy UCSF supporters across neighborhood?
on a side note, that first image is the most attractive rendering of the arena that I’ve yet seen.
[Editor’s Note: Warriors Arena Redesigned, Rendered And Revealed!]
Keep the Dubs in Oakland!!!
BS, I’ve lived in Dogpatch for 20 years (one block from the hospital) and the impact of the hospital has been minor. The bigger deal is ATT Park and this stadium if it goes through. Stadiums like these attract rowdy, loud and sometimes drunk bridge and tunnel fans. If I were the hospital I’d be concerned about attracting more of these louts to the neighborhood.
So according you, all warriors fans are “bridge and tunnel” folks, and are all “louts”…and SF has no warriors fans, or at least none that are “louts”? Interesting alternate reality you live in.
i personallythink they should stop selling alcohol at sports events. it does creat problems as is not necessary to enjoy the event
I agree with you. This never made any sense and seemed like a deal between a few guys (“Hey, I’ve got some land over here, come stick something huge in it, please”) that was shoved down our throats but is completely ill suited for the location or the neighborhood more generally. And 200 events a year means the whole neighborhood becomes like Universal City Walk in LA. Mission Bay already has the weirdest mix of pretty much any of its Gattaca-class sisters that I’ve seen (and I’ve seen lots, from Copenhagen to Century City to Amsterdam Docks, etc.
Beware – you will be made fun of as some kind of wuss or called a bigot re: any comment you make about sports fans who are not well behaved, urinate and mess up your quiet. I feel for you, but this freight train probably can’t be stopped. I’d never live anywhere near an arena.
Sounds like the city is already being rotted, from the inside..
How about the fans who don’t cross a Bridge and which tunnel are you referring to?
Presumably the BART tunnel, which gets you to within a half-hour commute from this site.
i can walk there from BART in under a half hour, and I am a slow walker
A “slow walker”? You’re at least 25% faster than google maps thinks people are. 40 minutes is what you get there.
The Bay Bridge has a tunnel in the middle. It’s a twofer.
It’s ironic one of UCSF’s largest benefactors sold The Warriors the property, Benioff. Now “big-bucks donors” are pissed about it. These people have more dollars than sense. Just build it!
Ridiculous, who do they think they are?
UCSF just build a sprawling facility, including parking garages, in a “planned” area. Was there a lot of resistance to that? With the amount of planning and controls that went into the Mission Bay development (that resulted in this urban office park), you’d think allowing a arena was either in or out of scope. If its in scope, then move the frigging thing forward.
It’s time to reexamine the usage, or misuse, of Environmental Impact Reports.
In this case which side is misusing? EIRs are whatever we want them to be. There is little prescribed in them
Build it, it fits in perfectly with the other large commercial and residential mid rise buildings. With all the drunk crazy fans the hospital’s customer base should increase nicely. seems like a win win
Sounds about right. I had my wisdom teeth taken out last year at UCSF Dental School (Faculty Practice.) They were going to expand their practice group. Great, I thought! It turned out they were doing it in anticipation of the Medicaid crowd.
Love it. If nothing else, it points to the absence of a credible functional transit system. The nonsense on 3rd street will never support burgeoning DogPatch, Indian Basin, Bayview and beyond. Anyone home? Underground 3rd, 16th, x-bay and on.
That would be a pretty low priority for a subway in SF
But imagine how easy and cheap it would have been to build it fifteen years ago.
“We” were busy gearing up for the Neocons’ PNAC which has now surpassed $ Trillion.
Ah, that good old “peace dividend” continues to provide…
Back to my constant mantra, move the arena up to Giants parking lot A, what the Giants are proposing there is more of the boring office/residential typical of Mission Bay so far.
The Giants and Warriors need to start talking about a great sports/entertainment complex (Like LA Live/Staples Center) Moving the arena up across McCovey Cove would make for great views from the inevitable blimp shots, but much more importantly, there is an already demonstrated transportation system in place….Caltrain, ferry boat landing, muni, off ramp to I280….
Any concerns about both Giants and Warriors games overlapping could be worked out between the organizations.
lol at muni being a “demonstrated transportation system” for AT&T.
as part of a demonstrated transportation system, not the whole system…
usually when i am down there, it is great to see all the orange and black walking down the Embarcadero and 2nd street on their way to the Giants game, everyone looks festive. I’m sure many of these folks were on muni, not sure how many of them paid $50 to park in one of the lots on Townsend or Brannan and around the stadium.
This new development certainly appears to possibly pose a serious threat to the Warriors’ Plan B. The Lot A alternative seems a natural fall back and needs consideration. In that case, I would definitely prefer that the Salesforce property be repurposed for housing and not be “landbanked” for future UCSF expansion as is the opposition’s actual ulterior motivation.
Of course, one potential problem with Lot A (Port property) is that it would have to prevail in a ballot measure (assuming Prop B survives the legal challenge). However, given the prevailing mood, that may prove less daunting than this opposition.
Sigh
Big Bucks want all the toys.
Everyone always thinks we should build just until they have theirs and then NO MORE…..
I smell favoritism. If they want to try and block this…they should not allowed to be anonymous…. Come into the light and make yourselves known….cowards….
this is exactly the same stupidity we heard then the Giant’s ballpark was proposed. guess that didn’t work out too well, did it.
chicken littles said the sky would fall because in CA 100% of people drive to events. Ferry Bld and Westfield malls were to fail too
For the 10 months that make up a basketball season (8 of which are playoffs), traffic is going to suck. Especially when there’s overlap with the Giants. If the Niners can move to Santa Clara and still be called SF, why couldn’t they build the arena near a bart stop in Daly City? Or at the Tanforan Mall? Blimps are just going to shoot shots of downtown and the bridges anyway. Doesn’t matter.
I never thought I would trust somebody less than Slick Willy, but I don’t believe anything Ed Lee says.
Because arenas are for much more than basketball. It will be used for large conferences, concerts and many other events. Nobody wants to go to Tanforan mall or next to Daly City Bart (where incidentally there are adjacent neighborhoods of SFHs)
This is in no way similar to a football stadium
Completely asinine.
I wonder if these same USCF donors were among the group that opposed the original plan to build on Piers 30-32. Makes no sense to me…if not Piers 30-32 or this site, WHERE? And if the goal is to prevent it from coming to SF at all, is this town really all about “money talks”?
If there is this much money from folks to constantly block new housing or amenities, and yet there is a constant clamor that SF public transit is dismally over-capacity, inefficient, and doesn’t go where it needs, then why can’t these people be true community benefactors and improve our transit?
Something in me tells me that Benioff is not part of this crew. He’s actually been very active in trying to make SF a better place, give himself a legacy name, and he’s a local booster, actually willing to pay top dollar SF rents to expand his company IN the city and anchor some of these new buildings going up. No, these UCSF donors are probably part of the older class of people (ironically, probably the same donors that keep the Symphony and Opera going whereas the newer tech crowd is not).
At the end of the day, too many people are allowed too much of a voice in this town. Doesn’t matter if it’s the folks in the Mission, a homeless lady in SOMA, the Telegraph Hill Dwellers or the Friends of the Hill or these “UCSF donors” or former mayors like Agnos. This is a California problem highly exacerbated in San Francisco by even worse local policy.
The next mayor’s mission should be to devote all energy to checking these policies at the door to the extent they need to.
*Everyone* has too much power at the same time – that includes a range from the homeless to the SFMTA to the Planning Commission to the Supervisors to rich people to minority groups to neighborhood groups to sports teams. Too many loud voices all shouting with little to no singular leadership. Pretty pathetic for a major “world-class” city.
of course Benioff is not part of this
Benioff is going to be too busy with the sale of Salesforce to worry about the Warrior’s Arena
he sold them the land
Yes, but it now appears he may be selling the company as well. I guess we will see…
To who? And why?
Good question. Bloomberg hinted it might be SAP, MSFT or Oracle. In any event Salesforce hired bankers to field takeover offers and their stock skyrocketed today. It should be interesting.
Salesforce stock went up $7 today on rumors it was a takeover target of Microsoft or Oracle. Heard Benioff and Ellison do not like each other though.
It is interesting to see big buck donors’ effect at a hospital. I was at the CPMC cardiology dept. on Buchannan St. and was told I missed seeing and meeting the benefactor of the dept. (Maurice Kanbar, owner of Skyy Vodka) by a day. I would have thanked him for the moving quotes inscribed on the walls. I was in a hurry so I didn’t get a chance to see the accompanying light show.
Yes, exactly. Perhaps it’s one the SINGLE biggest problems in San Francisco with regards to enacting change and solving urban problems: TOO MANY VOICES entering the discussion, and our SOCIAL CULTURE wanting to please everyone and offend no one.
It doesn’t work.
While I don’t have any objections to waterfront development I think this is a horrible location for an arena. I’d rather have the Warriors be a part of Coliseum City.
Agree completely. This location is inconvenient for anyone not already MB, dogpatch, and maybe BV. Even from my office in FiDi, it would be a horrible slog to get to. And with apparently no plans for ferry service, it’s basically inaccessible (in under an hour) from the East Bay.
The original proposed pier location, OTOH, would have been amazing.
MOVE IT BACK TO PIERS 30-32!
G*****N THESE IDIOTS.
Excellent news for Oakland.
The paper said they had concerns about ambulance access to the hospital. That’s a reasonable concern. They also sent letters with these concerns in February and it seems they did not get a satisfactory response.
My impression, having been around for the Giants stadium campaign, is that the Giants did a vastly better job planning transit for the arena and that was a big part of their success in getting the project through.
Not so here. For example I had assumed that there would be ferries from the East Bay to the games, because that seems like a no brainer. Tons of East Bay fans will want to come. I even told a Warriors fan in Oakland who was worried about about game access that of course there would be a ferry. But there isn’t one in the plans! That’s kind of amazingly clueless. I can see why they ended up getting sued.
I live nearby and love the idea of having the arena there. Objectively, however, I think the original location was much better for fans traveling from the East Bay and better accessible by public transportation generally.
It’s the SFMTA that screws everything up on game day, and there simply aren’t enough N and T trains running (even with the increased capacity) to accommodate fans traveling to AT&T park for evening games, as there will not be for Warriors games. That’s the disappointing part, our subpar public transport system. It seems that an underground walkway or pedestrian bridge at 3rd and King combined with normal traffic patterns, unaltered by SFMTA, would go a long way to alleviating traffic congestion.
This is a frustrating city to live in sometimes.
This is a VERY frustrating city to live in. The people can get to you, and the city itself and those who run it can get to you. Again, too much noise. Too many opinions. Too many people running the show. We need to elect leaders and allow them to do their job or get voted out.
I get that everyone wants a voice and a chance to make themselves heard/potentially make their little mark on every little thing that gets proposed or maybe even built if it ever gets to that point, but look, nothing ever happens in this damn town! And we sit around and over analyze all of these affordability crises. We are the collective smartest people in the world and we can’t get shit done because we’re all being too smart and opinionated. At the end of the day, that makes us the dumbest people in the world.
The stadium is a 6-hour footprint, wouldn’t it be better to include a mix of uses including residential at this spot, maybe with biomed to compliment what the Mission Bay area was suppose to be?
Outrageous selfish behavior…forget public good!!!
NIMBYs deserve to reap all the bad karma that they sow!!!
From an article in today’s SF Business Times: ‘Marc Benioff, when asked about the Mission Bay Alliance and opposition to the arena plans, said “it’s the first I’ve heard about it.”‘
According to the Business Times there is a (more important) sub-reason: they want MORE land to expand on
If only we had an underutilized, largely empty, former industrial area near downtown to develop with dense housing and large facilities that won’t fit other places. We could even put in transit to meet future demand!
How about putting a giant barge in the middle of the bay (like the google barge) for the Warriors to play and fans from both sides of the bay can just watch on big t.v. screens on the waterfront while this mess winds its way through the courts and ballot box?
We really lurch from one crisis to another. Safe to say high speed rail will not happen before all California dies of thirst from drought.
What say we move it out to where the old Sutro Baths are?
Since they seem to be placing a premium on inconvenience already, you might propose that to someone at the organization.
How many of you pro-development types ( im one too) who are all wound up about this arena maybe being challenged again could name the roster of the warriors ( without looking it up). starting 5? I didnt think so.
it doesn’t really make that much diff to sf residents. Look up their fan base demos. we already have enough “spending” here. I thought MB was a good move from the disaster idea of 30-32, but looking at this rendering I dont think it makes much sense opposite a hospital (actually makes a difference in peoples lives).
Its just not that big an issue for me and i dont thing its that big a “win” for the city. I give it a 50/50 getting approved. They probably underestimated the opposition here being naive, angry, and pacified by the City.
We got bigger issues to address.
wrong, it was proven quite popular in polls last year. I can name the starting five easily: curry klay barnes draymond bogut. Many could. But that’s not the point. The point is that the arena in Mission Bay, and the W’s to SF, both are popular with SF voters. Where do you get your concept of it not being a popular notion?
I despise basketball… and I’m 100% behind the arena. Wanting logical and beneficial development has nothing to do with whether one is actually a fan of the sport in question.
Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Bogut, Harrison Barnes, & Draymond Green. Not that it effing matters as to whether an arena should be built or not.
Giants traffic and rush hour is hell already. The Warriors currently have no convincing traffic plans. The police station on Third and China Basin can’t even get out/through traffic on game days. The Warriors have presented nothing that would alleviate the traffic concerns. The stadium would only contribute to and worsen an already awful traffic problem.
I think we can all agree that this isn’t the best location. Had Piers 30-32 not been so expensive to repair and the city willing to commit more than just the land, that would have made a more impactful, more efficient, and just all around better location.
But we cannot have nice things in this town, or “Option A’s”. It always goes to Option C or D.
At the end of the day, it is not 100% up to the Warriors to figure out big city traffic/transit fixes for big city growth/amenities. It is not up to the Warriors to give in to every single demand from every single person in this town with a voice if they legally buy land, and within law/zoning design, entitle, and build their project.
However, the Warriors are doing what they can do to alleviate traffic concerns and put up something nice for that area, an area that was an Option B or C for them (and there are NO remaining options I should point out).
We should not be yelling at the Warriors. We should be wielding pitch forks at City Hall for getting us to this point (and Sacramento for the assist). San Francisco and the entire Bay Area is killing the hand that feeds it. We will all whither on a figurative vine with the huge homeless encampment we already strive so hard to attract and keep (and then hypocritically complain about once it’s our own door stoop with crap on it) if we chase out the industries that ultimately allow us to have the nice things we do have, and those we want (it was mainly finance/industry before, now tech…either way, these industries make people money and that money does come back to the community in some form…whether it’s affordable or low-income housing at $500-700K a friggin door or this arena or the SFMOMA expansion or rehabbed piers/waterfront, etc).
Speaking of hospitals…does anyone recall the insane debacle that was CPMC’s request to build their new hospital they are finally building on Van Ness? It’s hard not to fume reading Business Times articles, sometimes. The NIMBYs and activists even went after a much needed hospital and forced their hand to a really really twisted spot. In the name of protection and equality and economic justice and “good of the community”, NOBODY at the end of the day is protected in this town from irrationality. And that’s the ultimate irony and frustration (and hypocrisy).
UCSF wants to expand more at Mission Bay instead of “continued sprawl”, according to a Business Times article. Well then, why does UCSF keep putting up suburbany 5-6 story buildings with tons of open space?
Have they not been to Cambridge, MA? Or is that a City of SF screw up once again with under-zoning? UCSF and the City of SF had every opportunity available for years to build up lab space in a tighter configuration, such as around Kendall Square in Cambridge. The City always has ample opportunity to get serious about transit, and to get serious quicker by eliminating some bureaucratic processes.
Instead, we have a taste of the Peninsula/Baymeadows/South SF/Oyster Point right in San Francisco with what’s been built at UCSF’s campus and by groups like Alexandria Equities (who I might point out has apparently seen more money from chasing tech users like Uber for new developments and Stripe, as was announced today for 510 Townsend, than their traditional biotech tenants).
Again, “it’s just not fair” is an argument that is not going to cut it. S**t or get off the pot.
@phil, that’s roughly the same percentage the Warriors presented when they wanted to build on Pier 30/32. It was modeled on the Giants plan when they built their park – roughly 50% arriving by auto.
But obviously far more people will drive to this location than to a Pier location that was right by BART, multiple actual muni lines (not a part-time 1-car, above-ground tram), multiple bus lines, and multiple ferries.
jsimms3 good points.
esp re the Citys role escalating the cost of production of housing both affordable and market rate. I think thats a different issue from Warriors stadium, and it also a much larger issue.
My question is why does this arena NEED to be here in SF? Whats wrong with OAK? other bay area?
Yeah, the City had a huge role in luring them here, and if someone should have Known better it is mostly them. but there is a long history of the city of SF over setting expectations and then developers, usually outsiders, falling in.
remember other failures : 8 wash? Pier 39 bernstein and betts? SF Giants office mall ( oops…not yet) 5M (looming). First and Mission / David Choo? SF49ers? ……….
This is a weak government city. Its not NYC etc., despite what progressives believe , $$$ does not always prevail, will never be a Bloomberg here. could not happen.
My question is why does this arena NEED to be here in SF?
Exactly.
because most people want it in SF. It will be a big cultural boon for the city
Why does it need to be in SF? Because people want it to be. Your question is no different than asking why anything needs to be in SF.
Nearly 1,000 parking stalls for year-round events is too much freakin’ traffic just about every single day of the year, not to mention crowd control and trash and vandalism and noise and on and on and on. I just can’t see this location as better than the pier, with the hospital and the police station needing quick access to their respective buildings. On game/event days, that would just be impossible. I hope the blockage of the stadium is successful. Goooo Mission Bay Alliance!
Its not a stadium, its an arena, traffic will not be as bad as you claim, and I hope it gets built. SF is a big city anyways, not a quaint suburban town, deal with it. This anonymous “alliance” is trying to kill a good thing for all of us.
I think there is pretty much 100% agreement that this location is much worse than the pier — hence the pier being the first option. I agree this option shouldn’t even have been #2 though. Jack London Square in Oakland would be far more transit-accessible than this.
I’ve worked on Third Street, one block up from AT&T Park for the last 15 years and the traffic really isn’t that disruptive to commuters. The day games clear out before the 5:00 rush hour starts and the night games usually start at 7:30 so outgoing traffic isn’t affected too much. There is a bit of a clusterf#8k in front of the Caltrain station with people who have seemingly never before encountered a don’t walk sign dashing across the highway, but beyond that it works pretty well.
If this new facility holds less than AT&T Park I don’t see the cause for alarm. And is there really going to be 200 events a year here? Where did this figure come from?
[Editor’s Note: Warriors Projecting Over 200 Events Per Year In Mission Bay.]
The nice thing about AT&T Park is that it’s walkable from BART, FiDi, and the temporary transbay bus terminal (in addition to Caltrain). This site is further out — a 40 minute walk from Embarcadero BART. So there will be more people driving/ubering as a percentage of the audience. My dislike for this location is not traffic, per se, but general inconvenience unless you happen to live/work in MB/Dogpatch.
The 3rd st T-Line stops directly in front of the proposed site: more like a 30 second walk.
Oh, right — I forgot that a one-car above-ground tram is the same thing as BART. Good luck getting on one of those on game day, particularly the first one that gets to the station once you arrive; even better luck when there are simultaneous Giants games and events at this arena.
Something tells me it just might occur to the powers that be to add a few cars to the T-line on game day, and yes, if you’re coming via BART, you might have to take an escalator to a different level in order to transfer (8^0).
…I live in Dogpatch and take the T almost every day to the FiDi. I find it to be super fast and convenient.
I believe plans call for an extension of the platform outside the arena and the addition of several cars for games and events.
I don’t think the station platform supports more cars.
Have you tried to ride the T-line to or from a Giants game? Impossible without a huge wait. The fact that there is a platform close to Embarcadero BART is a non sequitur and irrelevant if you can’t get on the tram without waiting for several to pass.
Why are you trying to pretend like a 1-car above-ground tram line is sufficient transit for this application? Just be up-front: you like it because it’s walking distance from where you live and you don’t care that it’s a pretty inconvenient location for others in the city (much less in the East Bay) generally.
shza, they plan to extend the platform to accommodate two-car trains and use the new trains with a ~200 passenger/car capacity. The plan also calls for queuing 10 of these 2-car trains to serve the after event load. They are also going to allocate extra buses. If you do the math on their projected arrival rates and capacity, then MUNI is planning to clear the ‘transit’ portion in about an hour after a sold out event, which is fairly typical for stadium/arena planning.
Whether MUNI will actually achieve those numbers, and how much the diversion of resources impairs other routes, ……
Thanks, Jake — helpful, as always. That plan seems better than expected though I also question the practice vs. ideal. I also still can’t believe they’re not planning on ferry service, which seems like a no-brainer for that location.
A new Mission Bay ferry terminal at 16th St has been on the list of SF transportation projects for years. Cost estimated at $75M, rated a middle-low tier project, unfunded (namelink).
To be honest and up-front, I am ambivalent about having a sports arena in my neighborhood; I just don’t see why it’s such an inconvenient location when it is well within the city limits, has direct access to light rail, bus and Caltrain, is adjacent to the 280 and is very close to the Bay Bridge. Alternatively, I could be a “g******n NIMBY” and “DIAF”.
Muni can reduce some pain relatively cheaply (I think) and almost immediately. There would be some construction, but it would be not much, and from my perspective, relatively simple (cheap and quick). The idea is:
– Make any Muni line serving 3rd street 2 cars 24x7x365. It needs this anyway with growth along the line.
– With the T line running up 4th street, the plan is for the K line to terminate at the Embarcadero station. No. Have in continue down the Embarcadero with the N and then down 3rd street. A second line serving the area.
– Dump the E line idea of using historic cars. Use the two-car trains in use today. I attended a Muni meeting once where they investigated not terminating the E line at CalTrain, but having it continue down 3rd to a turn-around near 16th. Do this instead. The turn-around needs to be built. A third line serving the area and arena.
– Build out a simple CalTrain temporary stop at 16th (just south of the crossing). An asphalt-only, like I see in Atherton should work just fine.
To me, pretty straight-forward; three Muni lines serving the vicinity (T, K, E) and a Caltrain stop for event days a few blocks away. The T, K, and E would also get people to/from different geographic areas of the city (with the goal being to reduce even more auto traffic). The three lines would also connect with BART (although the E riders would have to walk over to the Embarcadero station). And the E, from that stop is just across the Embarcadero from the Ferry Building for easy access to Ferries.
The loop and turn-around for the T line is already in the works.
Ermagahd!!! People are going to want to come into San Francisco?!?!!? What are we ever going to do??????
Effing build facilities (housing, offices, sporting complexes, retail) to accommodate them, that’s what. Like a real effing city.
Every single NIMBY in this City can just go DIAF. We won’t miss a single one of you.
Folks what this is really all about is that the UCSF/Mission Bay/biomedical R & D function needs this land for the fastly growing medical research business they are in. They were plenty unhappy when Salesforce bought the property (and not because of the red herrings of views or traffic or noise) and they are plenty unhappy about the arena.
The plan for MB was biotech, and it has been successful beyond anyone’s expectations. The MB Plan of course did not include the hospital (but as the NIMBYs around UCSF Parnassus) killed any expansion there, a new hospital at Mission Bay made sense. But it does eat up a bunch of land planned for biotech R & D. Remember, UCSF was about to move to the East Bay when Willie Brown induced Catellus to give them the 40 acres for the campus. The surrounding uses were all to be symbiotic.
Thank you for steering this discussion in the correct direction. In view of the further information which has come to light, can we not agree that this has nothing to do with NIMBYism? Though the initial reaction to this totally unexpected development is completely understandable.
biotech has been an abysmal failure in MB. so much more was expected
no it hasn’t been
Traffic plans and secured parking lots, and parking spaces aside at Pier 70/Private lots, traffic is going to be a headache on game nights. With Third Street narrowed for the T-Line and the increasing number of restaurants and attractions through dogpatch all it will take is a few idiots double parking to slow flow down immensely. Many people still do not know the area or how to maneuver side streets and will stick to Mariposa/ 16th/3rd/4th which will lead to a lot of congestion ultimately.
The T consistently has problems with anyone trying to board it up until the King/4th street stop as for many people it is the most direct means to the Cal-Train station, and many a time i have been waiting for the T at the embarcadero station only to see it impossible to board. On game nights unless SFMTA has plans for a heavier saturation or longer cars even the T will be an unlikely option as business crowds and fans will surely overlap.
With all of that said I STILL do not object to the location of the arena. This is the reality of having a venue of this sort in an urban area, that was not originally master planned as a “freeway/subway city”, and that people demand be conveniently close to other nightlife and attractions. AT&T Park when it was built was essentially surrounded by nothing (barren Mission Bay, Homeless, and Water), and a neighborhood was built up around it, as with most of the Downtown stadiums and venues you now see throughout the country. If the idea was to build in an area solely about accessibility then the stadium should have been built out near Candlestick/Shipyards where at least there was open space, freeway accessibility, and where mass transit could have been expanded much more easily where once again a neighborhood would be built around it (and was already planned). Alas the desire was for an arena to be built in proximity to where there was a built in populace with disposable income, and to capitalize upon a lack of attractions for that stretch of mission bay similar to the plaza Salesforce had once proposed. Thus traffic and congestion is simply going to be a headache that exists, because for all the complaints of mass transit and accessibility the only remaining open land in SF is Bayview and Visitacion Valley, and as a resident of Bayview i know for a fact that the majority of SF would not support a ballot measure or rate increase to cover the cost of an underground subway through mission bay out through the Bayview, at least not until the area is fully developed and gentrified.
Hooray! Real opposition to the Warriors stadium. I live in dogpatch and commute to the Embarcadero past the proposed Warriors site. There is no way that stadium isn’t going to totally suck for the hundreds of locals moving through the area daily.
Warriors games, like Giants games, don’t get under way until after the evening commute has wound down. In any event, you live in major metropolitan city. These are issues most urban residents just shrug off as part of living in a city.
The evening commute certainly hasn’t wound down by 7 (or earlier), when people will be heading to 7:30 games. That said, agree with the rest of your comment.
Four years ago when Salesforce was proposing virtually the same kind of development, aside from a stadium but complete with venues to induce crowds, the only comments were about the blandness of architectural details. This was during a time when dogpatch was just beginning to round the corner of development, with very few shovels in the ground including UCSF. But now suddenly its the NIMBY approach it seems by people who themselves are new to the area and/or presumed that development was supposed to stop as soon as they became residents? Yes, 3rd Street used to be a very quick thoroughfare right into downtown or to the Embarcadero, and it has slowed significantly and will likely slow much more regardless of the stadium, as Pier 70 developments will ultimately add a significant vehicle load as well as ongoing Mission Bay projects. But the kicker is…there are alternate routes! there’s even the amazing ability to plan around traffic. The 3rd street bridge isnt the only connector, and if it is the slower route, can always take another route, via the UCSF campus, 16th St., 4th St., or 7th St.
The trend of people coming back to the urban core of Cities is definitely upon us, but somewhere in that reverse migration is this demand of desired population density mixed with suburban traffic planning…I just don’t get it. SFMTA is a mess and the Dept of Planning certainly has not accounted for the failings of SFMTA, but an infrastructure overhaul in an almost built out City means significant limitations, so lets stick to reality, which might actually mean a bit of congestion.
They should build the stadium a couple of blocks north on the big empty parking lot right next to the Giants.
The Mayor and the SF Port commission own and control that land – Why don’t they want the stadium there?
It is all about the money $. The Warriors do not want to pay to provide parking for their stadium. The Giants do not want to share. The 1% get richer and richer…..
As I did above, I once again agree with you that the Lot A alternative is worthy of consideration. Ironically, an early if not the very first suggested use of that seawall proposed by the GIANTS themselves was as a multipurpose arena with the hint that plans might include the Warriors relocating back to the City which seemed pie in the sky at the time.
Unfortunately, more recently the two organizations have acted more like a couple of Alpha males warily circling each other in defense of each ‘ s turf. Maybe an embrace would be the smarter approach.
Quite amazing that all this arises on the very eve of the Warriors submitting their EIR and the Giants revealing their latest proposal for Mission Rock with even the possibility of presenting it for Prop B approval of the voters on next November’s ballot.
You really cannot simply dismiss the well-intentioned concerns of the Mission Bay Alliance opponents for what is an important institution dear to them. They may even have forced all concerned to explore alternatives which could lead to the very best result.
How about a tidy scaled-down building as arena situated on Pier 48 architecturally in keeping with its Mission Rock neighbor on Lot A?
Why do most big indoor arenas become sort of ghetto-ish within 25 years or so of construction, along with the immediate neighborhood surrounding them? If Mission Bay is ever going to be a “neighborhood”, this is a good way to kill it.
Care to give some real-life examples? Usually arenas are built in underserved neighborhoods so they are already “ghetto-ish” based on your definition. (see Staples, US Airways (phx),
I can think of some arenas that actually made the nearby neighborhoods nicer. Verizon in DC. Pepsi in Denver, Moda (maybe).
Frankly Mission Bay isn’t a neighborhood now especially with the size of the UCSF campus and the Giants parking so you might as well add in the arena.
Because there are often many negative externalities that go unchecked. Traffic, trash, loud unruly fans. And while it’s trendy to blame “NIMBY’s”, it turns out that having that going on in your back yard over time really is grating and undesirable. So over time those with other options move away leaving the resident population composed of people with no other options. Which becomes it’s own downward spiral.
Maybe it’s different here, because maybe those with no other options in modern SF are still six figure college educated young professionals. But maybe what we’re seeing now is just boom time frenzy.
Just hope someone at City Hall, the Giants and Warriors at least give it thought. An arena on either Giants Lot A or maybe Mission Rock Pier 50 with an entertainment/sports complex with event pavilions @ Pier 48 piers (like Hearst Pavilion in Ft. Mason) would be so much better for city residents, both teams fans and convention goers….(think LA Live/Staples Center)
I am a native SF’er and was brought up to be disdainful of LA (I know now that was silly of my parents)…but seeing some of the things that LA has pulled off (subway, trains, mass transit) LA Live/Staples Center, Not to mention their world class museums, (no, none of the museums in SF are “world class” if you have done any traveling, sorry, just a fact)
Aside from the height restriction sure to be brought up….locating the arena/concert venue up at Lot A just makes the most sense
OT, but to be fair, I think SFMoMA will be legitimately world class when in reopens at double the size.