and denver, denver has three facilities in close proximity to each other. ~ citix basketball, baseball, and football. almost everybody comes from a long ways away. because denver itself is not a very dense city, and the population is a lot less than san francisco. ~ cities so, the brilliance of having this facility right in the heart of san francisco as you've got 8 25,000 residents and you have another 2 to 300,000 people who come here during the day for purposes of their employment, for tourism, for visitors who are shopping and doing other things. ~ so, you've already got your population here. for those who are concerned about some of the concerns about traffic, it's minimal for at&t park because a lot of people are here already . and the foot traffic from at&t to doubt [speaker not understood] that doesn't include the ones that take muni

or bart or the ferries which i hear this will be another option , we'll have ferry traffic there. we can drop people off at that site. i have some questions, i guess, for staff. i don't know if you have the answers right now, but what's the height of at&t park? we knew that -- know the new arena is slated to be 125 feet. do we know how tall at&t is? i don't need that answer right now. you may not have it on your -- but it's much higher, i would think, and it's also exactly right on the waterfront as is the ferry building and as is the palace of fine arts, not quite on the waterfront, but pretty close. so, for those who say we don't -- shouldn't put structures that have any height at all on the waterfront, it's like some of our most magnificent structures are right on the waterfront and they add to it. could you imagine our waterfront if we didn't have these facilities? it would be very nice, but it would be very dull, and there would just be water and, you know, maybe no access. we have great access from the

ferry building, from other facilities. i did have some comments on parking. maybe mr. albert could address them, but i was just going to make a comment. and if you -- i think it's going to be fine. there will be people who will drive from the east bay particular, will take bart, you know, and it's just going to happen. and one suggestion i had -- and this certainly would not be a precondition or anything. it's something that the city should think about, the state should think about. it's nothing that the warriors should have to concern themselves with or the whole investment group for the arena. but if you come off of harrison street, you go underneath the bay bridge and you actually end up on fremont street. they call it the harrison street off ramp, but really, it comes -- you can can you have off of bryant to get onto it, but you actually end up going onto fremont. it would seem to me that there could be some future thinking whde another ramp

coming right -- the same rap ramp just had an exit that came down across beale and you put a parking facility right there under the bridge which is now pretty much unused, it's a storage facility for bridge, that might be a wonderful place for people coming in that way to park, their cars never gaoget onto city industrix. they exit, they walk across the street to the arena and come after the game and put it out there. i'm put thattion out as an idea, mr. albert. we haven't discussed it already. i just thought it's something to look at. >> [speaker not understood] albert, mta. thank you, i'm in the process of collecting a lot of ideas about parking. i just want to make sure that i got the gist of what you're looking to do. >> what i'm talking about is the harrison street ramp gets off on the extreme left of the bridge as you're in the left lane. you go to the left, and then it makes -- loops underneath and goes to fremont street. but it would be very easy, i think, or relatively easy to make just as we do on the off

ramp for fremont that branches off the fulton, we'd have a branch off that would come across beale street where there's already a bridge. it wouldn't be creating any kind of a new visual impact because there's already a bridge across beale at harrison. and it would dump you into what could be -- i think it's a city or state owned lot that's right under the brink which might provide a good facility for parking. >> just make sure, i'd like to go back to my office and work with the engineers on this. the goal of what you're proposing sounds like a couple things. one, you hope to intercept the traffic as close to the freeway ramp as possible so you're not adding to congestion and -- >> yeah. >> and from that point you're choosing that side because it's walking distance to other destinations like this proposal? >> oh, yeah. >> the rest of the [speaker not understood] >> particularly those who might speak to the increase traffic might generate. and also for those who might be headed to at t. and t. i have people who live in the

east bay and they drive in to games and they always park in that lot by the water mark because it's an easy access back onto the freeway off of bryant street and they come the other way and circle. so what i'm saying is it would provide -- we have to be realists. there would be people who will drive and this would not have to be done before the arena but it's something to put into the hopper as you're looking at solutions. >> thank you. >> and i had another question, i guess it's for staff, perhaps for mr. dykstra. did i hear there's going to be a pedestrian bridge across the embarcadaro -- no, there will not be one. i mean, i'm not saying there should be, but, you know, we do have to think about how people who are to the other side, they do fine for at&t, they manage to make it across and there's -- you know, but wherever we can make it as easy as possible

for people who are on foot to get from the west side of the embarcadaro to the east side. i don't think it's terribly difficult today and with 44,000 going to at&t, i think it's going to be fine. but i think you were talking about a bridge within the other seawall lot. you mentioned a bridge. >> yes, that bridge was to connect the two hotel components together and it bridges over a new public passage way being designed on the seawall site itself. >> i'm not necessarily advocating for anything over the embarcadaro, but i'm just saying that we want to, you know, just make sure we make the crosswalks and the traffic timing and everything as wide and possible for foot traffic. and those are -- you know, most of -- i had a couple of other things. i think it's a brilliant suggestion for having the fire station and a lot of the other things, thfire boat station,

all very, very wonderful ideas. so, i think i'm very much in line with all the suggestions. and i don't think we're planning any kind of bulkhead entrance. we'll just have the entabs from those retail structures. i just thought maybe it would be good to frame the entrance with something more reminiscent of the finger piers, but i'm not saying it would have to be done. >> we did actually -- that was very fast, the shapes of those buildings have a kind of rehe laytion ship to the original structures you see. we're just not copying them directly, but they are similar. >> yeah, i think that would be good because it kind of blends in as you're walking along the embarcadaro, you visually see the bulk heads of all the finger piers. and when you see this and it's siting probably being kind of parallel to some of those makes everything sort of be harmonious. and i think that would be -- it looks like it's being very well done. so, thank you very much for a great presentation. missioner h

>> yes, thank you very much. i think thises was very responsive to some of the concerns folk had at the last meeting, including commissioners. there's a lot more detail here and kind of the perspectives from the embarcadaro. ~ i like what i'm seeing and i like the early designs of the seawall lot 330 and the varied heights of the buildings there as well, except fire department facility on the water. just a question on the open space. thank you for that perspective kind of with union square put in there because it is a large amount of open space. and i know the heights kind of respond to the need to put parking also underneath. but can you talk more about kind of the thinking of the open space and what you would do if you didn't have to accommodate that height? i like the aspects of it. there's different levels, but

if you can talk more about the open space and the thoughts on programming, it would help. >> in my very first presentation we discussed the idea of promoting topography on the site for various reasons. number one, it allows people a mid level view of the harbor and the basin of the bay itself because there's very difficult to get at pier level, so to speak. that also promotes people to move up and down in a healthy way. i know they've done this in the parka jaytionthctionv entitle to where i live in new york on the brooklyn bridge piers where these were perfectly flat wide piers and they lib britly built them up to upwards of 25 feet high and people can run and jog and all kinds of things. the functional issues that have them below, the raised terrace are consequential and there are efficiencies we've created. the design team has always looked for raising the height of the pier because it's a very broad wide pier, not a narrow finger pier. in terms of the uses, we went through the slide very quickly,

there's 7 different zones that we'll have different kind of micro uses programmed into them from small amphitheaters adjacent use, adjacent to the steps and the ground stair leading down to the south side. there's a sort of learning garden type small garden that's designed adjacent to reds. there is the rock garden that is in the southeast corner that provides a little seating area with vegetation that helps shade you. and then, but more importantly i think for us is people sometimes misunderstand the northern edge of the pier with the fire station, it really is an urban edge and we want to keep it kind of urban. we don't want all sides of the pier to be, in quotes, leisure like. you know, we wanted it to feel like it has a working life and there's the bridge docks there to do that and the fire department there to do that. and then in terms of the upper level event space entries, that -- all the retail that faces

the embarcadaro in most of the views has entries in there and there are other retails facing the events of the plaza. so, as you go up the steps, those steps peel away and you can go into the retail to activate that at different times of the day. and then there is of course the open access movement system which straddleses the building, goes all the way up to the top and that provides panoramic views that many tourists will go to. so, one would suspect with all these different functions throughout the year, the site will be having large numbers of people on it even when there is not an event. >> great. and i know, compared to the exploratorium which is a great project, you know, we're trying to encourage people to get out on the pier, but noggin courages people to get out there more than something to do out there. i mean, the perspectives you get from the end of pier 15 i think similar, you'll get these perspectives you don't often see or you're not encouraged to see because you're not encouraged to go out on the water. the arena itself, what is the

exterior skin of that? what's the thinking on the materials there? >> yes, right now currently we're looking at a metal and glass skin. we are completely aware of the issues of bird impact and also of reflect at this timev that it can have on the surroundings. ~ reflectivity we're looking at four different panel times. a silk screening and a general color range a soft white or soft gray. and that's in contrast to some of the materials that are on the lower levels and, again, we flipped really fast. for example the ramp going up the side and also the entry doors and all the places along the bottom where you're actually using wood in areas, and the places where you can really touch it and feel it. and as it goes up higher, it becomes more atmospheric a bit like the clouds you see over the bay from time to time or the fog. so, we're looking at different

metal treatments and different glass treatments to ensure there is no impact on reflect ivity on bird. that will be in the next layer of development. we're completely aware of it. >> thank you. and then just a question on -- i guess before when there was a proposal for the cruise terminal, what was along the water? was the retail a lock the water, too? was that a similar -- do we know it was approved? ~ along >> i actually don't know. the port is here. they might be able to answer that question. >> i don't need it now either. we can kind of look at -- because i thought it was interesting, mr. lazarus's comment about what was there before, but also what was there before. >> joy navarrete planning staff. i'm not exactly sure, but i remember with the cruise terminal and offices and commercial. and it was a pretty large development.

>> [inaudible]. >> proposed. >> yeah, sure. jessie [speaker not understood] with the warriors team. the prior project proposed called the bryant street piers project would run all the way through a full certified e-i-r and bcdc permit contemplated a 100,000 square foot cruise terminal, 3 25,000 square feet of private office, 200,000 feet of retail and a 425 space garage. for contrast, we have not cruise terminal, but cruise berth. we don't have 3 25,000 square feet of private office. we have roughly 70,000 feet of office that's ancillary and served the warrior's operations. and then we have about 90,000 or proposing 90,000 feet of retail and car garage. >> along the embarcadaro it

seemed to be concentrated along the embarcadaro. >> correct. there was 3 to 4 story development along the embarcadaro, similar to what we're proposing and cruise terminal was the es ement oft t. that topped out around 85 feet on the east edge of the pier and we're obviously 125. >> thank you. so, thank you. i think this has been a great presentation and appreciate the work done since the last presentation. it would be great, too, after commissioner comments to get the staff's -- your reaction to kind of where -- how the design has evolved. >> >> commissioner sugaya. >> yes, for informational purposes, the tower ~ at&t park are 222 feet high approximately. and i believe the upper decks are a little taller than. and obviously the light standards are much taller than that. so, that's for comparison purposes. i just have a question for

staff, i think, in terms of future scheduling, in terms of the design, in terms of the e-i-r, and when we're anticipating this coming before the commission for any kind of -- i know we don't have approval per se, but we have to certify the e-i-r . i; is that correct? >> yes, and zoning will have to change so you'll have to make a recommendation. >> can we get an estimate of timing? >> sure, joy navarrete planning staff. we will be coming back with other iterations as they evolve. as far as the environmental impact report, we are planning to publish that in january 2014. so that should come to you shortly thereafter. certification is unknown at this time depending how many comments we get. and hopefully we will have approval to you sometime next

year, summer, fall. we can't say for certain. >> good enough, thank you. >> commissioner wu. >> thanks. i want to thank the team for the presentation today. i think there were a number of improvements to the pedestrian realm that were really success. . obviously having access around the entire pier, the connection through main street, the reduction in parking ~. so, it will be interesting to see going forward more and more details about how it will work. i still have some concerns about cars crossing exactly where pedestrians are walking. i think one of your renderings actually shows that. so, i think that will be very important for the public. a number of speakers talked about local hire. i think i want to continue to ask the warriors for their commitment to local hire, not only for the construction jobs, but for the permanent jobs. i actually think the permanent jobs may be more important, and that is also for vending. so, you know, looking at what

vendors are in the concessions, so on and on. in terms of the urban design, it's great to see that these changes were made. i think we still expect changes going forward. but in particular, i think the breaking up of the two tower masses on the seawall lot seems like a positive win. thanks. >> commissioner moore. >> appreciate version 2.0.1. and i'm glad to see mr. dykstra dig deep to shape the building around public interest values. that's an extremely important discussion, and i'm pleased to hear that your architecture indeed has the resilience and you have the creativity to deal with that. i suspect there will be other changes as we go along. i just appreciate your ability to understand the issues which are indeed driving public concerns in the city. the question i'd like to ask,

which you went over quickly, could you spend a minute speaking about the deep water berth and exactly what is entailed? i don't exactly know where it is. i don't know its function. i would be curious just to know particularly somebody would ask about [speaker not understood] power and all of those things. >> if i might, consider, jessie blount. we are proposing a deep water berth along the east edge. that's the difference between this version of the plan and the last plan you saw. it's in direct response to some feedback we received from the regulatory agencies and alwu about the value that this berth provides because it's one of the few naturally occurring deep draft locations along the bay that doesn't require a lot of dredging. so, the plan you saw responds to that where we've provided a minimum 40-foot width alongedth east edge to accommodate passenger loading and unloading which importantly it's a port of call berth. so, it's a berth that's used

for day -- you know, ships coming in, disembarking, embarking in the same day, not staying for extended stays and loading baggage on and off. so, it has a little bit of a wider footprint than a typical full-fledged cruise berth. it's also being looked at as a secondary or tertiary berth so other berths we all know about in san francisco are in use, and there is a second or third ship, it is an opportunity to use that. so, it will be probably more intermittent in nature than you might see further up the waterfront. >> it's interesting to hear and i'd like to see a response to it, it has requirements for certain facilities on the apron and i'd like to see the type of ship projected against the building itself because it will animate the eastern edge and this might not be the moment to speak about all of it. however, when you have passenger unloading and loading on a deep water berth, there are

certain requirements. where are the gang ways, how do you go up and down, what do you do during tide fluctuation relative to how far you go out. there is an interesting example in front of the exploratorium and i just happened to be there the other day where one of the larger research ships was parking right smack in front of the exploratorium on the east side. it's a fun thing to see and i like you to kind of think about that when you talk about your architecture. ~ the concern i always have, and i want to be very frank about it, aside from any discussion as to whether or not the location is correct, the [speaker not understood] is active for certain amount of time and then it just sits there like an object. i think you are working with interesting ideas about open space and animation, all of which i think are things we should be spending time and hearing more of it. you're trying to animate the building even at the time when

there is not a game and not people in large numbers going in and out of the building. i want to stick with the idea about you addressing the deep water berthing and ship animation to the building. i think it's architecturally interesting question. the other thing i'd like to ask, and i want to pick up on a comment, a person in the audience made, you and i spoke about a model last time. >> yes. >> you were actually saying that you have had one. >> yes. >> and are that you're working with it. i think at some point it would be great if you could share that. >> yes. >> it doesn't have to be the bulk or finished or whatever we're doing these days. but for everybody to see it three-dimensionally in context of the model i think it would add a lot to many of the questions which we may not have answered at the moment. i personally would appreciate seeing it. >> i think the short answer is agree with both your comments. >> thanks. >> commissioner antonini. >> i have a question on pier

reinforcement. i don't know who could answer that, but i understand there's some activity already going on out there. i'm not sure whether it actually is the reinforcement of the pier. my question is this. the exploratorium went ahead and put their reinforcing piers not all the way into bed rock, but they put them into some of the soil above the bed rock and separated the pier from the main land. and it was a seismic feature. i mean, i'm not sure -- is this going to be something similar or is it going to be more of a traditional pier reinforcement? >> joy navarrete from planning staff. as of right now i don't have the details of the engineering that's going to be happening right now. they are upgrading it just for the america's cup event and the team bases that are going to be there this summer. there is going to be extensive engineering, and the port is

here and they could clarify a little bit more. >> yeah, okay. so, that's some of the things that are being done anyway. and then we can get a clarification on, you know, which way this is being done in terms of addressing seismic concerns. >> yes. >> and my other question is irrespective of the pier reinforcement which is an ongoing process and takes quite a while, what would you say the actual construction time would be once you're ready to roll on construction of the arena, the retail space, and the other features on the pier? >> right now i don't know exactly what the phasing is. i know the arena wants to open 2017, around september for opening day. and then after that i don't know what the phasing is as far as the seawall lot and the retail.

>> yeah, i guess the arena construction i'm hearing is two years -- [multiple voices] >> yes, beginning summer of 2015. >> yeah, okay, thank you. >> so, just over two years. >> thank you. >> okay. well, i really can't hide this. i'm really excited about san francisco's waterfront. you know, my background is being part of a 50 year old business at fisherman's wharf on the waterfront. have seen the waterfront at its worst point, its best point and just frankly so excited to see this project come around. the very first slide that was presented of the icon i can points of the san francisco's waterfront and how this fills a gap, and i was sort of describe it an elbow joint that connects one spot to another. having spent six years on the port commission prior to coming to the planning commission, followed a lot of these piers intimately, know that it requires public-private partnership foma

prts they're terribly expensive and most of the work as you know is going to be under water or under the pier which we won't be able to appreciate. but this particular project is one where we will be able to appreciate it. there will be public space. there will be private space. it brings great benefits to the city from a convention point of view and a jobs point of view, from other events. the two [speaker not understood] reactive to concerns, i think i want it gloss over, i think the concerns being raised in particular about traffic are legitimate ones. i think you've given it some very men tremendous thought. correct me if i'm wrong. the attendance of the seats at this particular arena are 18, 20 thoughcompared to at&t park 40,000. again, talking about perspective. i don't think you're going to see the same amount of people pulling out into this parted venue as you will at at&t park. i'm hoping that the america's cup and the people's plan ~ which mta spent a lot of time,

the city spent a lot of time, will really this summer collect some data and see how the embarcadaro reacts to america's cup and the baseball game at the same time and a cruise ship at the same time. and study that. maybe it might be uncomfortable, but i hope we can learn some lessons from it and this design will take that into account. so, i encourage the project to keep going, to keep meeting with neighborhoods, trying to address their concerns yet further, and keeping traffic in mind and try and treat that as best we can. director ram. >> thank you. just to answer commissioner hillis' question on our work with the team and the project. of course, staff has been very heavily involved in this. we are in the middle of the e-i-r process, we are evaluating impacts. we put guidelines when we first rendered the project and given those to the team and the architects. we feel that the project is certainly going in the

direction that is consistent with those guidelines, in terms of the arena being set on the eastern end of the site to minimize impacts and views and maxv mile access to the water. in terms of the location of the retail and open space. ~ maximize and in terms of the seawall is going. we have to evaluate the additional height that's being requested. the eastern neighborhoods plan did put a 10 r foot ~ 105 foot limit there. we'll be evaluating that. [speaker not understood] i will say that just from a pier design stand point, one of the -- there has been a big concern about the height and the team has justifiably lowered the building and one of the design concerns that we had going into that process was, was a concern that that lowering the height didn't create a kind of pancake on the waterfront. and one of the things that we appreciated is the attention that's now being paid to the facade and making the facade much more interesting, making it as transparent as possible which is unusual for an arena. most arenas n't have a

glass looking into the building. so, this is being proposed to have a number of cases where there is places to look into the building and out from the building. and because we do have the concern that commissioner moore mentioned, which is when there is not an event, what happens, how do you activate it, how do you keep it active. the two levels of retail that are proposed along the edge of embarcadaro will help to do that, we think, as well as the way the building is being designed as well as the various types of open spaces that are being proposed. one of the things that we have been concerned about was making sure that those open spaces have a certain amount of intimacy that the neighborhood can use so that it's not just one vast open space, but smaller spaces that can be used on a neighborhood skivcale. those are the kinds of things we've been talking about. we think the general direction is consistent with our concerns, but still obviously a lot of work to do. ~ scale >> commissioner moore >> i have a question for the director. i am assuming the east side of

the embarcadaro is also being worked on by port planning staff. i have great admiration for them as having really done an incredible job to consistently improve the east side of the embarcadaro, and i assume then they are overlapping jurisdictions and working together as a team. >> there's no question. all departments, the port is obviously heavily involved at the table as is our mta and the other departments as well. and it's both side of the embarcadaro that we are involved in, all agencies. >> i'm talking about the specific planning part because port has spent a tremendous amount of time creating continuity and language of open space and kind of flood themselves from where you are all the way out up to pier 70. >> okay. any additional comments? okay, thank you. the commission is going to take a short break and reconvene in about 15, 20 minutes. >>please stand by; meeting in recess regular hearing for may 2013. i'd like to remind the members of the bl