have that as part of their system, i don't know what the answer is. it is something that was brought up on the number of occasions and should be addressed. are they going to be part of the plan? and also, there were comments about emergencies in the south of market in the mission area. there will still be emergency services at st. luke's as far as i thknow. for someone the grew up many miles from the hospital, it may be many miles we have as many hospitals as lead to end is close to each other as close as we are.

you have problems, it is something that you don't have to go to every day. we are providing a lot of services in a very close area. and finally, there was comment about the import situation. i think that will be worked out. i am confident that the hospital management and others are dealing with these impacts. those are my main concerns. commissioner fong: just a couple of observations. i think it is important that 7 it is has seismic cost battles. i want to thank or knowledge of the architect presentation that i thought was very nice. i know that we should not be

lured by pretty pictures, but whether that is the location, i also want to and dollars the community concern. i understand all of them from jobs and traffic concerns to the doctor that mentioned psychiatric funding. we feel that every day. folks on the street and i am sure need more medical attention than they are able to get. but what kind of draw questions in my mind about the traffic flow, how many rooms and maybe some conflicting information. how many beds, what the ratio of service folks and hotel workers are two guests and how that relates to patients. when trying to draw a conclusion, when it was running at full capacity, it was

somewhat comparable to what this might be. i think the architects have done a very good job of getting the vehicles off the streets. and really trying to get that loading and unloading off of san francisco streets. this presentation was helpful to me and hopefully, we can get down the road on both sides. commissioner moore: i feel hard- pressed talking about architecture when the building itself has not been challenged enough by community concerns and those issues that are basically undecided. i believe that the size of the hospital and the current configuration is too large, but be that as it may, it is really

the imbalance between distributing services and equitable way. and these locations that are being discussed. but really want to engage in a discussion about architecture. the fear for me, personally, approaching this discussion as an architect that there is a programmatic lack of disclosure which guides the discussion today. the architecture is one of the mudhole vital functions. and for some reason, we are talking about where it stops and ends. there are more subtle things to it. of believe it will have to be discussed when we are talking about the full solution of

buying into a building and also its delivery functions. that makes it difficult for me to talk. i've expressed my concerns about size of the buildings. i am fully aware of the already impossible traffic situations on all streets surrounding. when i go to the planning department but i sometimes do during the week, believe it or not, it takes me 45 minutes to come from the corner of sacramento down to the bottom of market where i walk across to go to the mission street address of the planning department. that is unacceptable. i do sometimes drive a car.

i say that because i do agree with anybody that comments on traffic in particular because of hospital requirements, most people do come with cars for visiting hall or as patients. i think it creates a problem. i don't what to talk about the architecture there. over all, it remains too large. the question that i really would like to discuss in detail with the architect, where are you taking your architecture from? we're very proud having spent a number of historic buildings, when we were trying to recapture it, zero buildings that would

occur, they start celebrating it as a boulevard. i do not think that the vernacular chosen for the building, but really a acknowledges these strong presence of historic buildings. it is basically an oversized building that in its treatment of windows has little or nothing to do with what we are all quite proud of. and even if it is a highway, has a great history of the extremely important buildings. whenever there is an empty storefront, i am sad that we have a hard time recapturing the scale of the streets. these buildings are very much out of scale. but let that stand for a moment as something -- what we can

avoid it at a certain level. it still needs to speak to the street as ideas. i am not quite sure that that has been done. of the particular medical office building, it is like from outer space. it is such a powerful presence and i believe is being negated. by the way, this building meets the corner. it is between what is important to us. for many years, we have talked about the planning department as it was presented to us the bus rapid transit. we don't talk about that anymore. the discussion has basically disappeared altogether. i do believe there is a need for some form of improved and bus traffic, particularly recently,

we have major schools. major high-school at the bottom of north point and today where students who live in a completely different part of the city take the bus home. at 2:30 or 3:00 going to mission and the market, it is accentuated us already. there are students that have to take public transit. we hope that we would find transit improvements. together with building more residential, begin continuously pushing into think we're missing something here. i could go on. i am not completely opposed to some aspects of the architecture.

i personally cannot feel that this is the moment to respond in detail to that. commissioner borden: i am not going to say too much, but i would agree with the commissioners ha, ha the point that they highlighted, i think there are major issues. it looks masses. i think that that needs to be worked on also. that size and scale, it is quite large. there are elements of the project that is very attractive, some of the streetscapes. i think there's a lot more work still to be done on this project. the biggest concern is the issue of traffic. we are not discussing traffic today, but it is a big concern. we couldn't help but notice the

lack of cars. with that be the bus rapid transit lane? that is within the realm of what we looked at today. we looked at examining this further, but the comment would be to let's look at how we are scaling and massing these buildings. in trying to create a more safe corridor for people even though it is more than one. that is the heart of where the challenges are in the design. i think saint luke's can be done really well. there are some relief thoughtful things. the major design issues are around the venice project.

commissioner sugaya: just to echo support for some of the other commissioners or all of them, and the medical office building, i think commissioner moore isn't thinking about designing it as a historic building, but just thinking about the building next door. to me, it kind of looks like the hall of justice. some people know what that means. [laughter] i think there needs to be some more attention paid to the building across the street which i personally think is too big. and i would like to have staff give us a point by point.

i can't remember it anymore, it was so long ago. if we could get a point by point analysis, what it requires an says inverses this particular project, and the commission would appreciate that. and some other things. thank you for the presentation. i think we have a long way to go. this is what i was thinking about. in terms of the scale and everything, the argument has been made. there have been some presentations about the program had said that you needed this kind of size in order to have the facilities within one building so that when new patients for their, they could

rapidly get the services necessary if there were complications. and a lot of the services that were necessary would be there. what i am thinking, if that is the case, if you're trying to make the argument for a facility, how does that work in other hospitals that say only have 250. i am sure there must be hospitals like that. you're building those that have a lot fewer beds, and the think with the community is saying, why are you centralizing everything in one location and ignoring places like st. luke's. the issue has come out before about the possibility of having more facilities in having more

services at st. luke's, for example. i think, there has been general discussion around that. it might be good if we can take a look at that a little more closely. president olague: i am going to be brief tonight. we have a couple more hearings coming up where we will be discussing the development agreements. at some point, given the discussion that we heard here tonight among commissioners, we will have to have follow-up meetings with staff. an additional meeting added where the commission is addressed without the staff so we have more of an objective perspective on some of the issues we are raising.

it is hard to talk about a building and not talk about what is going on inside of the building. those are the concerns i heard today by members of the public. charity care, psychiatric care, some of the use is being reduced or transferred to other facilities. those of the types of questions that we will want a little bit more detail on. what is the current zoning? a special use district. what are the details of that? and a special use district verses what is being proposed, it is being interpreted by staff. there was mention of a lot of the bus transit. i guess we need some kind of an update of what is going on

there. i am not clear about what is going on there. also, the physicians organizing committee seems to me to be composed of individuals who work at st. luke's primarily or have worked at st. luke's. at some point, i would like to have the opportunity to get a sense of what their role is there, what are some of the services currently being provided once this new complex is in place and what is being moved out. we just want to get a sense of that to get an idea of the bigger picture. it is still something that i am curious toalso -- those are some

questions i still have. if those individuals will give me 20 minutes of their time to discuss this, i would be grateful to discuss that. eventually, from a detached view, taking everything out of the conversation, i am not ok with the st. luke's campus and the way the exterior looks. i think it is ok. as far as the van ness campus, i think it is a little bit too massive. i do not like the solid.

the medical building could also use some work. there have been some issues addressed as far as the residential and commercial tenants along the corridor. i do not know the details. it seems that there were some satisfactory arrangements arrived at. i think that is something that was positive. we are in a catch-22 situation. basically, sometimes we are being told by the project sponsor, when we get to the board, you are going to be demanding more. we are only going to give so much at the commission level. when we get to the board, we are going to be pressured to a greater degree.

then we will talk to members of the board, who i speak to indeed hall. they mentioned, why do you not do more work and the commission level so we do not have to do all of the heavy lifting once the projects get to the board? it is a catch-22. because of that, we are definitely going to want to see some advances or some progress as it relates to some of the conversations. as far as conversations are concerned as they relate to the city, questions of charity and the tenderloin and this kind of thing. the commissioners are interested in seeing this as well. the neighbors seemed a little bit concerned that the conversations with them seem to be at a stalemate.

we would like to see a little bit more progress made. some of the neighborhood groups. maybe we could see some progress as it relates to these other concerns. i guess we are scheduled again for a june hearing. i would ask that the staff be prepared to respond to commissioner's concerns. we do not want to bombard you with too much. as we discussed the agreement, it might be useful or beneficial at that time to

discuss some of the questions we have raised. that is never a constructive time to engage in some of these conversations. it has a lot of the impacts on a lot of different levels. we can get some of these issues clarified before then. the health issue had a resolution. i would like to look at the resolution that i drafted. that does not relate to where the project currently stands. commissioner sugaya: i would just add one more thing to the staff workload. a number of years ago, we did

take a look at the davies science building with a lot of neighborhood input. this current design is a lot different than what we saw before. i could be mistaken. >> director. >> i wanted to summarize what i heard from the commission and make the adjustment about how to move forward. there is obviously a lot of concerns about the design, particularly the medical office building at van ess. maybe some work at the general hospital building. i heard that it would be helpful to have a lot more specific work on the buildings. there was a request to have a comparison to the former hotel

on site. we can get that information. a comparison of what the hospital is proposing. i know we talked aobut this a couple of hearings ago, but maybe some information about the relative size and what functions are going there. not finally, but the information that commissioner sugaya asked for on the davies facility. and then a lot more information on the transportation issues. june 9 is the next scheduled hearing on the project. we have this proposal to present

to you our initial draft. we will talk to the mta about giving you a briefing on the projects. the van ness brt is further ahead in the planning. they are ahead on the eir. they are moving along quite well. we can give you an update on those two projects as well. it probably make some more sense to talk in more detail on june 9 when we have some time on this transportation issue. just so we know, we are also looking at two additional hearings after that point on july 14 attentively and august 11 attentively. some of these issues are just a

factual. it might be better to get that information sooner rather than later. >> my concern has also been raised by members of the public. we need to make sure that information is public, not just in a memo. >> we can get it to you in a memo and also posted online. >> on june 9, we might want the opportunity to discuss some of that. >> at if i missed anything, please let me know. commissioner moore: could i add one additional question? they could help us answer the most -- much repeated question of the likelihood of a tunnel.

that would be caltrans and highway. could you shed some light on that? >> these issues come up all the time. i think it is a city-wide issue. i want to understand better how this is affecting the bigger scene and scenario. thank you very much. thank you, staff, architects. >> ok. thank you, commissioners. you, unfortunately, still have a general public comment. >> we are at general public comment?

is there any general public comment on items not on today's agenda? seeing none, in general public comment is closed and the meeting is adjourned.