but now i'm speaking as a taxpayer and a property owner in san francisco. and i believe that the tallest building in san francisco, which is bringing onto the market first class office space is in the wrong location. i build office buildings most recently in development. i stood before planning commission and i stood before redevelopment agencies. i build office buildings and most important aspect of any real estate development is location, location, location. and cited on the site of the transit center is not the most desirable neighborhood. i'm going to live in that neighborhood, but it is not the locations for attorneys, banks,

cpas and venture capitalists who pay the highest rents. this is a problem for the developers. it is also a problem for me, a taxpayer that my money is going into this and it's far too tall in the wrong place. thank you. >> next speaker i'm going to call one more time. come on up, sir. euronext, yep. -- you're next, yep. and next on deck is adrian simi. hello, commissioners my name is andrew dream. i live in the sunset. our city is about to be bombed, you're about to push the button. i'll remind you last time i looked, the san francisco planning department promotes the order of the harmonious use of land and improved quality of life for our diverse communities and future generations. after the felling of the twin towers on september 11 we were supposed to become humble, slow down, reassess our good fortune

and care for one another. as a member of the public overwhelmed with the daily responsibilities, i count on my civic representatives to recognize their responsibility to heighten their awareness with the positive possibilities of our times and yet in the midst of latent inferiority complexes and lack of inspired vision, you allow yourselves to descend into a quest to keep up with the shanghais, the due buys, the [speaker not understood] and in so doing you kill this beautiful city. i'm pro union, pro jobs, i'm pro construction, but people will do anything for jobs and money. are we supposed to stand before this monolith and say, thank you for the park and thank you? this is a shame. it's even a shame to see mr. clark stand here before this because this company, they build a lot of good buildings,

but this is just an opportunity to build the tallest building and to just use this city as a place to do that is so disrespectful and wrong. and i think that's pretty much all i have to say. it's just really saddening and just -- this building has absolutely no character. that's the really sad thing about this whole process. when the four projects came up for the competition, every one of them was just like, what the hell. i mean, is this a building people would go around the country -- around the world to come and see like other buildings around the world? we could do so much more. here's an example of -- this is agricultural, but this is a tower which is -- it's a whole environment. in san francisco, what we were leaning towards as a city that we always stood out in the

world for human rights, for environmentalism, we should be doing something like this, not just agricultural, but an environment. anyway, i'm not against architecture, i'm not against building. this is just wrong. another slip in the direction of disaster. anyway, thank you. thanks. good afternoon, president fong and commissioner. i'd like to present -- my name is adrian simi, field representative with carpenters local 22. i'd like to present some of my comrades and brothers and sisters that work in construction here in san francisco and the east bay and south bay. what this project will do for

us -- and i'll tell you, these brothers and sisters here, many of them right now are out of a job. they're looking for jobs. they're on an out of work list. they need a job. they're here on their own time. they're volunteering to come out here because what this project will do is create opportunity for them to go to work. it will create opportunity for local san franciscans through local hire to get on a job here in san francisco, to be productive citizens. what it does is it will create thousands of jobs, construction jobs, and from that tenant improvement jobs, jobs that will continue. i'll tell you, because i know, i'm a product of that. i got in the union in 1979 when i was 19 years old. i worked for almost 28 years strictly in san francisco. and that was a time when most of the subcontractors and

contractors were local. we started it, we grew up in san francisco. my friends worked for contractors, and we worked downtown. i worked almost 28 years solely downtown. now that i'm a field rep, i work -- i'm still downtown and i see that this can happen -- it can continue to happen in the future and it's jobs like this that grow san francisco, that put people into apprentice ships, people into good full-time jobs with benefits for their families, insurance benefits, pensions, these are exactly what we need. we feel that this is a great job and we'd like to see this project move ahead and i thank you for your time. >> is there any additional public comment? good afternoon, commissioners. my name is jackie flynn.

i'm the executive director of the [speaker not understood] institute, san francisco. our core mission is to support racial and economic justice and to advocate for economickally disadvantaged communities throughout san francisco. we're a nonprofit that serves all of san francisco, although we are located in bayview hunters point. we are originally created to engage communities of color, particularly the black community, to participate in the civic process, educating residents on voting, registering and getting out to vote through our outreach efforts. we've evolved to provide community services that support our advocacy efforts to educate and prepare san francisco re dents, especially for the work force. we work closely with our union brothers and sisters and pre-apprenticeship programs to provide pathways and outlets to sustain families here in san francisco. we see this project as an opportunity to create jobs for union brothers and sisters, and we want to see this building

move forward. it will continue to attract tourists as well as stimulate our economy. we stand in solidarity with our union family 261, carpenters local 22 and the building and construction trades council and we're in full support of this development. thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is sue hester. i'm not going to repeat the comments i made last week about proposition k at the hearing, that was the other commission. it's interesting you started off the meeting by relating the earthquake history and how this is a commemoration of it. and we have an anniversary of the loma-prieta earthquake

coming up. the dixie cup tower that is over here, you are familiar with it. [speaker not understood] the flood building and our power went out for several days and it was hard for people to walk up 11 floors. how high are they going to have to walk up to this building? we are in earthquake country. what exactly is the record of this project? did you all have -- oh. all those presentation documents that were exposed on the screen, were they all made part of this record? i am a person who goes to records that are really ancient with the planning department. what is the record on this project? is it -- you have no court reporter, you have no transcript, and you have a lot of presentations.

and if the presentations are not put in the files, they are not in the record. has anyone gone to transamerica building in the recent time and sat in the red wood forest? i have a feeling that if you had, you would not be so quick to say planting redwoods is a good idea in an urban environment. it is dense. it is -- redwoods in their natural habitat are in a forest. and on the ground floor of the forest it's forest. and do we want to have that in a downtown setting? with regard to what you have downtown around this area, you have an opportunity to open it

up for the people or to close it off. i do not see that you are thinking through the myriad of issues. in prop k that is going to affect the shadows, it's very far away as well as the stack of dixie cups in an earthquake. thank you. >> is there any additional public comment? good afternoon, commissioner. my name is dick mill et. i live in potrero hill. i've lived in the city the last 60 years ever since i got out of college. i'm an architect. i am a big follower of city planning. i strongly believe in it and i know that city planning is changing or at least city planning in san francisco is changing very much. i'm from the period when we had height limits.

do we have -- but no one spoke of height limits. we spoke of heights, but we didn't speak of what the allowed height limit is this, or what's the new city planning term, exemption that this was going to get an exemption. this made in-house, to let it just -- any height goes. and not only that, [speaker not understood] 960 square foot high building with 160 feet of decorative cap on top of that, i don't have a problem with it. i don't think it's the best design high-rise. if we're going to compete with the high-rises that are going to be built in the world, this is the best example. i don't get it. i also don't believe in doing the copy cat standard of building high-rises on the waterfront. the thing that make san

francisco very nice we don't have many high-rises on the waterfront. if we do, who could afford to live there, you'd have to have a passport to be able to buy a place there. i have a big problem with doing the fancy big tall building. just like they said in oklahoma, as high as a building ought to go. i just think it's way too damn tall. i don't know how it fits into the planning code. no one's talked about that. it's too close to the water. what is it, an office building? damn, it's a mistake. thank you. commissioners, my name is ruben santiago. i've come before you before.

all i'm hearing is all this negativity against san francisco and that's what's kept san francisco from changing for the better. all these people complaining, complaining. why don't they clean the streets of the urine, the homeless lying there, all that. that's what they should be talking about. but going back to this tower, okay. when this came out in 2007, i saw this great 1200 foot 80-story skyscraper and boy did that knock me off my feet. it looks beautiful. it looked humongous. it was something a san francisco couldn't even dream about. but why did it change -- why did it get shrunk? maybe for the shadows, okay. i could live with that. but there hasn't been that much opposition for this tower and i can't see why they had to reduce the tower because the tower at 1200 foot was going to

cast shadows and if there was no opposition against the shadows, then why was that not looked into? but since it's not going to be built at 1200 feet and it's at 1,0 70 feet, couldn't the planning department and the heinz architects get together and maybe raise it 30 feet more, raise the crown a little bit and make it an even 1100 feet? you know. [laughter] i mean, is that too much to ask, you know? and looking at that rendering, the tower kind of looks like it shrunk a little bit more, you know. so, they have a whole year before they start working or breaking ground on it. why can't they get back and talk it over and see if they can increase it just a little bit. you know, so, that's all i have to say and it's been a pleasure coming to you, you know, in front of you. thank you. >> thank you.

good afternoon, commissioners, thank you for hearing this item today. my name is andrew cm stock, i'm with the construction employers association. we represent many of the general contractor unions that are building these type of projects in san francisco and i'm also here as a san francisco resident. what i'd like to talk about are three things, first, jobs. we need them. we need good paying union jobs. and this project will bring those. second is growth. this city needs the growth of this tower to stimulate the economy to bring more money into this downtown area, just in general keep things moving forward and help to get us out of this recession. third is an attraction. this building will be a signature building. it will be an attraction.

it will continue to spur tourism and again go back into the economy. so, i think that just in general i want to urge you to approve these items and adopt these measures so that this project go can go forward. thank you. >> thank you. * any additional public comment? seeing none, the public comment portion is closed. yes. [speaker not understood]. >> there are several new people in the audience who maybe don't have the history on the planning and zoning. it might be worth briefly going over kind of where we came from and how we got here. this project is the center piece of a planning effort that's been going on for probably six years and it was the result of an effort to look at ways of solving really two major issues. one is creating a funding mechanism to help support the

transit center, the transit terminal and the tunnel that would connect the north america tal to the fourth and king station, but also to solve an issue we're recognizing in the department to about increasing the capacity for new office space in the city. and that was created by a task force that was created in 2007, i believe, between the city and the transbay joint powers authority and the redevelopment agency. and it was very clear that there was a strong desire to create a very high density district around the terminal. that led to the larger planning process. that plan was adopted in may by this commission and adopted unanimously by the board this past summer. i think in support of the note that this plan -- this project and this tower has been contemplated as part of that plan since day one. the zoning that was put in place, this plan -- this project is completely consistent with that. it is meant to be the center piece and one of many towers that will be built in this area, but this tower in particular being adjacent to

the transit terminal is meant to be the kind of center piece of that larger district. so, this is -- and i think it is important to understand that this has been in the works for six years and probably more. but that's when the planning process started robustly around the district to create a new heart for the downtown. and i should say to back up even before that, that in fact the creation of a new high density core around the transbay terminal was contemplated in the downtown plan that was adopted in 1985. so, in many ways what we're doing is fulfilling a recommendation of that plan that goes back nearly 30 years. i for one am proud to be sitting in this chair when this is happening. staff feels very positively about this project. i think it is a great honor to be here when this is happening. and to see the fruition of a larger planning process when this is moving forward. but i wanted to give that background so the people in the audience and the public listening understood this is the culmination of many years. >> thank you very much for that. public comment portion is

closed. and opening it up to commissioners. commissioner sugaya. >> yeah, i only have one question. i'd like to take all these motions separately. >> okay. >> that's my comment. >> commissioner antonini. >> thank you. i have a few comments. first of all, i think this is a very elegant building and the other day i was running up mission street and wondering why i like 560 mission so much, which is commonly the tenant now is chase j.p. morgan. and it gives a kind of greenish, rich greenish hugh, but actually much of that hue takes its color from the super structure. and the glass itself may be clear, i'm not sure. and these other buildings have tried to find the right glass and they almost always have glass that is not nearly as elegant as that building which probably has clear glass. i'm not sure what's planned for the glass color, but in looking at the color of the metal work,

i am led to believe that the glass will reflect what comes from the metal work in there and that might be the best solution of all. i don't know if mr. clark wanted to comment on that or not, but it's important part of the whole picture. >> we have the glass here. it's a version of the glass that you see on 560 mission, but glass technology has improved and changed tremendousfully that period of time since that building was built. it will be very, very lightly reflective, not silverery, lightly reflective, but also quite transparent. the glass is intended to reseed, frankly, so the white metal work is really what you see in the foreground. just as the green metal work at 560 mission is what you see in the foreground. * recede. >> thank you very much, mr. clark. my pleasure. >> i appreciate having a chance to look at the glass and that is an important decision and

will add to the elegance of the building. absolutely, thank you. >> thank you. i have a few other comments. in terms of the entire concept of the tower and the entire transbay development, we really had it right in san francisco in the 1920s, and then again in the late '60s and '70s and the '80s when this was the center of commercial development in the bay area and the western united states. and early on it was probably in the '20s because the largest base of population was here. it only made sense that the commercial center was also here. but in the '70s and '80s we made a conscious decision to centralize the business community in san francisco and spent billions of dollars on the bart system and other muni metro and others to be able to bring people into that core. it's one of the extraordinary cores in the united states, perhaps in the whole world, with the amount of square footage in a very limited

space, one of the densest around, and it makes it very walkable for people to go from one place to another, to communicate and avail themselves of all the other things that are in the city. but just in terms of the business community, everyone is very close together on a very flat easily transportable surface. i don't know, there is some conjecture years ago about the height limits that were passed in the '80s and original limits on amount of commercial square footage whether or not that led to the advent of commercial business parks in the bay area. i think it was a combination of factors. that might have been part of it. it might have been the fact that the political climate may have changed some in san francisco at the same time. might have been the economy went south. but they were still building some commercial real estate in places where no one would expect them to be. in fact, i still don't understand why we have business

parks in san ramon and some of the places in the south bay that don't really make any sense and aren't close to any public transportation or anything else and are totally auto dependent. so, this is a great idea to have regional growth particularly employment growth directed towards downtown san francisco in a sustainable transit oriented manner that makes sense environmentally. it makes sense for business and i think this is really a very good project. and also i think it is contrary to some comments. i think it is a very open environment. we saw the architectural plan and also the park plan that creates many acre of open space in an area that has the potential to be another -- embarcadaro center, probably something people may point to more when they talk about, you

know, the situation in parts of new york where you have a cluster of like rockefeller center, for example, and you have a lot of open space that the public can enjoy in close proximity to business towers and to the center of the city. * acres. this is exactly where business would want to be. and if i were in the kind of business that needed a downtown office, this is certainly where i would want to have my business. >> commoditier. -- commissioner borden. >> project sponsor, do you have a pick two of the original design that won the competition? i thought it would be interesting if you had it. and if you could talk about what has changed not just the height -- we know the height changed, but what are kind of some of the more subtantive changes originally from what was contemplate and had what we're seeing today? we're digging for that photograph. i don't know that we have it with us.

but not a lot has changed, to be honest with you. the tower is shorter. at the time of the competition, i'll be very honest with you. both we and heinz were guessing at what size the building should be. and at the time of the competition, you know, we were in a bit of a real estate boom. subsequent to that and subsequent to further refinements having to do with structure, cost, functionality, it was thought better to design a million 300,000 square foot building than a million 600,000 square foot building. that automatically reduced the height. i have to say, though, both heinz and the transit center, tjpa particularly maria [speaker not understood] caplan very strongly held us to our original promise at the competition, that it had to be a beautiful, elegant, and vertically proportioned building. an enormous amount of study was done. and if you held the 1200 foot

tall building next to the 1070 foot tall building side by side, you'd see exactly what time talking about. the proportions, the tapering, the dimensions all support the original intention of the competition. but other than that, there has not been very much change. the color, the detailing of the exterior wall, the idea of passive solar shading, a very energy efficient building, a top that's lit hopefully by [speaker not understood], all of those promises are still there. >> great, thank you. maybe tjpa, can you talk a little about how this building kind of meets the the vision not only from the standpoint of the design competition, but also for the larger transit district center itself? [speaker not understood] from tjpa to speak to that. hi, good afternoon, commissioners. as kevin said, [speaker not

understood] community outreach manager at the tjpa. the transit tower is a very fundamental part of the overall vision for the transit center, which is designed to be a national model for transit oriented development. so, the idea was to create this high density urban development where we're bringing together 11 different transit systems, 8 different bus systems from around the bay area, caltrain, eventually high-speed rail. but to have that transit connectivity in close proximity to jobs in particular that also housing, affordable housing, recreational, retail, parks, open space, in addition the transit tower plays a pretty fundamental role in our funding plan. we had land that was donated from the state to the project to rebuild the old transbay terminal and the new transit center. and a portion of that land is being sold to the project

sponsor in order to build the tower. the revenues from that landfill are a very fundamental component of the funding from phase 1 of our project. the budget has two phases. the transit center and phase ii is the extension of cal thaictionv from fourth -- caltrain from fourth and king to the downtown. >> [speaker not understood]. >> those negotiations are still in process. >> this proceeding, i guess, will after -- if we approve the project, does that help -- i mean does it make it -- i mean, what does that -- >> the entitle ithvxes that you're considering today are essential for the land sale to move forward. * entitlements >> thank you. we've been talking about the transit district for quite sometime. the difficulty for any city when you're contemplating growth and development in the future is where to put it and how a city grows. i think that we've seen both from whether it's technology