Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20180224

SFGTV Government Access Programming February 24, 2018

Wanting to side of wanting to preserve what we have and how important it is. I also think that and when we talk residential to office theres been a profound effect on retail in the Union Square Area and its temporary. Believe it or not it will end some day theyll get it finished and i want to make sure we dont let that and i saw whats going on a temporary basis. Thank you so much it was great and i look forward to seeing how we proceed. Commissioner richards. I think he covered it theres so much retail just beyond the commercial districts as well as the sea districts. One of the things that perplexes me and it sounds weird with this new microphone i can hear myself better and i dont like the way i sound we have a have a high [indiscernible] of 12 to 15 and we just got another notification of another business going out of businesses but were not seeing rents come down and our c. B. D. Did a survey of why is that and they found contrary to what we would think would be an economic lens people should look through for the trusts and families that have owned the buildings have been paying since the 60s theyre too much of a brother and stick a price up there and if they cant sell them it will sit vacant and ill pull our c. B. D. Survey and show you the result. Theyre still wanting 6, 7 a square foot and the other thing from a supply and demand and economic point of view what i hear from developers a lot of is lets take upper market again the pro forma doesnt include the retail space. And so again theres not really much of an incentive they want to stick to whatever they want to do a lot of the spaces in any neighborhood are huge. Anybody what wants to do this and take a risk without going bankrupt the rest of their life and sane sign a lease and the analysis around that and we had a go health being put on the ground floor by a guy named ryan kendall i said why do you want to go go health youre probably ruining the commercial corridor and it wasnt in your pro forma and he said it was and hes the only person i recall telling me that. Understanding how things get financed and what it does for the retailer doesnt do it for the retail i think would help us maybe craft some type of controls at least or at best creator require some smaller spaces. Some of the best spaces we caught in my neck of the woods in the upper market are the small ones. 500 square foot and we had a bank of the west come before the commission and its part of the c. U. For the Financial Services which was dead and required a 500 square foot spaces and theyve doing well. A candy store, a cosmetic store and ritual coffees in there now. These are what we need to do when we see these space and they wont want to rent it out to 5,000 square foot restaurants and we have seen 100 and 200 seat restaurants are not making money. The costs are too high and theyre going out of business and we can talk about the different ones even ones that had a good following are no longer around. I think the other concern i had in terms of effect on Small Businesses we talk about with tenant displacement but i worry about business displacement and we went through this with the home sf and said if someone wanted to take up a onestory commercial space on the corridor and get a density bonus theyll displace the business thats been there forever and its disruptive and they may never come back and we wrestled through that and now we have s. B. A. 27 coming our way where i walked down my street and say dead, dead, dead, dead all these places where we do have Small Businesses when youre constructing new structures the cost of the constructions going to require an enormous rent increase. Cant go back to paying what you paying because its an old building and needs work and a worry about that on commercial spaces too and i think its something when we talk about s. B. A. 27 we see the amendments coming on it and when you look at the map every commercial corridor is on a major transit line. So are they all marked to go as well . Union square say conundrum. The question i have is the overall vacancy rate is like 3 for union square . 4 . On the ground floor of the 4 how much is on the ground floor . That it says Retail Vacancy rate. My fear is logically and maybe i can do a Reconnaissance Survey of some of the buildings. The tendency of the ground floors is youll have less vacancy the higher you go youll have more. I think its logical. So then the question i have is if i were to approach a build ong the third floor and wanted to do a retail, what do you think it would cost per square foot per month . In terms of lease rate . Yes. Thats a good question. I dont have that data here. I just have the union square lease rate which 2017 was about looks like about 60 a square foot. Thats per year divided by 12 and if i were to be coming into the third floor and a company that wants an office space would i pay higher than 5 a square foot . Its a supply and demand question depending on location and closer to transit or not it may command a higher rate but keep in mind second, third, fourth, fifth floor are generally less than ground floor. The retail rate was at 60 and the average office lease rate was 63. So theyre competing similarly. Okay. That would be my fear. If i may interrupt i think to be clear i doubt were getting 60 a square foot on the second and third floor for retail. No. We need to understand the rates and what types of businesses they do house and if we allow a watch repair or one of the Small Service kind of Office Retail spaces, if they go out of businesses are there other place for them to relocate to if you were to give a c. U. For an office space . Id want to see strong findings around where the building is, how long its been vacant and what was the good faith effort on the part of the landlord to rent like we had on the lohmans space and gave us an understanding how hard it was to rent and if theres any businesses with leases to run out is there a place for them to go at that price per square foot. I like flexibility. Im afraid the Office Pressure would put the office rate would put pressure on retail to go out of business. One other question the top five rates what were they . He thats put it in a lens. The best ones are these arent all corridors just ones were focussed on. We look at the neighborhood commercial districts. In the city. About 24. If you surveyed twothirds what are the best ones. Would you like to know the lowest vacancy rates or highest. Lets start with the lowest. Lowest is west portal, noriega street, nowe valley and union street and Pacific Heights and chinatown. Those are the lowest vacancy rates of the 24 we surveyed and the highest you said leland . The neighborhoods with the highest vacancy rates, leland avenue, visitation, valley, third street and bay view, broad street and fillmore and the Excelsior Outer Mission and weve actually worked or are currently working in all these areas because areas that have lower foot traffic that may have other issues access to transit or crime i mean, theres a lot of reasons we work in the neighborhoods with high vacancy rates and with a healthy neighborhood is in the eye of the beholder and we work with the neighborhood and set a strategy on what their goals are and in many neighborhoods its not the goal they want to do other things. So we want to work with the neighborhood to set their goals and commissioner thats great. Commissioner moore and i visited excelsior during the recess and talked with folks there and they were actually saying theres a lot of development now happening on Mission Street out there, way out there and some even on some blocks around it and their Biggest Issue was access to goods they use at a price they can afford and my worry is the bigger developments are like getting rid of a Childcare Center and put in a pub and i think thats a good approach youre doing for the highest vacancy rates. Good work. Commissioner fong. Commissioner this is a larger question we had and a conversation about retail and how the city continues to thrive and i thought about it. I think we need to make sure that we are not trying to social engineer retail. But give retail an opportunity to organically grow and be creative and when creativity comes first thats when we survive. The other thing i want to make important is big business or medium sized business follows Small Business. If you follow someone whos owned a small retail store or stores plural in the fillmore area for years he along with merchants created a vibe of which the next generation and next level of retailer whether you like him or not the ralph laueren stores have come in and so to you need to support the Small Business operators and dont put them into a huge box but give them the opportunity to grow into space. The other piece which is very different than the exact topic were talking about but when we see vacancies we see them on the New Buildings in Market Street and theres tons. 8 octavia, right . Developer get it wrong too and many architects are looking at nationwide numbers and square footages and taping saying 8,000 feet well put something in there but some cant afford it and theres popup stores and its about being creative. I think as a city in combination this is not necessarily a Planning Department specific but need to engage with a futurist or futurists plural and we have many studies done with neighborhoods and groups within San Francisco and i think that sort of gives a time stamp of where we are now and where weve been and i feel like getting on the front edge of where retail in the future of retail is going to go and even the front edge of hospitality and services and where thats going to go to help lead some of the answers to these questions. Now, what were talking about is not science. Its art and science. I throw that out because dont be surprised if you see schools pop into some of the bigger spaces where there was a walgreens. Thats good and theyre out and about we get mixed messages on retail, its dying, malls are closing in places but the numbers show a different story at least in San Francisco. And ive always remained bullish on retail and want to include it in newer commercial buildings. Would you agree . Mostly the numbers show low vacancy rates going up which hopefully theyll come down at some point. I think retail is thriving in San Francisco. I dont think we need to get historical exactly. Weve read a lot of media articles and thats why we wanted to look at the numbers. There is an issue. You know, vacancies are ticking up a little bit, rents are high and theres pressure on businesses in San Francisco. Its a concern, i understand the concern and the nature of retail is changing. People want experiences. Our full report is on our website and i encourage all of you we have so much more in the report than we can talk about today. People want experiences now. Their ethos are changing and going online to buy certain goods but going to the commercial district to have experiences and community and place making. These creative uses in the businesses were seeing is to help create an experience and the merchant district do festivals to bring people to the districts, theres a lot of creativity going on to help retail survive. But its not just about retail, its also about retail services. What ware seeing in the study is if youre concerned about vacancies have an open mind. Maybe put stuff on the ground floor you previously thought was bad. Maybe its not so bad. Maybe other types of uses where people get their nails done arent as bad as you previously thought because thats what people go to corridors for, personal services. We have to be realistic what people are going to corridors for today. To commission fongs point we need to maintain a level of flexibility. You take ocean avenue and that corridor id say its thriving now compared to what it was like years ago and its a mix of new larger floor plate chain retailers in additional smaller mom and pop retailers. I agree. We dont need to be rash and make big changes to our retail policies. There were articles about changing the formula retail rules i think they were written by brokers but i disagree. I think were making the corridors thrive because its a good mix of chains and non chain. Can we set the bar lower for chains that are acceptable by neighborhoods and getting approval and maybe making the process shorter, sure, but i think the policys working and creating the diversity in neighborhoods and when i look at the old home site we reject from a chain retailer and its now housing with retail. I think thats great and where we should be heading. Im bullish on retail and dont think theres a one size fits all in commercial corridors and we should be flexible. The big issue with more professional services on the ground floor is design. When we see a Health Oriented service on the ground floor it needs to be better designed its open and vibrant and people can see inside. We shouldnt have a commercial corridor where theres five of those but if theres one or two and feel active instead of posters or blank walls on the front, i think that would help. So i think this is a great report and opens our eyes to the successes that San Francisco has had. On union square, i do think we need to look more deeply at the second and third floors. And see what the vacancies are on those levels because i just think there are issues. The second and thirdfloor retail is not ideal. I know in union square we have different rules but they generally work where theyre combined with the first floor. I know some places there are more Service Oriented retail on second and third floors but it would be great to get a broader understanding of the second and third level and second levels are different than third. Some buildings are designed where the second floors like a mezzanine and the third floors arent. I dont think im prepared to make a decision or a recommendation on the union square question until we dig more into that data and see what the vacancy and rates are on the second and third floor. And we worked with union square and looked at the available data and we have to do a survey to get that. It would be interesting, i agree. The rules are now if you want to do retail on ann floor you can do it but you can do it by a any use above 5,000 square foot or anything not ground sales and service use not open to the public. But a lot of spaces like the flood building, its mostly nonretail above the third floor. When that was rule put in place . With the downtown area plan in the 80s. So i think if we get more detail on how much of that second, third and above space has already been converted to some nonretail use would be helpful in sorting that out because while im bullish on neighborhood commercial retail im not that bullish on second and thirdfloor retail even into spaces that were built to have retail as you go upstairs in that complex it gets weaker and weaker as far as the type of retail and how many people are up there and it was built to accommodate those retail uses. I think a couple things. Well work with oewd on doing a vare. Survey it would be helpful. Its important to note that knob nonretail uses would provide a synergy with other uses. Were not suggesting every second and thirdlevel is going to be retail. You can have another use that is not retail. I think those the uses like watch repair and things that are not as robust as they those types of retailers if you look at the list are the ones that concern me more. [please stand by]. This. This is the appel of the preliminary mitigates declaration. Hang on. Before we present, commissioner fong . I just wanted to say that i sought the advice of the City Attorney that i am not recusing myself on this particular item, but i have served on the Golden Gate Park national everybo conserveancy. Were going to hear first from the city staff and then the appellant and then the project sponsor. Correct. Correct . Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. So sorry. Im lisa gibson, Environmental Review officer, and this is julie moore. Shes a senior planner, and she has roughly prior 20 years of experience prior to joining the Planning Department conducting Environmental Review under the California Environmental quality act, and she has a degree in geology and a masters in psychology, and were very pleased to have her working in our department, and again this is her first time before the commission and her first appeal of a project, so shes been very fortunate. Good afternoon, members of the commission and president hillis. As you know im julie moore. Joining me is wade griffith. The item before you is an appeal of the preliminary my gated negative declaration, which i will review to as the ceqa document prepared for the proposed alcatraz ferry embarkation project. The park service will provide more details in its presentation. Describe the principle appeals concerns5cje. igsirlcnc mcc [ please stand by ]. Gsh and ue dnu ceqa bdocument. 31 on c as part of the the parkt serviceswq selected concessioner and itsj partner, the golden,gxw gate conserveancy, and the propose project would[ provide a combination ofelnc indoor and outdoor spaces and amenities for the public, including new boarding ramps and floats to support the berthing of up to three ferry boats at a time, in addition to the existing 18 to 22 existing alcatraz ferry trips perday. [ please stand by ]. Install a new gang waalanding and float, and construct an approximatelygz h 1400 foot long pedestrian pathway . 7cnc from the for the c baker pier discovery museumsd as wellbp sausalitos primary concern is fort bakers pedestrians will travel substantially outside of fort baker and incur significant pedestrian and foot traffic. The Planning Departments responsibilities to these concerns are discussed in exhibit a of the departments appeal response in the commissions packet. Two days ago, on february 20, saws aleet owe filed a 134re789 to its appeal letter.

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