Approved, the Commission Must grant conditional authorization allowing the formula retail use within this umu Zoning District. The department believes that it is a necessary or desirable project because it will not affect the concentration of formula retail uses existing within the contiguous umu Zoning District because it is replacing an existing formula retail use. Because the project will improve the pedestrian experience along bryant street, and because the project is consistent with the planning code and showplace square, potrero area plan, and the general plan overall. Therefore, the Department Recommends approval of the project with the inclusion of the following conditions in addition to those included in the draft motion, and this is whats listed on the handout that we presented. New condition number 1 would be Planning Department staff shall continue to work with the project sponsor on the design of both the bryant street facade and the facade facing the parking lot to assure harmonious corporation of the proposed signage, entryways and proposed changes in [speaker not understood] into the existing building elements. Additionally the Planning Department staff shall work with the project sponsor to ensure that the final interior and Exterior Designs significantly increase in transparency along the bryant street facade and that the entryway will operate as a functional entrance and exit. The second recommended additional condition is that offstreet freight loading activities on kate street shall be limited to the hours of 9 00 a. M. To 5 00 p. M. Daily. That concludes my presentation. Im available for comments. Thank you. Project sponsor, please. Youre not going to be able to unplug that, sir, no. [pause] good afternoon, mr. President , members of the planning commission. I am Anthony Cataldo with [speaker not understood] architects. We also have here our civil engineer, al with ams associates and tad anderson our construction manager with open end representing orchard today. I would like to take a moment to thank the city staff, especially mr. Diego sanchez in guiding us through the response during our preparation with this application. The group of 30 farmer approximately 50 miles south of here got together in the 1931 and formed a cooperative. This cooperative was an important part to the bay area horticultural industrial [speaker not understood] and the first decade following world war ii. In the 1950s it evolved into a retail operation. By the time it transformed into a corporation, it had about 2000 members. In the 1960s and 70s it was acquired and started an Expansion Program that started Orchard Supply hardware that we see today. Orchards main focus are household repairs, garden supplies, and Home Improvements. Our project is located at 975 bryant street. Its currently occupied by pacific sales and appliance shop. The building footprint is ideal for our use as its linked to debt ratio works very well for the retail environment well be providing. Our project has many amenities for the community, including a revitalization of an existing building which ill get into more depth on the architecture. 16year local fulltime jobs and 14 parttime jobs along with many landscape improvements along bryant street. This is our proposed site plan. Id like to point out the new pedestrian path from bryant street to the entrance off the parking lot. Along with the reconfiguration of the parking lot in general to allow for new landscapeing ing, along with accessible stalls, a new loading zone in the back for customers who might be picking up bulky item. We will be maintaining the loading zone off of kate street for truck deliveries to our store. Its was brought to our attention by mr. Jim miko at one of our Neighborhood Outreach meetings that customers will be arriving here by bicycle quite frequently. So, from our initial application to the current one weve overdoubled our bicycle parking stalls and those are located on either side of the entrance. The exterior of the building has many enhancements, including the near warmer paint scheme. Theres new trellises with vines around the building facade to soften the edges of it along with a rooftop nursery. Weve added an elevator to access the rooftop nursery along with you can see the additional glazing at the top of the building. Weve also worked with staff in order to increase to help activate the street frontage. Initially we did that through switching out the opaque glazing on this street to vision glass so people can see whats going on inside the store and help activate that facade. And our Neighborhood Outreach meeting it was brought it our attention this wasnt enough and we should provide a pedestrian entrance on the street itself. So, we went ahead and we did pedestrian entrance, both entrance and exits to the store at the corner of bryant street and our parking lot. Based on community feedback, especially from mr. Miko, they wanted a more prominent entrance. We developed a secondary scheme where we added the trellis element over the front door along with the new columns. We changed out the color scheme. The secondary scheme that you see at the bottom of your screen has not been approved by staff, well be willing to work with staff to further develop it. The scheme on the top is the one that was in your original Planning Department presentation and has been reviewed by staff. Were available for any questions if anyone has any. Thank you. Opening it up for Public Comment, i have one speaker card. Terry aston bennett. [speaker not understood]. Okay, you can leave them right there. Hello, thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is terry aston bennett, [speaker not understood] market and castro. Our Business Association represents over 600 merchants in the upper market and castro area with over 250 paid member. Im here today on behalf of [speaker not understood] to ask you to reject the request from Orchard Supply hardware location at 975 bryant street. Orchard supply is not as large as home depot and lowes, but has a similar [speaker not understood] pulling people from not just the city [speaker not understood]. It would hurt discount builders, speedy hardware, hundley hardware [speaker not understood], providing fulltime jobs to San Francisco residents. But along with them, it would also severely hurt a great number of independent paint, electrical, house wear, plumbing, garden and nursery stores as well. These Small Businesses are the backbone of our city and to be completely frank, this area is already being served by quality Small Businesses. And the addition of an Orchard Supply here only serves to hurt those businesses, not improve access to residents. Thank you. Thank you. Next speakers, shannon brundit, David Peterson, jerry wolf. Good afternoon, my name is shannon brundit, im with discount builder supply. We are located a short distance from the proposed Orchard Supply. We carry the same products, similar products. We have the same size store. We have been a local familyowned company for over 50 years in San Francisco. Our staff consists of approximately 95 fulltime employees with benefits, and this hold true for most of the family Home Improvement business he in San Francisco. Our decisions are made at the local level, not another city or state. I would like to discuss how important our local Family Businesses are to the community. In doing this, we must first look at the current evolution of chain stores in our industry in San Francisco. Lowes opened a few years ago and now were looking at a proposed Orchard Supply, and also a home depot. These three chains could open within a few years of each other. This is an unprecedented this is unprecedented for a small city like San Francisco and will greatly affect our Family Stores in the Home Improvement industry. The area proposed already has over 30 Home Improvement stores for such a sparsely populated area. The proposed Orchard Supply has been referred to as being similar to the pacifica miens sales which is just not the case. The traffic will be at least 10 or 20 times what it is currently and its not a fair comparison on products that are being sold. The result will be a loss of jobs and businesses. Our Family Businesses had over 90 full time long term employees. These are career positions that allow you to raise a family in San Francisco and take pride in your community. The proposed Orchard Supply will have far fewer, less than 40 fulltime jobs. The rest will be parttime, high turn over, low paid positions, not positions that allow you to raise a family and live in San Francisco. Thats 90 full time for our Family Stores and less than 40 for the chains. San francisco is currently successfully being served by our local familyHome Improvement stores. We supply prideful service to our customers and to the infrastructure of San Francisco. We offer careers for People Living in our communities. Many of our Family Stores have been in business for over 100 years in San Francisco. Orchard supply and these chains in the short period of time will further destroy the things we have come to expect and rely on from our local family Home Improvement industry. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is David Peterson and i own the property on the end of kate street, 52 kate. And i have the largest piece of property on kate street as well and i have not been contacted by anybody from Orchard Supply. I have two issues that i want to discuss, and one is the use of the loading dock and another is the traffic issue. Im sure you guys are aware that 88 brannon has reorganized their main entrance to their parking lot to decatur street, there will be a much larger volume on brannon and [speaker not understood]. One of the biggest problems with kate street using it as a loading dock is the street is very narrow and along that street is everybodys driveway and entrance to their building. In the past sfpd has recognized anybody using that loading dock is blocking my driveway and we have ticketed and towed cars in the past. It is not a legal loading dock and its not really designed to be a loading dock because of how narrow it is and how it obstructs everybodys ability to go from their property. Id like to see a traffic study done at least to understand the impact of whats going to happen to both our area and 88 brannon street has changed their traffic, and there is both entrances to free ways there and many other things that have changed and will be changing in the next six months. And please consider the kate street access for all of us. Thanks so much. Thank you. Next speaker. My name is jerry wolf. I own a property on kate street also. I was going to come to this meeting today to talk in favor of this development, but then i tried i reached out through Diego Sanchez and through anthony [speaker not understood], the architect, to talk to orchard. We had an agreement about kate street until about one hour before 12 00 noon today. The agreement was [speaker not understood] they want to use kate street from 9 00 to 5 00. The original plan was 6 30 in the morning to 7 oclock at night. Kate street has three residential buildings with 18 People Living in those. All the commercial business on kate street is a small business. The profile is a far different thing than having an Orchard Supply hardware type of business. If they were to use kate street, kate street has got its an 18 foot wide alley, has parking on one side with no limitations. You can park there 24 hours a day which means there is only 9 feet left for a vehicle it get down. Theyre talking, if you heard his words, he said that the trucks will come to load from Orchard Supply hardware down kate street and that the little door thats on the other side in the parking lot will only be used for customers to pick up. Do you realize what it takes to supply an Orchard SupplyHardware Store with the merchandise thats in that store and the amount of trucks that would be going up and down the street thats only nine feet wide . It would completely change the profile of kate street. Not only for now, but there are three [speaker not understood] on kate that are under used buildings and some point in the future i guarantee would like to become residential which will add to the south of market mixture. And that will not be able to happen if kate street becomes Orchard Supply hardware street. And if you allow them to use kate street for that access there was a loading door on the other side pacific sale. Pacific sales blocked that doorway with bricks thinking they could use kate. They had difficulty getting a truck down kate. They used double doors for deliveries also because thats why theyre going out of business. Ive been there, maybe 30 people in that store. Orchard supply is going to have about 300 people in the store. So that alley, our little kate street alley is going to change forever in the fact that, that its actually ludacris for them to even think that should be the only way to get all the material in and out of the Orchard Supply hardware, that 33,350 square feet. Please think about that. Thank you. Thank you. Sam [speaker not understood] lee. Good afternoon. My name is nori lee. I own speedys hardware and independent local Hardware Store and member of the [speaker not understood] coop. Im also certified by the city as a micro local business enterprise. Our store is located at 1061 folsom street in south of market two blocks away from the proposed Orchard Supply location and i find it funny they said theres no Hardware Stores around so i guess maybe i should do some more advertising. Im strongly opposed to orchards moving into our neighborhood because it will be detrimental to us and many other Small Businesses in the area. Not only Hardware Stores will be affected, but other Specialty Shops as well such as the because theyre proposing their street, the flower mart is close to us, too. I think they will be greatly affected as well as appliance shops and paint stores, et cetera. Weve been weve been in the neighborhood for four years and the neighbors are just starting to get to know us. Were not opposed to competition, but theres so much there is a tremendous amount of competition here already. If you let orchards move n youre telling us essentially you dont care about the Small Businesses in the south of market. You know many of us will lose business and well have to layoff employees and eventually shut down. What you think the city will gain in additional payroll and sales taxes you will lose many times over when you see effects of the mom and pop shops like mine and many others close up. Is that the intent of the city, to drive out local Small Businesses, especially women owned businesses . I hope not. Please do not let orchards or any big box move in. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, good afternoon, commissioners. Im sam lee and im noris hz band. Husband. I own a contracting business on folsom street. And i find it funny that i did not get notified. We did not get notified for this project. I found out this project maybe a week ago from the grapevine. I finally got the, i guess the, the proposal and looked it over today. And i find it funny that the planning code specifically says a formula 1 retail is limited to 25,000 square feet. Well, the building is 33,000 square feet. The gross Square Footage of the property is 51,000 square feet. Thats well over thats double. And on top of that, they said theyre not adding more Square Footage. Thats false. Theyre adding another 8,000 square feet on top of the roof. So, just looking at those two items on this proposal, it doesnt make sense. And when mr. Diego said theres no Hardware Stores around, i chuckled. Come on. You know, Center Hardware has been there for over a hundred years, you know. Yes, i moved in 15 years ago when the south of market, you didnt want to be in the south of market. But now south of market is thriving because of all the Small Businesses that moved in. So, you know, we took a risk of opening our Hardware Store to south of market, to serve the south of market. And now its thriving. People want to move in because of the uniqueness of it. And if you let orchards come in, thats the first big box. Whats next . Home depot. Whats next, walmart . I mean, its not going to stop. And the funny thing is that, yes, pacific sales, who owns pacific sales . Best buy. Best buy, correct. So, something is going on there. What happened . How did that happen . They took over the lease, they took over the business. Was that their way of coming in, you know . Under the radar . So, i just urge you not to grant them the conditional use. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any further Public Comment . Please come to the podium. Thank you, commissioners, president fong, Vice President wu. Good afternoon. Jim miko from south of market. Im going to really limit my remarks because i would assume and hope that the majority of your time is going to be spent addressing the formula retail aspects of this. But if you do move beyond that and do move to the point of considering approving this project, my particular interests have to do with pedestrian experience on this project. It reminds me so much of the tj max project that came before this commission a few years back. At the time it what a Good Partnership with Planning Department staff and, in fact, staff said at the time the idea that were looking at here is when formula retail comes to San Francisco, we try to get them to conform to the character or improve the character if youre in a neighborhood thats less pedestrian friendly. To meet the standard of our city rather than us conforming to whatever their Business Model is. Thats the reason i attended the preapplication meeting and thats why ive been in communication with project sponsors. Ever since then to try to assure that this had a greater street presence to what they originally proposed. Bear in mind those fancy architectural renderings youre looking at are only appropriate if youre in a helicopter hovering over the project site. The reality on the ground is blanch street is a oneway street going eastward towards the embarcadaro. And in general, what you will see on the ground is the backside of this project and the blanch street frontage. So, if you do approve this project, please ensure that bryant street gives back something to the community. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Hello, my name is rick carp, im the president of Cole Hardware here in San Francisco and im asking you to please reject this project based on the formula retail issues. Its been my passion since the early 80s to try to keep big box and formula retail out of San Francisco. Im the veteran of the home depot wars that went on three to four different times when we finally lost about five years ago. They left because of their Business Model that screwed up at the time. Lowes came in. My whole deal for that whole time period was if you let one big box into San Francisco, then all of their cousins follow. Since we lost the home depot, lowes moved into their project. Best buy has come into San Francisco. Theres one target open, one you approved on masonic. Their Business Model is for four or five within San Francisco. Orchard supply is coming. The list is going to go on and on and on and youre going to continue to hurt our neighborhood shopping districts. And its real easy to think that it may not, but ill tell you just the reality in my business alone, when lowes opened in San Francisco, i am the closest Hardware Store to them at 2th and mission. We lost 25 of our business and our business overall has shrunk by 7 employees. And its the same, in essence, for my brethren in the hardware business throughout. I dont know whats going on in the paint business, et cetera, et cetera, but the efficacy of our neighborhoods are going to suffer as you keep opening these formula retails. And i really think you need to look at it holistickly from 5,000 feet up to see whats happening. This is in the pipeline. Home depot is in the pipeline right now, forgetting the do it yourself industry which were all obviously concerned about today, you are letting big box after big box after formula after formula come into the city and its gonna be a huge detriment to the neighborhood shopping districts that are such the character of the city. And i would respectfully ask you to consider that in your deliberations today. Thank you. Thank you. If i can get this to the commissioners. Hi, my name is Stephen Cornell and i own brown use hardware on polk street. I like the rest of these businesses have been in San Francisco a long time. This is our 107th year. We have 12 people working in our business. 90 of them are fulltime employed. Like everybody else we pay our people more than minimum wage. We pay them Health Benefits. Not because the citymandated it. Weve been doing it for years. All these companies are coming in, asking to come in. They have to pay Health Benefits because the city makes them do that. We are here for a long period of time. We help people. Id like to address the issue of how there is not hardly any other businesses that this is going to affect. I think in the map that you got from the Planning Department, it was very gerrymandered. I gave you a map that is perfectly square by blocks around. The first one is for two blocks around square. The second one is four blocks around, five blocks around. And the third one is 10 blocks around. Within that area there are 33 businesses that are can be affected. Some of their names are on the back. These are not just Hardware Stores. Theyre paint stores. Theres plant stores. All these businesses are affected by this particular Company Coming in. I dont think it was a very Fair Assessment by planning to say it doesnt affect anybody. This is whats going on here. But what it also affects is these kind of businesses, home depot, lowes, Orchard Supply, theyre not just looking here. Theyre going to be pulling in customers from all over the city. So, its going to affect a business out in west portal or the sunset or in the marina. People are going to come from there. Theyre going to come for their needs which they were buying in their neighborhood. Theyre going to go driving there. It affects a large area of the city. Please, we ask