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tv   [untitled]    August 3, 2014 8:30am-9:01am PDT

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and south and make the public realm open in the site. in more details we will have more information proposed for the project. in terms of the planning the eir is scheduled for august 17th if after the presentation from the sponsor today you very specific questions please let me us know and with that, i'll turn it over to the detective director with the department of public works for introductory remarks thank you. >> good evening edgar lopez good afternoon director ram i will give you a short introduction of the project and this is to your planning department and the
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office of economic workforce development and the bureau and our great partner santa fe san francisco travel. before i want to provide a high-level summary of the project. it will encompass 4 hundred and 757 thousand square feet and talk about the connection between the south and north and the expanded lobbies and a new canopy and the new bridge with a new bridge is improves the pedestrian circulation to make it more usable. we have known for a long time in order to remain competitive we've got to expand moscone we know moscone is in a
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neighborhood where people own and live and the people car about the community. when we start to look at the project we wanted to make sure it was done in partnership with the community over the passing past year and a half we've held over 2 dozen community meetings and one-on-one meetings with the community leaders and we've listened to the concerns and based on the feedback from those meetings the building design has been revised and it's restraining order stronger and the massing has been reduced it meets the expansion for the city and meets the demands of the community. we also wanted to use the opportunity for this project to better weave moscone into the surrounding neighborhood and cape with the destine that
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activates third street and introduces more widening of the sidewalks you'll see the better design flow for the people in access to the gardens. sorry i think my slides are out of order. moscone has a deep-rooted history in the development of the neighborhood people fought hard to protect the neighborhoods interests and that's understandable since moscone moscone center was built san francisco neighborhoods have changed. the project as now envisioned provides that improvement for better fitting of the 21st century of san francisco. i want to thank the project team and the community for getting us here and helping us to move the moscone center forward.
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i will introduce greg the lead architect who will walk you through the building design and go into a detailed presentation >> thank you edgar i'm with the architect in san francisco commissioner president wu to commissioner president wu and the commissioner to present our design as unfolding for moscone one of the most important projects in the city. i think we have slides that we can share with you that beginning with, of course, the context of this place it is much greater than the physical boundary and in addition to the economic implementations that edgar touched on we know this project has enormous gang we want to make sure that we honor
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the extraordinary things that exist in ybdz and depend over time those spaces are honored and enhanced is our goal. we know, of course, as we go by this project often this site that much of what is there isn't particularly positive for our city with the ends you see along howard street and third street are filled with ramps and service ways and concrete abutments that are extremely unfriendly from a pedestrian perspective the diagram in front of you is the access along 3 and
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fourth street there are ramps that cut off the pedestrian side there are all important green lines for pedestrians people have to move between buses and trucks and there's a connection to the ybdz across mission street to the playground that's a hidden jewel accessed by a in their pedestrian bridge that goes to the park. along going east and west along howard street we have a situation that business pull off to the side as seen in the photographs those are deep and dark lit spaces that are used for parking and for drop-offs and accruing a pedestrian conflicts as we try to move along with length from third to
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figure out street and back and forth so to show you the design concept that's evolved as talked about through the series even if community meetings and work with the city and the moscone sf travel operations group one critical issue is below grade f this is removing the gardens and playground in yellow you see two exhibition spaces that are connected with a ballroom in between them this is one of the great limitations of the operations from moscone this is to unit those two spaces and remove the ballroom and making a contiguous says that a larger conference space for sure not
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one of the biggest in the country but nevertheless, it will allow this center to remain competitive the sites the yellow is the footprint of the proposal to start from the north side at behind the restaurant and move forward to the streets and on the south side from the edge of the playground and move towards the street to basically build below grade and not encroachment on the public space this plays an important part it's important we use that to improve the negative conditions arrest a proposal is this one to especially on third street to take that long ramp you saw and pull it back to the south edge
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creating a pedestrian friendly environment to create a conference center to make multiple connections to the playground and back and forth to ybdz to reduce the vial project it's impossible to walk from east to west without crossing bus lanes so quickly the plans here i see hopefully not stressed here there are not as long but the blue is the lobby we're going to have the multiple use of the space to make maximum flexibility of this space i should point out when this building is complete that will
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be the most compacted building in terms of is small number of secret used to accommodate visits this step up 12 feet from the lobby you see the bottom in yellow is the existing bail room to allow us to have this this is an unusual you way to let the public pass through while the conferences took place opening up in the moscone across the city. we're stepping up one more level to the ballroom you, you, you or so it in blue we're to have the live e life of this building to have animation and create a fungal connection to a new
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terrace on the north side to allow this facility to work with the north and south will individually both by the use of the access to the bridge and finally at the top on the third floor are the meeting rooms with a significant terrace as a result as mr. lopez indicated to educate a gem be relationship with the playground. so this is a section soot u cut through from yerba buena gardens to the playground on the right you see did famous low exhibition hall so much of this building remains underground, however, we're coming vertically and in program areas you see in yellow the exhibition space now connected and above that and
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importantly is this the importance of allowing north and south to operate together as well as independently so from the north side of the exhibition hall it comes up without enkufrm the left side this bridge is something obviously i don't take bridges lightly in the city and as well as with the community on those pieces of we've worked we're treating that as a box eyewitness kite we've placed the structure stop the top to allow or suspend this dedicate walkway it's an extremely transparent and suspended piece this is our arts administration staff called
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this the mission of light because it is now a designated as a place for significant work by an artist to make this piece as it occupies the public ground as part of the public artists an significant piece in our city. architecturally we think it's good. so looking at this section at howard street very, very importantly it's the civic realm this is engaged for the life of the building and so we're making those connections very direct and because of the visibility of this mission street for the most part you can't see it but mission street you'll see the defining light edge it this is
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an important architecture piece and stepping down to the playground this is the test stepping down and making that side of the building a crafting to howard street to make that part of the park setting it has extremely high metrics is it will have is the lowest carbon in the united states and it will safe 15 million 0 of gallons of waters and this is to the treatment plant and into the bay this will be used not only for flushing toilets in our building but watering ybdz and the street trees around the site and providing water for the cleaning
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of trucks for this neighborhood. we take very, very seriously the architecture of that building it's important to our civic realm and we've taken pains sorry about that this stressed proportion but to make that a building of upper engagement and looking at from third street roughly from the corner of third and slightly above howard street there's a vertical light you see in the details. through this way we call a light cloud the cornice the drastic cornice line that stretches from howard street and capping it. under this is a series of small living rooms to create intimacy and opening on the west corner
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between the light bridge and the new park bridge a place of urban activity we've opened this up to reveal the comments and raised the wide part to favor pedestrians with a stoplight at the bridge to make this an unconfirmed north and setting this is looking back you can see what we think is a very your honor, and active building connection between those. so just to end with other issues about the public realm as i mentioned beyond the fundamental issues of the building itself we're very interested in trying to use what we have we can of our resources in the project to take steps to improve anything that needs to be improved in this adjacent edges so this includes the bridges and streetscape and howard we're going to widened this to share
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the lane of 45 feet width that will be shared with the occasional buses for the pedestrians and you can see in yellow the connections through and around the building. i know there say, i understand there's conversations about the possibly of the howard street becoming too way that would be a wonderful thing and make that a neighborhood street so i certainly hope that will happen and make that bettered you see along the sidewalk a can weaver that provides rainwater protection and it does occasional rain in the winter and those color pieces are video pieces our local media in creating a building we use video imagery and also when is it
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called dark days to bring visual life to the building this will look back across the netsdz and bring that north lobby creating a electrically list or public safety listen or the test on the right those provide the access to the restaurant and finally turning ybdz towards howard street and creating a great light beyond the park bridge in conflict it is designed to be a landscaped piece this is outlined in red and the judge to look at the existing conditions there's a bridge currently a narrow bridge that it goes up and keeps going up and lands on the second level of the
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playground providing a prospective views with a confusing approach and resulting in multiple crossing to get back and forth to the playground and the carrousel cutting the carrousel off from the public realm to the east we want to remove the bridge and create an open plaza to the carrousel close to moscone opening up the upper plaza and to further serve those by retail and public that are not part of the program by the lower blue piece on howard street will be open for the public and a small blue area that's a community room and cafe to serve the carrousel as well as the playground itself so this is at the level of the
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playground as opposed to back up this is intuitively clear with an open access finally to conclude we have this on the south side.org a smaller episodes here's a view where we have this exit ramp for a transacts and this is a service by the cafe on the corner for sale we're working on a rain cover to make this usable throughout the year and rain as well as the summer so in concluding that here's views of the sale we're happy we'll be adding over 10 thousand square feet and working with the playground and finally the south side is a very important garden wail thanks to our community involvement to make this a great
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space we're delighted to have a place to work with this with our colleagues in the city and with the san franciscans thank you. >> thank you. we'll take public comment first. andrew robinson and other >> thank you, commissioners. director ram. i'm andrew rob robinson from the yerba buena district i'm here to speak in support we see a vital moscone project to bring activation it supports the culture institutions and we think the project t is heading in the right direction i'm going to touch on things there's an
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opportunity for significant realm improvements and integration of the building and more external facade and opening the facade up to make it less and having it back to what it has become a residential neighborhood. also, we advocate for improved pedestrian safety measures so did widower crosswalk on howard offering maybe police officers to work the intersections during the conferences and improvements along third street so that you're more connected to the neighborhood. and last couple of points we are really supporting an iconic art piece this grounds the heart of the yerba buena neighborhood and we support the blocks in the
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neighborhood it offices an opportunity to get into the children's area and the last thing we advocate for the moscone center to continue to contribute to the operation and management we see them as the integral of the visitors as well as the residents and the city as a whole thank you very much >> thank you. >> next speaker >> hello, i'm sonya i'm a community advocate with todd could my concerned are regarding pedestrian safety. and the capitalization of the moscone without a complete analysis of the impact on the walkways around moscone and two blocks each way is not good. there are a lot of seniors that live around moscone center and a
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lot of disabled people so there 0 needs to be a safety development plan provided by the developer we know that pedestrians are effected by construction and new development thank you very much >> thank you. >> hi commissioners, thank you i'm alice light the director of the community at todd could it was great to see the greatest design it's come far i thank you for that. and i don't know if it was stated clearly we understand the improvements to the top lot and the gardens area that are the community amenities have been committed to be funded with the project so we're very happy to
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hear that i want to confirm that's the case and the one item of concern that i'd like to bring up. is the green wall. we would like to see it's the highest quality green materials there is already a lot of ivory ccii very around moscone and at least on the 10 to 15 feet along the area where people will be walking we want to see that be of the highest quality on the green wall and above that it could be less water and maintenance intensive by have that area where people are walking and children playing the most care given to the
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landscaping thank you. thank you >> thank you. >> okay. i'll call additional names (calling names). >> good afternoon, commissioners i'm kevin i'm the executive director of the hotel council of san francisco we continue to support the moscone expansion project we believe it will make us more competitive as a city against other cities that are making dmochls to their conference centers but to benefit our employees in san francisco as well the hotel industry employees 24 thousand employees 57 percent live and work in san francisco and the population within our industry 77 percentage or identifying as
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asian-american or african-american and this is critical for the tourism and the conference but also for the continued increase of jobs and the economic prosperity in san francisco we ask you continue to support this and in favor of what's been presented thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. . good afternoon, commissioners. an opportunity to speak i work for the todd could group i'm here for the residents that live directly across the street from the conference center i'm supporting the expansion of the conference center but concerned for the seniors that live less than a block their lives are limited their mobilely impaired
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and severely handicapped and their day is a walk across the street their safety is uppermost important i'm a voice for this community and i ask you to please include a thorough analysis of pedestrian safety in this expansion thank you >> thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm mar and i'm here in support of the moscone expansion and especially want to do speak to some of the improvements that will come from the design for the children's garden the end result will be greater value to not only the parent and the children that use the area but more amenities for them such as a community room that we have long needed there
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will be a to the lot and a multiple you purpose area for games and performances i wanted to thank the expansion team and c m g and the sf travel for bringing the operators together and giving them an opportunity to work with the team and help impact the design so it will serve the purposes that are all mr. there thank you very much. >> thank you i have one more speaker card steve. >> hi commissioners i'm south of market of the businesses association we support this expansion it's a gem of a venue for this city a big plus for the city to have some venue, and, secondly, definitely bring
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people coming in and we will have more people coming out to the businesses south of market so a big asset for the people south of market i urge you to support this expansion. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners and of any person(s) responsible for the ringing or use of a jim lazarus with the chamber of commerce i've testified before and supported this in the months i've seen it get better we're pleased to a participant with the design team and neighbors in modifying this project it's critical to the economic growth of san francisco last year you had a project on the knowledge does the rebuild of the c pmc hopeless an important component