many people favored the pagoda theater over the union street. i'd like to thank almost everybody did. and one of the reasons is independent of the subway, pagoda theater is an eyesore. and doing anything there will improve the economic viability of north beach which is a major tourist site for the city important to our economy. we do -- board does need to take a look at alternatives of bringing the machine back out to its entry point. this is the common procedure used. take the machine out. the bore heads can easily be backed out. they are traditionally cut up and then backed out, or in many cases including the most famous tunnel boring of all the tunnel, they were just -- somebody took a left turn or maybe it was a right turn [speaker not understood] government, and left them buried there in the ground, brisbane has just done the same thing with its subway system, tunneling system to and from the airport. the question i have is why are we spending this money for an additional to drive a hole to someplace that may not get built certainly within

we continue to make progress with the pagoda palace plan. the effort to change the retrieval site has involved a significant amount of work and a very tight timeline. a little too late to do what they're doing. with a strong supportive supervisor chu, the mayor's office we have worked closely with several city agencies including the planning department, the department of building inspection, to make the pagoda palace option reality. they forgot to consult with the citizens of north beach that will be disrupted by this extrication that has not come up until recently. i resent the planning committee even addressing this. i represent the citizens of san francisco and especially of north beach. thank you for your time.

and of those the pagoda palace option removing the tunnel boring machines from the pagoda site as opposed to from the public right-of-way was the one that both had community support and the one that would not inhibit a future project. * the community was supportive of a few different options. the pagoda palace option swills another, leaving the tunnel boring machines in the ground in chinatown. however, what we advanced to our board for recommendation was the pagoda palace option because leaving the tunnel boring machines in the ground anywhere along the alignment would make any future project more difficult. we did present those options to the mta board on december 4th. we had a number of community members speak to the mta board at that meeting in support of our recommendation to advance the pagoda palace option. those groups included representatives from supervisor chiu from north beach business association, north beach neighbors, russian hill neighbors, spur, and the chinatown community development center. and from that the mta board directed me to work with city staff and the communit

using the pagoda as central subway corpoti

we strongly disagree with the extraction of the pagoda as well. there is no benefit tonight for the neighborhood or the city while potentially condemning the ones alongside it. our understanding is that the reward to the abandoned property will be nearly $3 million. the property that the city is subsidizing has been vacant for 30 years. we believe this is unfair, hurtful to the neighborhood and will result in a potential loss of jobs. finally it's important note when asked about why the tbms are not left in the ground, the director reed it's based on contracts. we believe that the city is not a business, nor should be one competing with profit margins against existing businesses. thank you. >> i have called a number of other names that i don't think have yet stepped up to the podium, but the only card i have is for lori thomas. so if anyone wishes to speak on this item, please step up at this time. miss thomas. >> if i could just ask, if there is anyone who wishes to speak, if they could line up along the side, so we could flow from one speaker to

for example, misrepresenting community support of the pagoda alternative. at both of the community meetings, the majority of people in attendance opposed it and negotiate behind closed doors, back room politics to say the least, what other changes are being contemplated or negotiated that we, the public, may not be aware of? furthermore, many questions have been raised in regard to the risk to adjacent properties. not even mentioned in the e-i-r is the most at-risk structure on the northwest corner of columbus and filbert. the narrow e-i-r does not mention that building or the playground across the street at st. peter and paul school. the building was tagged after the 1989 earthquake and never repaired. the shifting of the building is quite evident from the street and many of the double hung windows no longer function. an e-i-r process that ignores this issue is an inadequate e-i-r process. it struck me as a cut and paste project. i also understand the tunneling will go underneath the bank of america building at stockton and green, again, omitted from the e

we strongly disagree with the extraction of the pagoda as well. there is no benefit tonight for the neighborhood or the city while potentially condemning the ones alongside it. our understanding is that the reward to the abandoned property will be nearly $3 million. the property that the city is subsidizing has been vacant for 30 years. we believe this is unfair, hurtful to the neighborhood and will result in a potential loss of jobs.

and also i want to take a moment and thank the owner of the pagoda theater, the pagoda campos and his team for the work we've done together. i know we're not completely at the end of this and this has been not the easiest discussion and set of negotiations, but with the feedback from the community, with the feedback from all the lawyers, planners, transit advocates, and all of you, i think we've gotten this to a much better place. so, thank you for that work. my staff i know will be here during this discussion to hear from additional feedback. i know that there have been a lot of questions that continue to be raised and i know that sfmta has circulated some written comments to answer those questions, but i gather that there will probably be more information and questions that come up and i look forward to working with all of you to answer them and hopefully move this to the process and get this going and get this on the right track. so, again, thank you for all your work. >> thank you, president chiu. we wouldn't be here without you and your leadership and office's leadership. thank y

it says the construction will take 15 months for this project if it goes forward, the pagoda palace. there has been no consideration whatever of the historic buildings surrounding it and it's only going to put two restaurants out of business instead of probably a whole lot more in the previous plan. north beach residents and businesses got excited about the new plan because they realized that the pagoda palace, which is considered an eyesore, i'm kind of used to it by now, is going to be demolished. and i think the owner of that property and his lawyers and his expediter are over the moon about getting all this monday and i getting the building demolished. i will just ask you why you haven't considered this destructive e-i-r. also, if you sign this lease, the property owner is getting a lot of his work done by the city plus getting this large payment. i totaled up the figures. it looks like you're spending $18 million in total for this by signing the lease today. i'm asking where the funds are coming from. i was told -- we were told previously in another earlier meeting, maybe the pl

and i think it is a viable pagoda option. and i speak for a number of people. so, thank you for your work and i hope you do the [speaker not understood] thing. >> thank you so much. >> joan woods, the last person who turned in a speaker card. >> anyone else who cares to address the board, please bring up a card. good afternoon. >>> good afternoon, mr. nolan and those of you. i have lived in north beach for 48 years continuously.

then somehow the pagoda palace was cited as the preferred site. suddenly, it's like joel campos, the original developer of the site he was given permission for condos and restaurants and commercial space two or three years ago but we were told that he ran out of money. suddenly he was offered a two year lease, and for god sake a suppolmental eir renewing all its permits which have expired. 27 parking spaces for 19 condos, that would not be allowed now. all the push is for the pagoda theater. i insist all people want to stop at chinatown. (off mic) >>: my name is mark bruno, (sounds like), head of a group called save north beah. and the proposal to extract the tunnel boring machines at the corner of columbus. i will list the businesses that are included in save north beach. you will have trouble finding a

the pagoda site has less of an effect on the neighborhood as a whole." that being said i think we're all concerned about every business and i wonder if you could talk from your agency's standpoint what you could could to help the specific adjacent property owners in and around the pagoda site. >> we are looking at doing everything possible in order to mitigate the business concerns on the properties adjacented to the proposed construction site. i would like too add that the work would have occurred with the construction of the condominium development. so the first activity would be for the demolition of the existing building; which we're planning hopefully to start in april. and that work is snag would have -- a version of that same work would have occurred irregardless whether we we demoed the building or versus the property owner demoing the building. in terms of construction equipment and techniques that we're employing, they are rotary equipment, hydraulic equipment designed to minimize vibration to the adjacent structures and we'll be complying with

the pagoda theater still impacts several businesses, and for all we know, others as well. as you know, tunneling and subway projects do have risks. in the original approved final eir in 2008, the north beach tunnel was capitalized the north beach construction tunnel variant. the base contract was the boring of the tunnel-boring machines in the chinatown area. we have learned since then, according to mta, that the northern tunnel will not be used in any way for conveying materials to the chinatown station. thus the northern tunnel has no construction use. thus, the north tunnel itself is no longer -- and it's rationale is no longer adhering and there have no reason to be built. the pagoda theater $1.5 million is unnecessary. the tunnel construction of 2008 is unnecessary. we can save up to $80 million by burying or extracting machines in chinatown or burying them anywhere between chinatown and northern beach, as has been done in brisbane australia, which entombed them in concrete. the tunnel in the english channel did that. new york city's two subway and rail projects are e

to change the tpm extraction location from columbus avenue to pagoda theater parcel. included in this package is a [speaker not understood] and geotechnical report, a letter from the various teams, geotechnical [speaker not understood] larry carp.

, when we discuss the central subway back in november/december, you had directed us to pursue the pagoda lisa option with all due haste. * lease as reported to you at the last meeting, the agencieses, the different city agencies have been working together to secure the pagoda site at the tunnel boring site. since then and have been making good progress. we will be asking, we're almost at a point -- not today, but at the next meeting -- we expect, we'll be asking the board to approve a 24-month lease for the site. that's assuming that we can finalize the negotiations, but at this point it looks likely that we'll be able to do so. and if we're able to narrow things down in the next 24 hours or so, the planning commission will consider the revised conditional use application on thursday, their meeting on february 7th. if we're unable to come to terms in time, they will continue that the following week. the special use district legislation which enables pagoda property owners to retain the existing development rights is planned to be heard at the board of supervisors on february 11th. again,

but in weighing the different pros and cons of the project and the impact on the community, the pagoda was -- seemed far and away the best option. >> and just so we know, it's irrelevant to the approvals. what is that process like? i mean, actually, you know, excavating and making that extraction tunnel and extracting the machinery, how long does that take? i mean, is it similar to building a building there? how long impactful is it to the neighbors? >> so, the extraction itself, it will be somewhere between 10 and 12 months. as mr. funge said, we're not going to be pile driving, we're going to be drilling to basically build a wall, building kind of a water-tight wall. and then it's excavation and pouring concrete. so, you know, it's significant construction. we're confident that we can manage it without any -- without undue significant disruption to the neighborhood. we're very aware of the concerns of the abutting restaurants and abutting buildings and want to make sure that we do everything we can to minimize the disruption. arguably, the subsequent construction of the new building

okay, public comment. * on either dimple cocktail lounge or pagoda. you're up. >>> good evening, commissioners. officer dave free as, northern permit station. * the station has no objection to the place of entertainment permit. northern has recommended conditions for both 1700 and 17 04 * post street doing business as pagoda and dimple. they have the same -- i sat down, i've reviewed these conditions with mr.and mrs. choir. * [speaker not understood]. >> it says they are open 4:00 p.m. until closing. business is open at 7 o'clock. is there a reason, is that 4 just a typo? >>> i believe they close at 2:00 a.m.. >> yeah, but when they open. the permit application says hours of operation 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.. >>> i've spoken to them, the couple about the security and it's provided around the building by the local merchants. >> oh, so the mall offers it? i'm trying to get the time right. >> i'll have lie on speak to totally clarify that with you. >> commissioners, i might just suggest that you might amend the condition to agree with opening hours to clo