Warriors Mission Bay Arena Rendering - East Aerial

Citing fears of gridlock traffic and a loss of parking for Mission Bay healthcare workers and their patients, the influential California Nurses Association has announced its opposition to the Golden State Warriors’ proposed arena across from UCSF’s new Medical Center at Mission Bay.

While the Mission Bay Alliance has vowed an outright war against any arena development and is working on an extensive legal challenge of both the development’s environmental impact report and fit with the approved Master Plan for South Mission Bay, which doesn’t include an arena, the CNA hasn’t vowed to fight the arena at all costs but hasn’t yet identified any specific demands or concessions either.

40 thoughts on “Nurses Union Announces Opposition To Warriors’ Mission Bay Arena”
  1. I second Mayor Lee’s statement to the effect that if UCSF and/or its “allies” are going to continue this hissy fit, it may be reasonable to make a reappraisal of all the land in Mission Bay that they were effectively given, and assess them an appropriate value for said land. Then they may gain more respect for people who buy property and go through normal planning channels to use that property.

    1. UCSF has an extremely positive economic multiplier impact to SF and Bay Area economy…needless to say it employs thousands of people. Not sure why everyone finds its time to bash this institution? After all they are not part of the this, they merely express concerns for their patients.

      1. Oh yes, it’s all about the patients. Because UCSF had absolutely no idea that the rest of Mission Bay was going to be developed out!

        1. Beg your pardon, but UCSF was there as the first 40 acres donated by Southern Pacific 15 years ago. The subsequent development plan never showed a Stadium, never.

          1. And a stadium will generate less overall traffic than a dense housing or office complex. They should be ecstatic at their good fortune.

      2. The “medical” and “education” bubbles will eventually “pop” too. Can we continue to pay for $350,000 cancer treatments for indigent 83 year olds (this is personal experience for a family member)? Will all the educational buildings be usable once people realize that students will be unable to pay off $400,000 in student loan debt.

        Another glitzy bubble.

        1. I read the Chinese was interested in obtaining proper medical school training and health care collaboration with the U.S.

  2. Its odd that the nurse’s union would take a position on an issue so far outside of their purview. Does anyone know the rest of the story

    1. Outside their purview? The union represents the interests of their nurses and their nurses are worried about their commutes and parking.

      1. amazing that the rest of the world is able to do so many things that SF people whine and complain about. Are we really so sensitive and special? ITs sad how much our SF culture whines

        1. You know what’s more sad? Most people in SF are totally apathetic. I’ve never seen so many people who just don’t give a s*** about things right in front of their faces. Homeless sleeping in front of their home, a bike thief stealing a bike right in front of them, uncontrolled urban development, barely functional streets and public transit, etc. but most here are more concerned about Buring Man, artisinal cocktails and smoking weed.

          I welcome anyone who has an opinion about how the city is developed. It’s pretty shameful for any commenter here to be anti-democracy and free speech. It’s just more political correctness – go ahead and have an opinion, as long as you agree with me.

          1. “anti-democracy and free speech.”

            ROFLOL.

            Moto said that SF people “whine”. Laughably, in your rather hysterical and histrionic response, you prove him EXACTLY RIGHT. You are purposefully being a troll, I hope?

        2. I have never met so many special snowflakes in one city before. SF people are always decrying that it’s the end times and every new building is killing the city and going to ruin everything.

      2. Maybe they should take MUNI or other forms of public transportation? This is a joke, nothing would get built if someone’s commute was the first priority.

        1. They should take MUNI and other forms of Public Transportation, just like every responsible person should; or like anyone living in a city should expect to. Just like all of the attendees to the arena should. Living in or visiting a city and expecting parking everywhere you go is outrageous.

          1. Communist!
            An AMERICAN is not an AMERICAN unless ensconced in 5,000 pounds of plastic and steel!

      3. Michael – So you’re thinking that this commute and parking issue only affects nurses and not anyone else who works at UCSF? Its really odd for just one segment of the workforce to lead the charge.

        Chris’ extortion explanation below is more believable.

        1. UCSF built parking garage for the very reason that medical center nurses, admins and docs get off work at all hours of the day, including middle of the night. MUNI is …is…muniserable

          1. Well if they’re getting off work at all hours, in the middle of the night and the wee hours of the morning… then they’ll be completely unaffected by the use of the arena.

  3. Seems to be same reasoning as anyone else freaking out about increased parking meter enforcement or losing a parking space. This City has drawn more blood over parking spots than anyone cares to count, me thinks.

  4. I’m a CNA member and, generally, I agree with them. (Please note that their opposition is to the “current” plan.) The CNA has many enlightened leaders and staff members. Part of their platform is to “end climate change.” This can only be accomplished if many or most of us, including CNA members, reduce our reliance on fossil fuel burning automobiles.

    UCSF Mission Bay is very close to good transit and staff can easily access their worksites without trampling on our environment. When it comes to climate change, hospital employees are often part of the problem. I hope to see more of them on the bus.

  5. UCSF is 100% behind all of this backdoor nonsense on opposition to get land TAX FREE for future growth, as evidenced by “nurse union news conference was organized by the public relations company that also represents the alliance.” Since Warriors = golden state champions with lots of public support, next steps will be for UCSF to use sick children in its opposition behalf!

  6. Isn’t this the same Nurses Union that squeezed CPMC for concessions on the Van Ness – Geary hospital? This smells like a bunch of political BS to me. There are no surprises about the development in this area. They are using commute times and patients as a cover. The Warriors will “give” UCSF something and this will get settled.

    1. I agree the Warriors have to give something but will it be enough? If this project is stopped SF can say goodbye to the Warriors.

    1. Perhaps SPUR should start weighing in on nursing regs? Good for the goose is good for the gander…

  7. I find their position a bit assinine. Are there dedicated access roads to any other hospital in SF? A rhetorical question obviously, but let be realistic considering every hospital in the city is bounded in some way by a major thoroughfare that has extreme traffic issues (Potrero, Van Ness, Cesar Chavez, Fell/Lincoln, Divisadero/Market, etc.

    They made the comment regarding the need for nurses to rush to the hospital or patients to get to the hospital…there is a reason why we have emergency services and sirens for them to ease through the City!

    There is more proposed in the EIR to allow access to the hospital than can be found for access to any other hospital in San Francisco, what more is really expected? Then again its obvious this isn’t really a concern by the nurses themselves, this is about UCSF propping another group up behind the Alliance without themselves proclaiming their opposition in the wake of them not getting the land for their own further expansion.

    1. @Rob, I agree. As a member of CNA I’m pretty disgusted CNA has pimped itself out for whatever gain they have been promised. Every hospital in town has traffic- this is not any different. UCSF got their all important helipad from the city- they should move on and get back to taking care of people.

  8. Let’s build a stadium in the middle of a hospital complex, 60 story towers next to a congested freeway, and set a cap of 8 stories next to a multi billion dollar subway, high speed rail, and CalTrain depot.

    The brains have left SF loooooooong ago.

    1. Yup. You never see any of those things in real, functioning cities – Hong Kong, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo.

      Oh wait – yes you do.

      1. its amazing how every other city doesn’t have to completely isolate a hospital for the sake of nurses traffic problems. whine whine whine whine. SF would be fantastic is all the people in SF were’nt here whining

    2. Both the Warriors and UCSF could fit in Mission Bay – and the traffic could flow -with a real plan. The City’s current traffic plan for this project is bad joke. No real transportation improvements are planned – it’s 200 pages of hand waving and empty platitudes. It is a masterpiece of meaningless. Anyone who can read and think more critically than a turnip is not fooled – hence – the CNA objecting.

      Responsible land use and transportation planning in SF has become a bad joke, subject to much magical thinking and political favoritism. The problem isn’t growth per se, the problem is the irresponsible kleptocracy masquerading as our political leadership that values getting themselves paid today over improving the quality of life for people living here tomorrow.

      If someone in City Hall ( anyone?) actually did the hard work of proposing and implementing real improvements then we would not have these perpetual land use battles over every project.

  9. So I guess we should put the arena back on Pier 32. What are Art Agnos and the other folks who forced the move to Mission Bay doing to make sure the arena gets built where they put it?

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