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we have turned a wlot of corners and we are looking at the overall design and clarity of content. i am excited to say that we have a draft sent to mta, tem, and the new ems agency which is dph and so we're getting some feedback from the agencies. i wish i could give you a publication date. and i am optimistic it will be in the new year. it really depends on how fast we get the final approvals back. but i feel like we have made a lot of great progress and so i feel very good about it, don't you, al? all right. and in the meantime, i have been to a really great conference

last month and this was a gathering of people who are in the festival industry. so representatives from lalapalo lalapalooza, bonaroo, and hawaiian food festival, major player, and i was there to learn about emerging trends and more best practices to carry this knowledge back to the event community here and it was high level. a couple of my favorite panels were about how to insure public safety and managing a public event and as early on as possible collaborate with the highest levels of government and get their buy-in and other things how to make the case to

the board about investing in event technology and i have been able to connect with people who are based here as well as elsewhere at the conference, so that was really cool. i will be going to austin for the first ever city conference for people who work in city government who regulate and organize events. it is called the municipal special events summit. i will be on a panel about policy development with nashville, austin, and chat chat. and then the point of this is to share these best practices and learn just what are the kinds of tools that the other cities are doing. literal and figure tools that

wil be from in late january, so i'll report back. >> great. thank you. that's many things that we had hoped this position would be doing, so that is really good to hear. >> great. any other questions from the commissioners? >> no other questions from the commissioners. the next item is police department comments and questions. i see we have a member of sfpd -- nope, not to make comments and questions. so we misour police department comments and questions. item number 7 is hearing possible action regarding applications for permits under the jurisdiction of the entertainment commission. the first item under this is the consent calendar, and then we'll go into our regular agenda. do you want to present the consent calendar?

>> on consent is a place bawled berber at 1516 broadway. and so they had -- this is going for a limited live performance permit. they did not have any issues. we didn't hear any negative feedback and the police department signed off with no added conditions. so that is why it is on consent. the owner is here tonight, so if you have any questions, you can ask him. >> commissioner, any questions? all right. can i have a motion to adopt the consent calendar? >> motion to approve consent calendar. >> motion. >> second. >> motion and seconded. same house, same call. excellent. and congratulations. moving forward with the regular

agenda. okay. so on regular agenda tonight, the first item is for august hall and fifth arrow. this is at 420 and 430 mason. these folks have extensive history in entertainment world in san francisco, owning other places, and they're going into the location of the old ruby skye and they're going to have live music, and it's going to be a creative space. i am looking forward to it. and if you look in the file and don't have a lot of residential neighbors and they have hotels down there and businesses nearby. and he brought the conditions with him. i am sure he can discuss if he wants to do that first right now.

this is one permit with two addresses. and there is a fifth arrow downstairs from august hall. august hall is the music venue. and with the discussion and why don't we hear.

to establish security protocols and other things like that. a brief overview of the project as now that you mentioned there are two components to it and august hall, which will be opened as a live music venue and to transition from what was there in the past in terms of a nightclub will be a hard ticket venue. what that means is every night people will be buying tickets to come to the show.

it is not about people coming to the venue and lining up to get in from walking into a nightclub. and you are buying tickets and seeing a show booked six months in advance to play at the venue. we also have fifth arrow downstairs. fifth arrow will be a three-lane bowling, a restaurant, and a cocktail bar that we're very proud of that we think will be a nice juxtaposition between the two in terms of guests coming pre- and post-show and other people coming during shows to fifth arrow downstairs. a couple of notes. we are redoing our sound system in total. the system that was there is about 15-year-old system, so we're starting with a new system. we spent a tremendous amount of money working with salter as well as on the acoustical treatments for the room as a whole. we will have a db monitor in place. and we'll work with the commission to make sure that we are in a place that we are adhering to noise as well as

being the best neighbor we could for the neighborhood. to date, we had sent out a letter to every single neighbor within a 500-foot radius as well as the businesses and hotels in the neighborhood. and we gave them an overview of our project as well as gave them information to contact us. we also hosted a neighborhood gathering at the venue. sadly, only two people came, but we did offer to talk through anything. so far all we have gotten from the neighborhood is we are really glad you are coming and happy to have what you are doing versus something else that might go into the space. one thing i didn't mention earlier and is probably important is this has been a venue in san francisco since 1911. the building was rebuilt after the fire and has been an operating venue since that time, and we are proud of the opportunity to kind of carry that forward. let me see what else i can add to this. we will have guard cards for everyone at the front door. all the team will be lead trained. we will have a security director on staff that we are in the

final process of interviewing three of them. we have a security plan that we have developed and will add to that once the final security director is on our team. i think that takes me through predominant amount of the things i wanted to add. i'm happy to answer any questions you guys may have. >> yes. >> the second floor, that opens out to mason street. >> yes. >> has windows that open. >> correct. >> what do you plan to do in the room? >> we don't plan to have the windows open, but it is a room used for a meet and greet with artists. that room we're redoing to have it more of a cocktail room. and in the past they used it as secondary kind of entertainment room. for us it's more of a l cocktail room with the ability to do meet and greets. >> enough ventilation. >> it doesn't get stuffy there. >> we just went through the research and got a 7-ton a.c. unit that is more than that room needs. so definitely with the ventilation. >> an i think if i remember, there is the walk in and it kind

of crisscross in, so do you have a one door and then another door? >> one door is an exit. in the past there is a satellite bar in there, so we're adding a permanent bar in that room and the ability for people to sit down and enjoy a cocktail versus being in a room -- have you been to the poster room and that is the idea of that room as well. >> yes, okay. >> an other questions? >> hi. thanks for coming in. >> thank you. >> can you tell us more about the soundproofing that you have done or planning to do? >> absolutely. we work with salter. they came in and did things i have never seen done in a room of popping balloons and making various noises to work on the sign attenuation in the room. and working with two different acoustical engineers interiorly to create a sound baffle to keep the sound deadened in the room. we are lucky the building is a

concrete and steel building, so not a lot of sound permeates the building as a whole. by we have acoustical treatments and working with adding 42 curtains to various areas in the building that kind of deaden sound. we've also where we're transitioning from the main room into the lobby, we are adding soundproofing to make sure sound is not carried to the front of the building. >> are you doing this in preparation for the live acts versus -- >> there's two components to it. one is the room as a whole wasn't great for live music, so adding to that. and the second is to work to make sure we keep the music in the venue. as a note, there were not a lot of issues with sound permeating the venue in the past. we want to be in a good place from a sound, clean sound for the building. >> okay. thank you. >> any other questions? all right. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> and now we're going to hear

from san francisco police department. >> hello, commissioners and staff. we sat down with the applicant and with the captain and myself and went over the safety plan. we were satisfied with it. as you know, ruby skye before that and they did have an extended hours permit with the old application, so it's not something that's a big change for the neighborhood. looking at this, let's see, i have the conditions. >> it is on the projector. >> oh.

okay. what we did is we looked at where we thought there could be issues. and one of the things that actually was kind of happy about that was the management was complete agreement. as we are recommending approval t two recommendations that we have is all employees shall be leads trained. that is extremely effective in helping the employees know what an intoxicated person looks like, what the law says. it's just a real good tool for management to make sure that all

their employees have the basic understanding of what we want. we want the patrons to be able to come and have a good time, but a little special training is going to be helpful. and is going to be good for the patrons' experience as well as for the establishment in lowering the liability and nobody wants anything to happen at the clubs. and so that extra special training where they can kind of look at somebody and say, oh, you know what? you're going to be drinking water for a little bit. or i think i have to cut you off completely. and i think if they get that training, they'll be really have their a game. the other part was that with extended hours and having bands, what we're asking for is management will send central station a calendar of special events and evenings of the extended hours permit will be utilized. if you are going to be a band, let us know so we know what is happening in the district. they work very closely with live nation. and we have the same

understanding for entertainment that's being done at the masonic auditorium. and that has been very, very effective. and the other one was for if it's going to be -- it didn't seem like the extended hours were going to be utilized that much, so if there is a night they are going to utilize it, just let us know and we can send and have passing calls to make sure that everything is fine. do you have any questions for me? >> a commissioners? nope, no questions. thank you very much. >> i do have a follow-up with the applicant. >> we have a follow-up question for the applicant. >> just one staff question that is coming up from inspector burke is that we should -- we

might want to amend the p.d. conditions to clarify what a special event is so we know how to better direct the venue and the calendar. >> we have a copy. my question neway. so live nation is your partner. are you use live nation security? going to have your own inhouse security with their security? >> we'll have our own in-house security. we are responsible for security, not live nation. >> all the protocols that live nation might have, you will be adopt i adopting how they run their masonic. >> we work with them on best practices and they share information and incorporate that to the overall plan and a hybrid that works with their plan and works with our venue as a whole because it might be different than the masonic or the philmore and make the best plan. >> our plan is to do it in-house. >> yes. >> not an outside company.

correct. >> thank you. that's all. >> another follow-up question. i am looking at your permit from the fire department. do you see this? were you able to resolve -- >> yes. >> occupancy load. >> it is not an issue. we just had -- we went to dbi and they granted us the occupancy load. we went to the place of assembly permit and there were a couple of modification. we have a couple of changes on the permits we are submitting as a whole and submitting at once. it is not something we are concerned about resolving. we just haven't got it done yet. >> good, glad to hear. >> great. any other questions for the applicant? or the police? are the police conditions accept to believe you? >> yes. i think it would be -- we already spoke about it and i totally understand it. we will provide them a calendar. it is good to know what the special events are. >> are you planning to do club events in between shows like if you have a dark weekend, going

to keep it dark? >> our plan is not to do club events. hard ticket events for our venue. >> thank you. >> what would you consider special events? >> i would say special events would be a non-public facing calendar event. so basically if we had a corporate event on a wednesday that is not on the public calendar, that is what i consider a special event. and as i talked with officer mathias about it, we have the calendar on the website, and if it's out of the ordinary, he wants to prepare for so this night you are open late or this night you have this. and that is what we're talking about. >> okay. so then the number of people does not matter. it is really we have something planned. >> i think what the nature of the business is that everything is booked pretty far in advance. we're already booking shows into may and june right now, so for us to provide a calendar with a here's everything that is happening this month in advance of the month will not be difficult. >> okay. thanks. >> does that address the staff concern regarding special events

and that? okay. great. thank you. >> thank you. >> commissioners, discussion? motion? >> i would like to move to i a prove with the police conditions. >> motion to approve. >> second. >> motion and seconded. okay. can i get same house, same call on this one? >> sure. >> all right. your permit is approved. congratulations and we're always happy to have a new live music venue in town. >> okay. so third and final permit application for this evening is a loud spiker permit which we don't hear very often. but any time someone is wanting to extend past 10:00 p.m., it would trigger a hearing unless there is precedent that was created with you guys previously. and so that is what we're doing tonight. this is for 111 minna and shish

el is here to talk about it. and basically doing a holiday party outside of the menu on minna. and they're hoping to extend until midnight. so you will see the police department has already provided crystal approval with four conditions. so michelle, can you come up and speak to this? there you are. >> michelle delaney, managing partner at minna gallery. i have a client doing a holiday party, and they would like to have amplified sound outside past 10:00. it will really just be a mackey speaker with spotify play ogen it, so not really a huge deal, but i know it's important we discuss this. i have the neighbor outreach. we had sign-off from all the neighbors in the area within 100

feet. i don't have residents close, so the businesses will be closed. it is on a saturday night. i think my closest residents are over at the st. regis and around the corner at the paramont. >> will there be a party within 111 minna as well? >> a we're going to have it inside minna and out in the alleyway. >> will there be open doors for the flow of attendees? >> the minna door to the alley will be open. >> okay. >> all right. any other questions? >> yes, commissioner perez. >> hi. and if there are any complaints from the neighbors what will be the procedure or the protocol? >> i had a party last saturday without any sound out there, and it was fine. so if the neighbors don't like it and they want us to turn it off, i am not worried about. so fine. >> can you publish your phone number and they can contact you? >> a they can call me and again at the holiday parties, most people are more concerned with kind of networking and talking to each other and having a good

time than they really are the music. it's all right. >> you will be managing the phone -- >> i will be there all night. >> okay. and how quickly can you commit to a resolution if there is a complaint? >> no problem. quickly. just go turn the volume down and say got it. >> okay. thank you. >> any other questions? all right. thank you. >> any discussion? >> no. i motion to i approve the permit until midnight. >> a second. >> motion and second to i a prove the permit. >> same house, same call. >> yep. okay. all right. thank you. >> congratulations. >> all right. now moving forward to item number 8, which is the discussion and possible action regarding recommendations to be

submitted to the planning department or department of building inspection for a proposed residential project for chapter 116 of the administrative code. >> okay. hello again. so our first item on residential development compatibility calendar is 425 mason. this is actually perfect timing because this is right by the old ruby skye which is now going to be august hall. so this is something you will probably hear again from nate, but in the meantime, let's hear from the developer at 425 mason and they will discuss their project with you. >> welcome. >> hi. good evening, commissioners. i am sandra chow with the architecture firm for the project at 425 mason street. i am here to present the project and happily answer any questions you may have about the design. so the package in front of you

has some basic information about what we're proposing for the site. the building itself is an historic seven-story concrete building designed by lewis polk, and it currently sits on the corner of mason street and derby street. built in 1922, it served as the headquarters for the spring valley water company until it was purchased by the city. we're proposing to repurpose the building into a hotel with 77 guest rooms. the hotel brand will be an a.c. marriott, which is geared toward a demographic of younger travellers. as such, the ground floor -- the ground floor will have about 1600 square feet for restaurant-bar in addition to the 1,100 square feet for the lobby and the hotel lounge.

along with other businesses that share the alley, we plan to reactivate derby street by cleaning it up and repaving the sidewalks and the street and by adding site furnishings such as planters and lights. the historic status of the building and the building ingress and egress cannot be altered easily, so the building's main entrance along mason street leads into an historic vestibule which will remain. and then the secondary egress is along derby street towards the end of the alley. the 77 guest rooms are small, european style king rooms on an average of 200 square feet. there are five rooms on the mezzanine level and 12 rooms per floor on the next six levels.

we recently redesigned the floor plans to reduce the number of rooms facing mason street. 30 to 24 total rooms. and oriented more of the rooms towards derby street instead. we have been working closely with s.f. heritage, and while we can't replace the historic single pane windows, we are adding window liners to all the windows in the guest rooms along mason street and derby street, which will provide an additional layer of sound protection. we're also working with salter and associates to develop design for sound and renovation. the roof will have a bar in the existing penthouse. and 2,100 square feet of landscaped terrace. we are on today's agenda in preparation for the planning commission hearing and also because our neighbors august hall are here tonight, but we are still currently conducting the environmental noise study, which should be completed in the next few weeks.

we've reached o it to nate valentine and scott murphy from august hall, and don thomas at club donatello about our proposed project. while we had planned to perform a sound study while ruby skye was in operation, we weren't able to coordinate the study with the planner before it closed in june, but we want to be good neighbor, and we met with nate and scott recently to let them know we will be coordinating on additional study after they open in the spring. this follow-up study will be during a scheduled event at the venue on the weekend, and we plan to incorporate the results into the building envelope design. thank you. and i am here for any questions. >> great. thank you. any questions? >> yeah. so as i was talking to the applicant previously about the windows facing. now, how many actually guest rooms are facing mason street? >> 24. >> and how many above the roof

line? do you think? i think ruby skye is about three stories, two stories -- two stories. so everything from the third floor up would be -- how many units is that? >> wait. >> 20? >> 20. >> so what i'm worried about is i will use another example of another venue that has a hotel right across the street. and they have been -- the club was there first. actually, they probably both been there at the same time. they are getting a lot of complaints from their guests. and then they pressure the hotel for refunds. so i'm just wondering, are you going to be doing more soundproofing? maybe more -- i know you are going to reinforce the windows.

but on mason street, i'm concerned about how much more can we do facing that club? and another thing that and even before the hotel is there and with hertz rental car and mason street is really during operation is really busy. and it does get really log jammed. i know many times i have to bypass mason to go around because it just stops. have you took into consideration that if that's going to be a hotel, with that many units, how are you going to -- do you have a street plan to handle -- i mean, i hate to say ruby skye all the time. if the new venue has 1,000 people. i mean, they're rated -- before ruby skye was rated at 950 load, which is a lot of people. plus you got the club next door, which could be another 300 or

400. you are talking about almost 1,000 people on mason street. have you addressed that situation for your guests at your hotel? >> well, we expect that corridor to be pretty active. i think even in the zoning noise plan it has the corridor being over 65 decibels to 70 plus, so we anticipated that it's pretty loud to begin with. currently there's a bus stop in front of it temporarily, or so the mta says for now. so there's a lot of activity on that street, especially with the restaurants next to us, too. we anticipate a lot of activity. we are hoping some of the activity will spill into the restaurant-bar, too. >> you still have to do the sound study, right? >> yes. >> i guess planning would ask for a street study as well, right? the environmental impact on that. >> they are looking at loading and our loading plan and our parking plan. so that's part of the consideration for the environmental review as well.

>> okay. i guess i don't have any data to assess it. and the commission knows my thing is all about lighting and security to make sure that it's all well lit from patrons from the club that might wander into the alleys and things. and we try to mitigate future complaints, and my thing is it's very annoying when operations get bogged down, and i'm sure they want to be good neighbors with your tenants. so it's very important that these studies are done right. i can't really -- the building is beautiful. i am all about preserving historic buildings. that is my thing. but again, as a small business owner, i really concerned myself about clashes outside especially during nighttime activities. i don't know how we -- i don't

know what we can say when we don't have all the information because they are still doing their studies. so laura has been on this board, but this is only my concern about that. all right. >> dr. perez. commissioner perez. >> inspector. >> hi. thanks for coming in. and with the window treatment, can the curtains dampen sound? >> it is standard for hotels to have blackout shades and upholstery drapery in front of it, so that would help, too. and the hotel donatello around the corner from you. have you had a chance to reach out and find out what they are doing to embrace the neighborhood and the business that happens on that street? >> we talked to don thomas who is at club donatello, but he also works with the hotel. and we've gotten their endorsement for the project. we're surprised, but they are

actually happy to see that building being used again instead of standing empty. >> right. and my last question is sometimes it's good to be proactive. and then would part of your marketing campaign kind of promote that, hey, we are in the middle of this theater district in san francisco, right across the street from this live events venue? and maybe by promoting that in your marketing, people when they come to the hotel, they will more kind of anticipate that ahead of time. >> that is a good idea, too. i think that most of the travellers because it's so close to union square are hoping for a livelier place to stay. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> i just want to comment. i think it's a really great opportunity that you are presenting in front of us and that you are working with salter and conducting test studies around the sound when the venue is operating. we just recommend that you do it on a night like a friday night or a saturday night so that you can really see the biggest

impact. >> yes. >> in terms of sound and traffic. and as somebody who has worked in the neighborhood for the past 12 years, i'm happy that you guys are coming in. and that there is another rooftop bar that san francisco is going to be able to enjoy. >> thank you. >> again, i know we're just making recommendations, but i mean, is it kosher for us to say it's -- i think maybe it's in the plan that when there is a venue across the street that you should notify your hotel guests ahead of time that you are sleeping across the street from a very active venue. i don't think we've ever done this before, but i think we've had this problem with that other venue. i am just wondering because we are in the starting stages if that could be a recommendation from us that they notify the tenants and some people might love it to be on that side of

the street. some people might not want to be. i want to see if we can make that recommendation. >> you can add that as a recommendation to this particular one, and then we should discuss adding that to the overall format because for hotels/motels, we don't have the same process for afterward that we would with residential development in terms of notifying lessees and the buyers. >> i think our lessons from that particular venue is more than enough to say we should recommend that to the developer. that they have to notify their hotel guest that there is a live venue across the street that could impede their sleep. or whatever. i don't know how to say that. >> right. and the context of this is that we have been doing this for residential development, and in part because of complaints from hotel guests about sound from venues that were there predating

the hotel. we now also have the ability to have hotel development come in front of us for this review for exactly this. so i agree with commissioner lee and we probably should talk about some sort of pro forma language around notifying guests regarding that so that as the hotel proprietors don't end up with guests complaining about noise they didn't anticipate as well. >> all right. >> given that we have one of the nearby venue proprietors here, do you have any comment that you want to make on this? >> thank you very much. nate valentine from future august hall and fifth arrow.

ewith did have the opportunity to meet with the development across the street. we do support the fact that they're coming into the neighborhood. i think that street is going to get busy and a few new restaurants opening as well. it might be as commissioner lee pointed out, a concern about the use of the street as a whole. a couple of things that are very important that i'm not sure how this commission can kind of steer this, but important to us is that there is mitigating future issues. as we're building our venue, we're trying to make sure we're not causing issues and we are hoping because of a new development across the street that wasn't there ever before for venue there since 1911, that it doesn't all of a sudden create issues that weren't apparent before that time. we definitely would like to make sure that whatever sound study is conducted, that we have an agreed upon date, that we work collectively to make sure that we agree to the date that makes sense and not a date that we're not open or something like that. we had met with them previously and ask that be conducted before ruby skye be closed. as they mentioned, it wasn't

able to happen, and now agree upon a date. i delftly would like to -- i definitely like to make sure there is a good understanding of the noise penetration on the street from the 24 rooms on mason street in a way that we can all feel comfortable knowing they are being built in a way that is mitigating from sound entering the rooms that would otherwise cause their guests to have a problem. i do think it would be a good idea to have a notice from a guest that you are across the street from a venue to this is a pre-preparedness as opposeded to walking into the room and hearing noises they weren't expecting. the last thing to mention is that alley, i forget the name -- derby, i believe, and an interesting alley. as much as that area is a great area, there are some problems with people doing drugs and sleeping places. so i think that anything that can be done collectively as a neighborhood not just on their responsibility, but they are activating that alley right now because right now there is a gate in front of it, but kept in a way that is nopt adding problems to -- that is not adding problems to the street

and not becoming an alley that people are overly sleeping in or kind of con ge grating in for purpose -- or con gregating in for purposes that aren't beneficial. if it's going to be open because it is usually closed is thought of in a way that is productive and planned for, and not just open it and see what happens. those are my comments. >> great. thank you. any discussion from commissioners? any motions? >> this is the only time we get to hear, right? or do we get after the study is done? or go straight to planning? >> i need to get a response to planning prior to that, but you can make a recommendation for the sound study at this time.

>> at least give them an option. let them know there is a venue across the street. they might want a quieter room. . >> then a sound study agreed upon with the venue >> correct. >> i think salter knows what time usually you like to hear it. >> i got that. all right. i second. >> motion and seconded. >> okay. i will just commissioner lee -- (roll call) thank you. congratulations. you move forward to planning.

next item >> next item in regard to residential development going on at 542 to 550 howard street, and the places of entertainment within 300 feet are kate o briannes and harlot. let's hear from the developer. this item now. >> good evening. i am representing the project sponsor. the project before you this evening is mixed use high rise tower at 542 howard adjacent to the new transbays transit center. the project site is immediately east of the bus ramp that crosses howard street. some call it the mini bay bridge.

it is right there. the project sponsors proposed 62 story building to reach 750 feet to the highest occupied floor and 800 to the rooftop mechanscalscreens. contains a mix of uses including a 10 floor hotel at the bottom of the tower, 16 floors of office space above that and 27 floors of residential units at the top of the tower with approximately 190 new residential units. ground level contains lobbies for each use and limited retail uses fronting the pedestrian area. the project is immediately across from the new transit center and the transit center has the retail as well. the architect will give you additional details about the design.

the sponsor attempted to make contact with the places of entertainment in the vicinity of the project site including the temple, outlet, south side spirit house. kate o brians and not technically a place of entertainment but we got in touch with them. temple nightclub is to the east. the project sponsors because they are neighbors ad adjacent neighbors have been in contact for a number of years. they try to schedule a meeting specifically to talk about this issue before this hearing tonight. it didn't work out. they are planning to meet in january to talk about coordination between the nightclub as well as the number of other issues that are going to come up during construction considering we are right next door to them. we don't have any indication

from the years of contact that there is any issue with the project. the project sponsor met briefly on site with the manager of o'briens. the bar was really busy when they were in there. the manager gave his e-mail address, followed up a couple times but didn't hear back from the manager on that. as i said it is not technically a place of entertainment but the project sponsor did meet and discuss the project. they are solidly in support of the project. finally south side spirit house and harlot didn't get back to us after a couple of attempts to reach them. in a moment you will hear from salter and associates who analyzed the impacts on the guests and