know it's called a seed grant, but i can't remember what it stands for. i can get back to you. >> that would be great. it would be great if the commission -- i don't know if we can be an official sponsor, or at least some sort of partner to that. you don't have to pay any money, right? >> [laughter]. >> i will second the motion. >> president hyland: thank you. there is a motion that is seconded to adopt recommendations for approval for the legacy business. on that motion, commissioner black? johns? pearlman? matsuda? and president hyland? thank you, commissioners. that motion passes unanimously, 5-0. commissioners that places us on item 9, case 2013.0225u. the ucsf research and academic

building at zsfg for review and comment. >> good afternoon, department staff. the project for you is a -- >> excuse me. i'll need to recuse myself for this item. >> i move that you be recused. >> second. >> i need to stay -- in the last year i had a financial relationship with arg which is a consultant on this project which is why. >> very good on the motion to r commissioner hyland? that motion passes unanimously. >> the project for you is a review and comment on the ucsf research and academic building at the zuckerberg san francisco

general hospital. seeking concurrence on the project design relative to mitigation that was adopted as part of the environmental impact report for the project. the project includes demolition of a parking lot. it's a five-story research facility. comprising a mix of dry laboratory space, wet labs and desk top research. the project would retain some of the historic elements on the site, including fence, guardhouse and two gate pillars. as you see in the packet we provided, we provided analysis by the consultant. i'll invite the architect up to present the project it you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. it's a pleasure to be here and present this very important project we think for ourselves, our clients and certainly for the city and county of san

francisco. as rich mentioned, the project is a research building and it is intended to serve the staff and research that is already occurring on campus. people may not realize, but sf general and ucsf have a partnership going back approximately 140 years, so it's a longstanding relationship and important part of the success of the hospital. should note that sf general is important to us because in addition to serving many of the underserved communities in our city, they are also a trauma one facility, which includes a requirement for research. and they're the only trauma one center between stanford and sacramento. so we serve a large area. as mentioned, one of the things we started with was looking to adhere to the mitigation

measures, with -- which included 15 guidelines. as part of that, we thought it was important to conduct our own analysis and understanding of the campus and its architecture to make sure that what we were designing was very much in compatible to the campus and its fabric. what you see in front of you are the historic structures within the campus. we're looking, 23rd street on the bottom. and mixed in with the historic structures, are newer structures. the mainly hospital opened 2016 and building 5, a structure from the 70s. the site for the project is in the southeast corner. as you can see, it's where there is currently a surface parking lot. so we're not touching any

existing historic structures. the project includes a roadway project which is to complete the vehicular circulation as part of removing the parking lot. and as part of the project, we have loading on the east side along vermont street. and a proposed entrance as part of the requirements on the northwest corner of the building. i'll go into that in a bit more. so, along the southern edge of the site, is an existing series, a gate with brick and iron fencing, as well as a gatehouse up against the west side. these will be retained. and then there is an existing historic fountain that is in the middle of the parking lot. remnants of a prior building. that will be relocated somewhere to be determined, on the campus. as part of the analysis, we

really wanted to understand the evolution of the campus, its pattern of building, pattern of entry space. but over time, as hospital evolved to meet the needs of current hospital and health care, you'll see that very large buildings were built and the campus really became access from this internal street. most of the buildings have actually sort of turned their entries into this now. that is the primary dressing. our project here is in the bottom right, the southeast corn other of the plan. so the other things that i think are quite striking about the campus, first of all, the strong east-west graining of the campus. we have the single wards as well

as the building five which all have the strong east-west graining. fortunately, the site has a similar orientation, so it makes it natural for the building to reflect that graining. the other thing to note about the campus, its general rise in scale. it starts at the neighborhood scale of two stories at the perimeter. there is the building nine which is the nurse's building. it is three stories, rises to five for buildings 30 and 40 and then ultimately up to buildings 25 and 5, which are 140 feet. the other thing we studied carefully was the elevations of the buildings. they're quite interesting when you look carefully at them. they are -- they're characterized by being very expressive of function, which is something you don't necessarily see of buildings of this type and era.

you see repetitive windows, the ward itself, which is densely spaced. you see the zone to the right there, which is exam rooms, so greater privacy, larger rooms, more spread out. and then on either end, you can barely see in yellow, are special bays that were collective spaces, waiting rooms, things like that. and each of these zones separated by a solid band of brick. and then all tied together with the horizontal bands noted by the red lines. building nine has the same pattern, but since it was a dormitory for nurses, the spacing windows are more spread out, reflecting larger rooms. and you also have the -- some expression of the double-loaded corridors, the common areas, on the elevation as well. [please stand by]

>> this starts group windows into stacks of two stories. so we brought that same coursing over to the proposed project. those two stories then have pilasters for brick -- it keeps jumping around here -- and woven with spandrads. the materials we're proposing are meant to be sympathetic with the campus. we have a material's pallett if you would like to see it. terra cotta to reflect the brick. we have two kinds, the vertical

striaded and helps to deepen the tonality of it. the windows are composed of glass and then we have solid metal panels to provide a sense of depth in elevations which is very important. these elements are what bring richness to the campus. the one on the right is from building nine and reflects the

stairway in building 9. for our western portion where we place the townhall communal space, we're use * using buff cr terra cotta to call out the special part of the building. this is both, i think, appropriate for the architecture but important for the overall campus but this now demarks the main entrance into the campus. the hardest time, i'll be honest, with the requirement for an entry on the south side of the building. this is for researchers and staff, so the general public is not coming in or out of this

building. secondly, very pragmatically, the campus has a real concern with security. there have been issues on campus. there's a population that creates issues on the campus and so for security reasons, there's a desire to have the campus entry face north. so what we did, as you can see, we had the lobby run all the way from north to south so that it is a single glass volume all the way at the western end of the building. and so when you're approaching the building from on campus, looking southward here, you can see very clearly where the entry is denoted with the signage. there's a public element such as the stair to open up the interior of the building and thing lobby is the entire ground floor on the bottom right. as you move around the building looking here directly from the west, and then ultimately, as you approach it, as the public would have the south, you see that lobby and you are -- it's

very clear where the entry to the building is. although, the doors themselves are from the north and that was our approach. that was a brief overview and we spent a great deal of time, the team spent time developing this project and we're happy to answer questions. with me here, i should mention, is ken humphrey, our design build partners and ellen owens from ucsf, our clients. thank you. >> i would like to take public comment. anyone who would like to make public comment at this time? >> good afternoon. i want to make a pick remark.

you said this was newton thorpe. he died of a heart attack in 1981989 checking out hospitals. this was opened years later. there were several people that were architects and then there was john gellen-howard, john reed, jr. are consulting architects and so it may be that they designed the building. so i would like you all to send somebody into the archives to find out actually who designed these buildings because dear old

mr. thorpe passed away before they were ever finished. >> thank you. anyone else like to make a public comment at this time? closing public comment and bringing it back to the commission, anybody? commissioner perlman? >> i would first like to ask, how do we follow up on mr. hasses' comments? is that something the staff should do? >> we can certainly look into it. there's obviously a number of projects that have occurred on the campus, so maybe as we explore future review, we can flush it out as a question. >> it would be good to get the record straight, because i know from the next project of the civic center, mr. hasse has taken us to task about that. i wanted to comment about this

project. i think we had looked at this at the arc quite awhile ago, and this has come quite a long, long way from the kind of massing studmassingstudy we were presend i think this is a nice building. the whole thing was odd to me because there's a fence and a gate, so the idea of having a south entrance doesn't make any sense. i understand it came from the original building on that site, which entered through that center point, but that building has been gone for a long time and it surprised me that in the text of the report for the historic district, that that would even become something of significance at all. so i don't see the -- i mean, i think your response is quite appropriate and i believe that

was the only mitigation factor that wasn't met in the entire list of character features that had to be related. to i didn't see that as any particular issue. the only design issue i had with the building, that i didn't understand, were the kind of angled elements on the -- is that the west facade, i believe? the end elevation of all of the other historic buildings are quite simple, symmetrical and this feels jumbled because there are so many kinds of arctic coor

ticulations. >> the withi western end is somg we spent a great deal of time thinking about. the building is much wider than existing structures. that's the nature of the modern buildings. so we did several things -- >> could you click back for the view that's looking southeast, i think? one more. that sort of shows it more. >> you'll notice the setback in the facade, that was to reduce the setback. that was to introduce two materials on to that narrower face and first to focus on the actual community room within the programme. the portion that's behind this

serated panels, there's a certainly amount of daylight. it sets off and contrasts two different parts to it while still giving us the able to allow light to come into the meeting rooms. >> one thing you may not be able

to answer is a department question. given how much focus there's been of the design of this particular building, i'm wondering how building 25 ever managed to get through. it must have been before my time but it seems so out of character given the time of study that, you know, that you've done and relating this so completely to the kind of character of the existing building. noi would endorse the projects s designed. thank you so much for pulling it together and bringing it in. i wonder if we could take a look

at that, thank you. you want us to come up? it might be pretty heavy. >> yes. >> i will say these are not our final selections. we're going through our final process but we pulled it together quickly so you get a sense of the materialality. out. >> we're looking for something that matches with brick.

that glass has a tints to meet today's energy codes to provide comfort on the inside. but we want to find a glass that says neutral as possible in the colouration. this one particularly is green right now. and then, the metal panel related to try to find a dark colour on the kind of dark cross-bond with the brick. this one is highly serrated so

it would create a lot of shadows. the texture will change and shift. >> i appreciate the activeness of the facade for something quite regular and you have to draw your quite up through to notice the slight shifting of the vertical, but you think that also gives it this kind of -- there's a lot of activity in the walls of those buildings and i think this is simpler but more complex, simpler in the material but more complex in the actual elevational character. >> thank you. i know this is a nightmare to haul this around so thank you.

any other comments from the commission. >> i had one comment, just wanted to confirm, so arj. skidmore did the analysis and can you do through the analysis about meeting the guidelines? >> sure. >> there was no motion. >> so if we refer back to the kind of last page in your packet, to the memo from september third. basically, as part of the environmental impact report, we basically -- since we didn't have a project design, we created a series of parameters by which they could design the project to ensure it would be

compatible and put an additional check to ask for a historian to ensure the design was compatible. so they went through the guidelines on pages 3 through 6 of the report, going through the siding, the height and scale and materials and cladding, windows, and then site features to ensure that the project design kind of corlated. corcorrelated. >> it was the street frontage? >> correct. >> the project met compatibility. so the project is the latest version after the latest adjustments by staff upon recommendation from the consultants. >> thank you. >> i understand there's no motion. it's a review. >> rate.

>> right. >> right. >> thank you very much and thank you for the presentation. it was very good. >> commissioners, that places us on item 10-00 -- commissioner. >> this is an informational presentation.

>> good afternoon. i'm planning department staff and excited to be here before you to present an update on the civic centre public realm plan, the long-term vision for the streets, gateways. i want to introduce some members of my project team that are here today seated behind me beginning with nick perry, who is plan manager and also manager of city design group, our prime consultant and owen kennerlly from architecture and planning, some of which all be hearing about today. so, we know that civic centers

is one of the most public places in san francisco. it's the heart of our city government and a center of arts and culture. its public realm is the fabric which holds together this beautiful district and framework in which we're sitting now. we know having a public realm is important to every neighborhood and takes on special importance given the special role the civic centre plays from protests to celebrations to everyday life. it's where we all come together. but we know that public space and civic center faces many challenges and, in fact, some of our city's greatest social problems are most visible in these spaces but it's a place of amazing opportunity which is why we're here today doing the jobs we love. we see how improvements like the civil center playgrounds are making this a more welcoming space to spend time, but there's

more work to do. over the years, there have been many plans for improving the civic center but the primary focus was retrofitting the public buildings while improvements have somewhat lagged behind. the latest plan for the public realm is now over 20 years old, so it was time for us to dust off the old plans and create a commute-built holistic vision moving forward. since the last plan was created, the last plan has changed and has grown as an arts and cultural district and a lot of new residences in the pipeline or on the ground, so there's going to be greater demand on high quality, public realm, which right now serves as one of the few large parks for adjacent neighborhoods, such as the tenderloin. the city is taking a coordinated

approach. this is civic center commons by the workforce development and it's bringing more activity and improved stewardship to the public spaces today and then the civic center public realm plan is creating a future. there's creating a strategy for managing civic center's public spaces now and into the future. and so, here are some photos of what the civic industry initiative has put on the ground. i'm sure you all have been to some, but really city agencies are working together to find civic centers inviting in the near term. this is the buy-right crick buys connectioskwhich came before yo.

we're talking about the public realm plan building off all of the lessons from the initiative creating a unified vision to civic center's public spaces. the planning department is leading a team made up of eight core city agencies and we've been joined by an excellent consultant team and ten amazing consultants. there's a centre around city hall and the plan's main focus are the three public spaces. the plan is considering street design. we are still working with mta to understand what modeling implications have from a technical point of view. so we're working on that. and also, improvements in the district and street design has a focus on grove street. in looking at the timeline, it's

been quite a lengthy planning process. after two years of study and community engagement, our team is finalizing conceptual design of the public spaces, so we're wrapping that up and the planning process. outreach has taken many forms, five neighborhoods hinge off of the civic center area and we knew we had to have a robust engagement process and it's included three community workshops, a community working group made up of local residents, multi-linual and outreach using our design outreach station through the ground-play programme. we'll resign street design concepts and other details and we'll be preparing the draft plan document. after we have completed the

draft plan document which incorporates all of the design work, we'll enter our environmental review phase which is expected to take up to two years or it will take two years. during that time, we won't disappear and we'll continue to be out in the community to represent the concept we all built together to make sure people are still excited. and we'll continue to have conversations to figure out how we're going to face this and fund this and how we're going to implement this plan, but keep this as a conceptual vision to shoot for at this point. so without fitter adieu, i'll introduce you to walking through the public spaces. >> two years ago our team was

tasked with creating a vision that would revitalize the civic center and make it the heart of the city for a diverse community. it was to make a place people would want to linger and spend time in. we resolved upon three specific goals, they're all integrated within the plan. the first goal is to fulfill the vision set 100 years ago with the city beautiful movement and creation of the bozart's plan by howard. and in our minds, obviously, the fabric of the buildings is there, but it was the public realm and to what the public realm could do to define this district, and this has great potential, goal one. goal two is to ensure that this place functions effectively as the heart of democracy in our city, and this is a place where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people can come

together. pride gets over 100,000 people in this very district. so organizing the lay-out and framework of this environment to accommodate different events, protests and celebration. and then, third goal, make it a place people want to linger and spend time in. as patrick noted, we have 5,000 new united in the hub and around the area. we have 50,000 workers coming across the district on a daily basis, not to mention the lack of subject open space for the tenderloin central soma. so thinking about how vi civic center can function to spend time in this space together to share urban open space was a significant goal and so three goals, make a place for protests and celebrations that work and serve daily life. about a third of the way into the process, maybe half way, we came to the public with a series

of plans and three plans were, i think what you saw last time we presented. they were more prov provocation, what if we did this or that and it would result in different identity and experience. and the feedback we got was quite clear and various tools were used from online survey and literally a cut and paste exercise people could do. people, obviously, had a desire to reconnect with nature and wanted access to beauty and valued a sense of history in the space, but literally the plans we had shown were taken pay part and attributes we understood clearly and were applied to the plan that we'll present today. we obviously are using it as a starting point, the aspects and then foundational components of the historic district. this is the bozart structure and the buildings around.

additionally foundational are the organizer principles and structure of this bozart's plan. one of syste symmetry and accesn the gateway into this district is super significant. there are, as you may know, an inventory of remnants pieces that have some history, if not great integrity. there curbs, a fire hydrant and police box and such. these would be september within the plan. thinking about the historic structure of the plan, we know that this has to serve the big events event to how we understand it today and that informed our thinking.

and then like i said, with daily life, publics and constituencies to serve and how do we think about an environment to accommodate all of them and be inclusive and welcoming? and there's certainly ample room over the acreage of the district. (please stand by).

>> civic centre plaza has undergone a lot of change over the years, and even the plan that came to fruition in the sixties has changed radically from what was originally envisioned. we have taken all of our queues in terms of creating a compatible environment for the historic district. it is all predicated on the historic original plan. again, looking at the idea of quadrants framed by access, we are keeping the multimillion multi- million-dollar playground in place but we are actually expanding upon those and leveraging them by building gardens around them. we are complementing those in terms of? aging quadrant spaces with the multi- use long. as you are aware, they run a

soccer program on these loans. they also breakdown a sense of scale where we still have to keep a huge open area. all of this is framed within a double row of trees around the perimeter that was there originally. additionally, the original plan had a balustrade that was removed after some time, but also a hedge that stayed in place for a very long time. a lot of the moves intends -- in terms of the designer taken and inspired by the original plan. there are whimsical edges and alcoves for people to sit. there is vegetation in the entrances and gateways. they have fantastical sculptures in fact, these quadrants that were on the lawn and framed by trees were also gardens.

obviously we are fully aware of all of the events that are taking place to make it such a symbol of hour activist and political life in san francisco. images to try to evoke here, the idea of a place of play and fun for daily use, a place where children can come. you can imagine, this is a device that is used around the country where you have a mirror pool. it creates a sheen of water that can actually be removed for events. on a daily basis, when you are bringing school groups, there in the playground, the weekend kids can come out and play. pride comes and they can make it a big event. the fountain itself complements the lawns. again we are looking for devices , ways of breaking down the apparent scale of the plaza.

the lawns are framed by terraces , very small that are fully reinforced by gardens of memory. these are other, more intimate areas where we can get more plants into the space and potential honor and memorial sites. we are expanding the presence of the playground by situating them within gardens. they all have to be protected. we are using benches and ample seating to protect that planting here you see a wavy branch -- bench that allows school groups come and rest before they tear off across the lawns. this image shows views from existing playground when you're up on the structure. it starts to show the idea of the synergy between the various pieces. to your right is the bathrooms, food and beverage, and elevator

access to the garage below. in the foreground is the bench, the frames, the garden, the light, and you can see the lawn beyond and the pool beyond that. this is the access to the garage , bathrooms, food and beverage on the mcallister side, the gateway reinforcing that relationship. you can see the archways and the windows. grove street appears from analysis that we can pedestrian eyes this street and expanded into a secondary plaza that can be used for events. it also starts to reinforce we have imagines in the course of this project, a cultural corridor from hayes valley to the jazz center, up by the symphony, past bill graham, all the way to at&t. the idea would be to leverage opportunities and events around this. you can see the second food and beverage pavilion and access to

brooks hall on the right, facing off potential infill underneath a renovated canopy to set up the street section on growth so you have active edges. where right now, you have a dark road underneath the existing canopy. part of the grantor grandeur and ceremony of this access from city hall to market street, these are temporary events for the shriners and the city of light that were installed for us these celebrations. you can see the symmetry that is being utilized to reinforce the ceremony and grandeur. this is the space that is characterized as cultural as opposed to the civic centre. this is leveraging the presence and activity and oversight in way of the asian hard to museum. along its flank we are suggesting there could be a sculpture garden with a long-running bench that they could curate and manage.

along the library side, which has a large terrace right now, we are saying let's populate that with pavilions, food and beverage, bathrooms, potentially offices, which they don't have right now, and then you see the definition of the corridor, but with trees. in the center, two lawns and multiuse areas. here there is a summer program right now. they have set up a soccer instalment and testing this out. the idea is you have these lawns for a variety of uses. you can see this is a view from the library tell us -- terrace and one of the pavilions to the right-hand side looking best -- back across the lawns. we have ambitions that this would be a delightful and pleasant place you would actually want to be at night assuming it is not raining. you and plaza, where the terminus of the civic centre district or the gateway and

entrance to the civic centre district from market street. we are keeping it fundamentally intact in this plan. the fulton street part of it, the leg, is modified to work even more effectively as market space. right now there are old curves that change level, there were lawns, the lawns get torn out, the benches have all been removed, but the intent is to make a fully functional plaza that allows the market to actually operate more effectively and efficiently. moving on down, we see what is called the station pavilion. this is in concert with bart were they hopefully are willing out there various houses. this would be a landmark building we think. as you can see in the plan, and in conversation with the fountain, so there is a sculptural quality and dynamic -- dynamism to have character in

between these two objects. you'd find a gateway to the promenade that takes you to city hall. and then you see the dog up to the tenderloin. if you haven't been there recently or you have, you know they are -- essentially hour hope would be to recast it as a neighborhood mini park, keeping access in circulation and have that many park be a gateway to u.c. hastings to the tenderloin and conversely gateway from the tenderloin into the district, but the fountain we have conceived as operating in a number of ways, but it maintains its presence on the plaza as it does now, but access is improved , but more specifically, you can get through the backside and down into it. it is connected to everything. we want to make the thriving heart of the city market survive and embolden it and support it.

this is a view of the pavilion. so you are on the fulton leg and the plaza. the idea is is multistory and in the lower left corner you can see the access to the bart tunnel, one of the great problems right now is the escalators are not covered and they could be shut down. on the second floor, we imagine market hall, people could move in and out and vendors who want to sell all week could be in there. the upper story we imagine could be a community space. we talked to people in the tenderloin and there's nothing accessible for them to their use you can imagine them holding events upstairs on the weekend. fundamentally this will be a community space. again taking advantage of this and activating it, and not having it be resulted in to a secondary significance. the fountain, we keep. we are -- we certainly think would be sad to lose the

fountain. we are proposing modifications to the fountain. most modifications are fundamentally about a.d.a. compliant access in getting people into it where they can't now. so making it essentially a participant in union plaza in a way that it isn't now. you can also see vegetation, and i will talk about that in a second. we are looking back up fulton. you can see the existing elements, the golden light, the plinth that came in with -- and the flagpoles. and you can see the bart pavilion beyond. a ton of work and vetted in this project. i i'm giving you a superhigh level overview but there is a lot of thinking and work around the environmental systems, the infrastructure. we can capture stormwater and we can mine water from the foundation of the buildings. all of this can be water for

irrigation. it gives us water to storing a massive cistern in the hall so if there's an earthquake, that would be possible water. it also allows us to remove water from the combined sewer system so that we may hopefully reduce flooding down the streets the basin at the fountain is an opportunity to use it to detain some of that storm surge water. so where you see vegetation, there is a suggestion that this water in their can accommodate flooding, which recalls the original intention of the water moving up and down, which never worked. there's a lot here, and we are honored to take questions and have your insight. thank you. >> great. a lot of information. do you want to take public comment? let's open this item up for

public comment. would any member of the public wish to speak? >> good afternoon, commissioners i live at 100 van ness and i have been involved with everything at civic centre for several decades. i have long been concerned about the misunderstanding and neglect of the area, particularly in the public side, and to help overcome that, i wrote a book, which some of you have read, but i urge you all to read it, not because it goes in my pocket, it costs far more than what i will ever get back, but because i thank you need the background of what is the civic centre and how ours came about, and what happened in the last 70 years. i worked with mayor newsom to try to improve the area and mayor lee. finally mayor lee asked the planning department to begin this study, and that was in 2014

, and here we are today. i have had the opportunity to be briefed and to participate in most of the proceedings, and i think the final project is brilliant. as mr. moss and mr. perry have indicated, they did take the 1912 plan a somewhat of a template, but as you can see, the vast parking areas and other things aren't appropriate for today's world, and then of course, the plaza has been degraded and changed. it has not been welcoming for people. but i think what they propose takes that template and makes it suitable for the 201st century sony people have made some picky

points about the proposal. i think that we need to bear in mind, and of course, you are probably well aware of this, this is not the final draft to be approved, but proposals to go through the environmental review we want to make sure the environmental review has -- takes into account a plan that is flexible enough to accommodate some changes and things that people would like to see. the last point i want to make has to do with the long-standing problem that your official documentation in civic centre is totally out of whack with the reality of the historic record, and in my book, i try to correct all of that, but the poor environmental consultant would be having to face the chore of dealing with the public documents, as well as other

documents such as my book. i would ask, once again, that you undertake an effort to upgrade and modernize all the public documents relating to civic centre. thank you. >> thank you. any other members of the public who wish to speak? i will close public comment and bring it back to the commission. commissioners? commissioner pearlman? >> thank you. this is just an overwhelming task, as you know, because you are living it. it is really incredibly impressive. from what we saw last time to now, it is such a massive improvement in direction and i don't know if it's brilliant yet , but i agree that this really addresses, what for most

of us who sit up on this side, is the original plan and the symmetry, and the axes, and is totally has now acknowledged that that is the fundamental character of the district, and that i think has been handled really well. again, the specific details i know we'll just continue to be evolved and flushed out over time. i did like to see the images of the kirby benches and things, and i know if you are in the area, the gardens that are by the museum that leads to the museum, it has that axial character and the alley of -- alley of trees, and obviously it is much more scaled, but it is one of the richest and one of

the most pleasant experiences to wander the streets and then end up there and sit for a while. so the notion of attracting people to spend time here i think is really well addressed. the only piece of this whole thing that i will pick at is the station pavilion because i look at that and i know it is just a conceptual design, but it feels like a world fair pavilion that is going to get torn down at the end of the world fair. it doesn't have the kind of substantial quality -- i mean, i would never deign to design it verbally, but i just think that that position, since it really is the introduction from market street, from downtown as you are coming up on the trolley or walking, that is the point where you look and you see the whole civic centre and you see the city hall framed, and to me,

that building just feels like an 80s building that should have been torn down when they did this project. i think the design of that building is very important because it really is the gateway building. you talked about the gateway coming from 11 north, but the gateway is coming off of market, and so that i think really has to have some strength. i think that the formal relationship between the fountain and the building doesn't really make sense to me. i think the formal relationship is between the buildings, since it is a building, it is a very three-dimensional, multistory kind of form. if you look at the photograph from before the halpern plan was done, and you see the parking going up there, there were some buildings there that were taken down when they put the bar down.

i would just want to emphasize how significant i think that point is. i did like the simon boulevard statue and a love that you are putting it right on top of the entrance to the civic centre bart by the burger king. i thought that was a fun little thing so that it becomes market street as part -- as opposed to part of civic centre. i don't know if that makes any sense, but it is certainly an appropriate little plaza there. overall, i'm very excited. i wish this could move at a pace that is significantly faster because we all have to wait decades to see these kinds of changes happen, but really, congratulations on really incredible progress so far. >> thank you. >> thank you. commissioner black? >> we are so lucky to have this unbelievable