Meeting this Tuesday (February 2nd): Park Planning Meeting #4 (of 5)
Jamie Whitaker - RHNA President
Please join your neighbors who want to influence the characteristics
of a new community park located at 333 Harrison Street (at Fremont) by
coming to the Rincon Hill Neighborhood Association meeting this
Tuesday, February 2nd at the Sailors' Union of the Pacific (450
Harrison Street at 1st Street) at 6pm. Please enter the main entrance
facing Harrison Street by first walking up to the corner of 1st and
Harrison, and then head to the right to find the meeting in the
Library room. Open space advocates Isabel Wade and Corinne Woods will
facilitate the meeting, and I believe we'll be finalizing our choices
at this meeting - so please do come to the meeting!
What? RHNA Meeting - Park Planning for 333 Harrison
Where? Sailors' Union of the Pacific, Library Room (450 Harrison
Street @ 1st Street)
When? Tuesday, February 2nd starting at 6:00 p.m. (30 minutes earlier
than the usual start time)
Why? To help decide what will be in the only community park currently
planned along Rincon Hill's residential core along Harrison Street
east of 2nd.
Another meeting you may want to attend is the Monday, February 8th
meeting of the South Beach/Rincon/Mission Bay Neighborhood Association
starting at 6pm at the South Beach Harbor Services Building. Guest
speaker Alan Mark of The Mark Company returns one year later to give
his insights on residential real estate in San Francisco, especially
the SoMa waterfront neighborhoods.
If you're looking for something to do this Saturday, there is a
Motorcross event at AT&T Park. Coming up at AT&T Park is the San
Francisco Giants Fan Fest on Saturday, February 6th from 10am until
3pm. Learn more at http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/sf/fan_forum/fanfest.jsp
Happy news regarding the Brannan Street Wharf open space project in
South Beach (Piers 34 and 36) - Nancy Pelosi came through for San
Francisco and got $4.8 million of funding to be administered by the
Army Corps of Engineers to bid out and to manage the demolition of
Piers 34 (what remains of it) and 36. As I've groaned about several
times over the years, this is the "Unsafe Area" fenced off section
along The Embarcadero that is a huge eyesore compared to the rest of
the waterfront up to Pier 5 or or so past the Ferry Building. This
means The Port has $23.6 million ... just a couple million short of
the $25.5 million they now estimate this project (about 10 years in
the making) will cost to implement .. but first, some EIR studies
regarding the historical significance of the piers in relation to the
longshoremen labor movement. Fi the stars align, we'll have a
completed Brannan Street Wharf open space at the end of 2012.
Good news from our neighbor Marty Coressel about the Bryant/Beale dog
park as well ... plans will likely be 100% complete by March and
Caltrans will likely bid out the construction for this and the other
related "Bay Bridge western approach landscaping projects" together in
the 3rd week of July. Caltrans hopes to break ground at the end of
October and complete the Bryant/Beale dog park so that your furry
friends can exercise and play together off their leashes at some point
in 2011. Yeah! In the meanwhile, the Bryant Bay Bridge Corridor
Adopt-A-Street volunteer group has been opening the lot on the second
Saturday of the for a few hours in the morning for dogs to play and
volunteers to clean up the lot a bit and socialize. February 13th
would be the next "BBBC Clean & Sweep" day at Bryant and Beale.
I'm lining up speakers for the March 2010 RHNA meeting ... a lot of
folks asked me this past Saturday during the 333 Harrison Park
Planning visit about the lot at Fremont and Harrison Street (375-399
Fremont) directly across from the 333 Harrison site. San Francisco
Chronicle writer John King revealed that they're working on creating a
tree farm of sorts .. trees in pots that can be removed easily once
the developer is ready to start building "The Californian" (or
whatever name the condo development ends up with). I actually heard
from a representative from the developer today, and he'd like to speak
with us for about 30 minutes about their plans to spruce that lot up.
I'm also talking with Michael Yarne from the Mayor's Office of
Economic Development about speaking about the legislation to encourage
developers to spruce up their empty lots and the developer stimulus
legislation that would delay fees for infrastructure improvements for
a few more years. On this last point, I made it clear that Rincon
Hill is contributing millions of dollars in property taxes and folks
in baby strollers cannot safely traverse down the sidewalks between
Fremont and Main (mainly because of one parking meter that limits the
sidewalk space to 22 inches). I told Michael that the Mayor could
start to build some goodwill in the Rincon Hill neighborhood by simply
removing that one parking meter that obstructs baby strollers,
wheelchairs, and has choked quite a few dogs I've seen running
alongside joggers.
I learned that Rebar Group and the Turnberry Lansing developer for 45
Lansing Street are making progress on installing a temporary art piece
at 45 Lansing Street ... we may see some initial work within the next
month!
One other thing (sorry for the long email) ... the Transbay JPA
received a $171 million loan TIFIA loan for sure .. but the $400
million in stimulus funds is still up in the air. The news release
tonight publicized at http://www.cahsrblog.com only indicates
California will receive $2.34 billion dollars for rail improvements -
but the Federal Government is leaving it up to the State of California
to decide which agencies get a piece of those funds. Let's keep our
fingers crossed that our friends at the Transbay JPA get a good
portion of the $400 million they requested so they can provide
thousands of jobs sooner than later and save $100 million for us
taxpayers over the life of the project by building the train box
during Phase I (instead of going back and excavating under a new bus
station in Phase II).
Hope to see you at the Sailors' Union of the Pacific on Tuesday
(February 2nd) at 6pm!
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Sincerely,
Jamie Whitaker
President
Rincon Hill Neighborhood Association
http://www.RinconHill.org