Green Spent on Green
Last month, the newly created Green Benefit District (GBD) spent roughly $34,400 to repair and clean seven green spaces in Dogpatch and northwest Potrero Hill: Benches Garden & Park, Minnesota Grove, I.M. Scott Sidewalk Gardens, Fallen Bridges Mini-Park, Potrero Gateway Loop, Progress Park, and Woods Yard. The funds were used to eliminate graffiti, remove trash and weeds, prune trees, add mulch, repair broken granite, and enhance retaining walls. With revenues from a $0.0951 per square foot assessment on residential and commercial properties, GBD provides maintenance and capital improvements to open spaces.
Loop Unleashed
The California Court of Appeal lifted the stay of construction on the Mission Bay Loop Project, enabling San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s contractor, Mitchell Engineering, to resume construction, starting with exploratory excavations along 18th and 19th streets. As currently planned, the T-Line Loop will extend from Third Street to 18th, Illinois and 19th streets and back to Third. It appears to be mostly being developed for Mission Bay’s benefit and convenience. As previously reported in the View, the Loop was “first floated more than a decade ago, when the Dogpatch neighborhood…housed a large number of partially derelict lots and former industrial buildings. Today Dogpatch is one of the City’s hottest areas, ground zero for construction of thousands of new apartments, businesses and condominiums.”
Bridge Unabridged
As part of the San Francisco Roadway Bridges Project, the 22nd Street Bridge recently closed, while the 23rd Street Bridge reopened. During the closure, during which the existing bridge will be removed and replaced, there’ll be no vehicular or pedestrian access to 22nd Street between Iowa Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Detour signage is in place to direct traffic while the street is shutdown.
Alliance Against Warriors Arena
In late February, the Mission Bay Alliance filed a third lawsuit seeking to stop construction of the Golden State Warriors’ Mission Bay arena. In the suit the Alliance alleges that the City and County of San Francisco violated Planning Code Section 321 – Proposition M – and other municipal requirements by issuing four permits related to the arena. Proposition M, a voter-adopted initiative passed in 1986, places a one million square foot annual cap on office development. According to Tom Lippe, an Alliance attorney, the City’s allocation of office space to the arena exceeds what’s available under the cap. Lippe said the Alliance’s team of four law firms is working collaboratively to determine whether to file additional lawsuits. According to Patrick Soluri, another Alliance attorney, Sacramento Superior Court granted the Warriors’ motion to have the Alliance’s California Environmental Quality Act-related lawsuit transferred to San Francisco, an outcome the Alliance appealed. The Warriors also motioned to transfer the Alliance’s lawsuit against University of California, San Francisco chancellor Sam Hawgood to San Francisco; the Alameda Superior Court tentatively ruled against that motion.
Biotech Leader Bails
Last month, QB3, the University of California (UC) research institute and life science accelerator, announced that Douglas Crawford, PhD, has resigned his position as QB3’s associate director at UC San Francisco. Crawford co-founded two key components of QB3: its venture fund, Mission Bay Capital (MBC), in 2009; and its San Francisco incubator QB3@953, in 2013, in partnership with QB3’s director, Regis Kelly, PhD, OBE. Crawford now manages MBC and QB3@953. Details of the relationship between QB3 and the two companies remain to be worked out. QB3 will continue to be a source of tenant candidates for QB3@953 and investment possibilities to MBC. Kelly will retain oversight positions at both entities.
Corrections
The View made several errors in February’s “UCSF to Develop Psychiatric Center in Dogpatch.” These include: Janet Carpinelli belongs to the Community Advisory Group, not the Citizens Advisory Council. The University of California, San Francisco is considering 500 to 600 residential units, rather than 150, at its proposed Minnesota housing site; the housing, if approved, would be for UCSF students and trainees, not for the UCSF School of Medicine or its “applicants.” And, Dr. Dan Lowenstein didn’t put a price tag on rental rates for campus housing, but instead said, “We want to increase inventory and keep campus housing rates well below market”…And in the same issue, “Chan and Zuckerberg SF General Hospital and Trauma Center to Open this Spring,” the correct spelling of the foundation’s chief executive officer is “Amanda Heier.” The hospital’s name is “Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital” or, “Zuckerberg San Francisco General.”
