February 10, 2025 Design Review Board Meeting

Yerba Buena SX80: Recording in progress.

Yerba Buena SX80: Thank you for joining us tonight for the Bcdc Design Review Board meeting. I’d like to remind Board members to please speak directly into the microphone in front of you and have it on only when you want to speak. And please ensure that your video on your laptops is always on, but your audio is disabled.

Yerba Buena SX80: Thanks, Ashley.

Yerba Buena SX80: My name is Jacinta Mccann. I’m the chair of the Bcdc’s Design Review Board, and I’m located here at the Metro center in San Francisco. Our 1st order of business is to call the roll Board members. Can you unmute yourselves to respond and then mute yourselves again after you respond. So, Staff, if you could call the roll, please. Chair, Mccann, present vice chair string, present

Yerba Buena SX80: board, member Battaglia, present Board, member Chow. Here.

Yerba Buena SX80: Board, member, leader and staff. Note that board member Pellegrini will be here. But it’s not here at the moment.

Yerba Buena SX80: Staff attending this meeting are myself, Ashley, Tomerlin, Gary Jewett, and Lisa Heron and Catherine Pan is attending online. Great.

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay, thank you very much, Ashley. We have a quorum presence. So we are duly constituted to conduct business.

Yerba Buena SX80: I’m going to share some instructions with you to get started tonight. And this will enable us to have the meeting run as smoothly as possible

Yerba Buena SX80: for everyone online and in the meeting room, please make sure that you have your microphones muted to avoid background noise

Yerba Buena SX80: for board members. If you have a webcam, please make sure it’s on. So everyone can see you for members of the public. If you would like to speak during a public comment period. You will need to do so in one of 3 ways. First, st if you’re here with us in person, we will ask you to form a line near the podium. If you wish to make a public comment.

Yerba Buena SX80: Speaker, cards are available at the door and you’ll be asked to come up to the podium one at a time. After all, individuals who are present make their comments. We will call on those participants who are attending remotely

Yerba Buena SX80: the second way. If you are attending on the Zoom Platform, please raise your virtual hand in zoom, and please click the hand at the bottom of your screen. The hand should turn blue when it’s raised.

Yerba Buena SX80: Finally, if you’re joining our meeting via phone, you must press Star 9 on your keypad to raise or lower your hand to make a comment and star 6 to mute or unmute your phone. We will call on individuals who have raised their hands in the order that they are raised.

Yerba Buena SX80: Please keep your comments respectful and focused. We are here to listen to everyone who wishes to address us, but everyone has the responsibility to act in a civil manner. We will not tolerate hate, speech, threats made directly or indirectly, and or abusive language.

Yerba Buena SX80: We will mute anyone who fails to follow these guidelines, or who exceeds the established time limits time limits without permission

Yerba Buena SX80: for public comments. If you are attending online, please note that we will only hear your voices. Your video will not be enabled.

Yerba Buena SX80: If you are attending the meeting on the Zoom Platform, we recommend using the gallery view option in view settings in order to see all the panelists. Audio for the in-person panelists is recorded through the rooms audio system. And it’s not synced up to the individual panelists videos.

Yerba Buena SX80: If you would like to add your contact information to the interested parties to be notified of future meetings concerning these projects or this project tonight, please call or email Ashley Tomlin, whose contact information

Yerba Buena SX80: is on the screen or is found on the Bcdc’s website.

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay.

Yerba Buena SX80: okay, we’re just resolving a technical issue here.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yes.

Yerba Buena SX80: if people online can just hold on, we’ll get rid of the background noise.

Yerba Buena SX80: Hmm.

Yerba Buena SX80: that’s okay.

Yerba Buena SX80: That was a lot worse than this.

Yerba Buena SX80: Think, okay, the technical issues is resolved. So we will continue on here.

Yerba Buena SX80: The next item on the agenda is the approval of meeting summaries for December 9, th 2024, and January 6, th 2025, and, as usual, we really appreciate the work that staff does preparing these meeting summaries. So we’ve all been furnished. The draft meeting summaries. Are there any comments or corrections from the board?

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay, hearing none. And I had no comments on either of those. They were actually excellent summaries. So thank you.

Yerba Buena SX80: I would ask for a motion and a second to approve these. So make a motion to approve. Thanks. Gary. Second, Tom, thank you.

Yerba Buena SX80: And anyone, we don’t have anyone online tonight. Do we know, is there anyone who objects to the motion?

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay? So hearing none, the minutes minutes have been unanimously adopted as amended. So

Yerba Buena SX80: thank you. Actually, not as amended because they were excellent.

Yerba Buena SX80: And now the Board Secretary will provide a staff update.

Yerba Buena SX80: Thank you. Chair Mccann, in January staff held an informational workshop for Commissioners on the Richmond San Rafael, Bike Path, Mtc. And Caltrans have submitted an application to amend the permit to modify the availability of the bike lane on the bridge from 7 days a week to 3 and a half days, for the purpose of studying the impacts of the path on vehicular traffic.

Yerba Buena SX80: We anticipate this item will go to the Commission for a hearing and vote. In March.

Yerba Buena SX80: Our next Erb meeting will be on March 10, th and will be a review of the Brooklyn Basin Channel Park.

Yerba Buena SX80: We will not be having a meeting in April, and have a tentatively scheduled meeting for April 12, th

Yerba Buena SX80: and finally, at our last Drb. Meeting Board members had expressed interest in a walking tour meeting of the public access at Mission Bay. Please let me know your preferred Weekdays and Times, and I will try to get that scheduled.

Yerba Buena SX80: And that, concludes the Bcdc. Staff update. I’ll pause here to answer any questions from the board.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, just 2 2 points just on point 2.

Yerba Buena SX80: the tentatively scheduled meeting is May 12, th right? Yeah. So make a note of that board, members. And look as far as preferred times for the walk around Mission Bay, which I I think would be really good to do, actually, why don’t I send you a couple of options? And then we can start with, you know, a few target dates and then see who can come. So we’ll work on it that way.

Yerba Buena SX80: I think we would need

Yerba Buena SX80: 2 h to do it, because it involves walking some distance between the 2 parks. So yeah, and it will need to be noticed as a public meeting. Correct? Yeah. So we’ll plan some way after that.

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay, so let’s move on to the next item on the agenda, which is public comment for items which are not on tonight’s agenda. And just to check here. Do we have any members of the public online?

Yerba Buena SX80: I have no hands raised online and no one in the room. Okay, so I will not read any guidelines for that section. We will move on now to the second review of the 200 Wind River Development Project in Alameda.

Yerba Buena SX80: and I just want to remind you of the Project Review order for tonight. So we will start with the Bcdc. Staff Presentation

Yerba Buena SX80: Board clarifying questions to the staff, and I would note here that we have reviewed the project previously. So we clarified a lot in the 1st review. So just keep that in mind when you’re asking clarifying questions. Then we’ll have the project team presentation and we’ll have board clarifying questions to the project team.

Yerba Buena SX80: public comment if any arises and then board discussion and summary, and then a brief response from the from the project team.

Yerba Buena SX80: So with that, I’m going to hand over to the permit analyst, Lisa Herron, who is going to introduce the project. So thank you, Lisa.

Yerba Buena SX80: and I will note that Stefan Pellegrini has joined the meeting

Yerba Buena SX80: all right. Getting used to this. Thank you. Chair Mccann, and good evening Board members. I’m Lisa Heron, a shoreline development analyst at Bcdc. Before I present the staff introduction. I would like to remind the project team and staff to please turn on your video when you’re speaking or answering questions. When you’re not actively engaged with the board. Please turn off your video so that we can minimize distractions.

Yerba Buena SX80: And now I’d like to introduce the project for tonight’s review. This is the second review of a Life Sciences. Redevelopment project proposed by Blue Rise ventures at 200 Wind River, in the city of Alameda, Alameda County. The 1st review took place in December of 2023.

Yerba Buena SX80: The 200 Wind River Development Project is the last phase of a new life sciences campus at 200 Wind River way, which would redevelop an existing 4.9 2 acre surface parking lot highlighted in red.

Yerba Buena SX80: The entire development is the 20.4 Acre Wind River campus, highlighted in yellow, located along the northern shore of Alameda Island. This portion of the project is bounded to the south and west by Atlantic Avenue, to the east by Alaska Basin and to the north by the remainder of the Wind River Office campus, whose northern boundary is the shoreline fronting the Alameda estuary.

Yerba Buena SX80: This map, taken for Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Interactive Bay Trail map shows some regional context for public parks, transportation terminals and trails in the project’s vicinity. The project site is outlined in red.

Yerba Buena SX80: The site’s nearby parks include Jean Sweeney, Open Space Park.

Yerba Buena SX80: Little John Park, and in addition, a bay trail segment along the eastern side of the development provides views of Alaska Basin and leads to the publicly accessible Wind River Park, a shoreline public access area associated with the larger Wind River Office campus.

Yerba Buena SX80: So the site is currently occupied by a large surface parking lot connected to a prominent abandoned wharf which occupies the entire eastern edge of the site along Alaska Basin. The wharf is constructed of creosote, coated timber piles and pile caps, heavy timber decking and asphalt top surface. It’s proposed to be removed as part of this redevelopment, this photo features a view from the southern tip of the wharf along the waterfront towards the previously developed Wind River Buildings.

Yerba Buena SX80: And now a different view. These photos are taken from the northern edge of the site connecting from the prior development of the campus you can see the edge of the wharf, the existing shoreline trail, and the view towards the permitted but not yet developed site across Alaska Basin.

Yerba Buena SX80: Here’s a closer look at existing conditions, at the entry points to the site marked with the dashed yellow circles. The northwest corner of the project site is the intersection of Clement Atlantic Avenue and Sherman street which will eventually provide pedestrian access to the site. There’s also a vehicular entrance in the at the southwest corner of the site, also circled in yellow.

Yerba Buena SX80: This is an exhibit taken from the existing permit, 1997.0 0 9 issued in 1997. The orange area shows the public access area for the entire Wind River site with the project site outlined in red.

Yerba Buena SX80: The permit originally authorized the construction of 4, 2 to 4 story office buildings, each of approximately 100,000 square feet, and partially located within the Commission’s 100 foot shoreline band. You can see that a 5th building was constructed outside of our jurisdiction, the permit authorized shoreline improvements, pier replacement, capping of contaminated materials and site improvements for circulation and public access.

Yerba Buena SX80: Phase one was building out approximately 1,800 and

Yerba Buena SX80: 100,800. 0, my gosh, okay, 190,000 square feet of public access, including 10 to 12 foot wide, paved pathways, parking landscape improvements and amenities. Phase 2 is construction of an approximately 41,500 square foot wooden wharf, with furnishing signage and a 10 foot landscape, public access connection from Atlantic Avenue.

Yerba Buena SX80: and an interpretive program and phase 3 built out 5 overlooked decks connecting pathways and furnishings and site interpretation.

Yerba Buena SX80: So to date. This permit’s been amended about 5 times or exactly 5 times, mostly for time extensions to complete required public access. Features. Amendment number 4 reduce the dedicated public access area, because about 4,500 square feet was transferred to the Bcdc. Permit of an adjacent property across the Marina or across the Alaska Basin to the Marina.

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay. Now, Bcdc’s vulnerability mapping tool shows. The project is located within a census block with a reported population of 1,308 people, and has low social vulnerability and lower contamination vulnerability. There are no social vulnerability indicators in the 90th percentile, and the one social vulnerability indicator is for people who are severely housing cost burdened

Yerba Buena SX80: other census blocks near the project site vary from low to high social vulnerability and have more social vulnerability indicators. In the 70th and 90th percentile

Yerba Buena SX80: regarding potential sea level rise. This map shows what 24 inches of sea level rise would look like if the site remain unchanged on top of mean, high, high water. There’s no flooding at the site at its current elevation.

Yerba Buena SX80: This map shows 66. What 66 inches of sea level rise would look like if the site was unchanged.

Yerba Buena SX80: From this map you can see that the site itself is less affected than the surrounding parcels, with a small amount of overtopping at the northern end of the larger Wind River campus. There will also be regional issues facing Alameda, and this site in the future, as demonstrated by the flooding on the other side of Atlantic and Clement Avenue.

Yerba Buena SX80: This is another table to help clarify some of the sea level Rise section of our staff report.

Yerba Buena SX80: So for our sea level rise analysis, we reference the 2024 guidance from the California Ocean Protection Council, and we use the intermediate to high scenario tables as well as the statewide average table, and all elevations are in Navd 88. The expected life of the project is at minimum 50 years to 2075, and the projected end of century water level of 14.5 1 feet would cause inundation, likely at the dock and sections of the bay trail. At the site.

Yerba Buena SX80: however, at regular, mean, high, high tides, the current shoreline elevation would be just above the 2,100 mean, high, high water level of 11.2 feet.

Yerba Buena SX80: This slide provides a summary list of the Bay Plan policy and guideline questions that apply to this project.

Yerba Buena SX80: In addition, we also have included some questions by Staff that we would like the Board to consider, so one does the design provide legible and inviting connections from the adjacent roadways and bike pedestrian networks to draw users into and through the site to the Bay trail and Shoreline

Yerba Buena SX80: 2 is the interpretive program designed and cited to maximize the public’s use and enjoyment of the shoreline? And does the board have any design, suggestions, or recommendations to enhance the interpretive program for the project. 3. Are the public access areas appropriately designed to be resilient and adapted to sea level rise, ensuring high quality, public access, opportunities over time.

Yerba Buena SX80: and 4. Does the Board have any recommendations regarding proposed landside amenities that support the water access proposed as part of the project is the launch area in the basin appropriately sited to encourage the public to use this feature.

Yerba Buena SX80: and with that

Yerba Buena SX80: I want to check and see if the Board has any clarifying questions for me, or on anything presented in this introduction, and then I’ll introduce the project team.

Yerba Buena SX80: Thank you, Lisa. That was very helpful and and very helpful to have the added explanation on sea level rise. So thanks for that clarifying questions from the Board to Lisa.

Yerba Buena SX80: Nothing.

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay. Well, thank you very much. That was very thorough. Okay, we will move on to

Yerba Buena SX80: the next presentation.

Yerba Buena SX80: which is the project team presentation, and so we’ll hand that over to the team. I’m not sure who’s presenting. But please go ahead.

Yerba Buena SX80: I can introduce you so I can introduce them. I’m sorry about that. Today we have Eric Tesca, Vice President, Development of Blue Rise Ventures, and Matthew Malone, Senior Landscape Architect with Perkins and Will

Yerba Buena SX80: and I’ll pass it over.

Yerba Buena SX80: Thank you to staff members of the Board for having us here. This is the second presentation of 200 Wind River way. I recognize all the faces from December 2023. So, thanks for having us back

Yerba Buena SX80: as we go through this, we’ll we’ll touch on the overall some of the overall items that didn’t change to give everybody an overview. But I’ll try not to spend too much time on that since. I think Lisa already did a nice introduction of a lot of the project background, and we’ll try to spend more of a time focusing on the items that we’ve revised

Yerba Buena SX80: Lisa already covered this, but the project location on the west side of Alaska Basin, on Alameda’s northern waterfront.

Yerba Buena SX80: The history of the site in modern history. This was originally the home of the. It was the winter home of the Alaska Packers Association, which was one of the last commercially operating fleets of tall sailing ships on the west coast. The photo in the top left is those ships anchored in the Basin during the winter. In the summer they would sail up to Alaska.

Yerba Buena SX80: bring their catch of fish back, and then they would process them in the cannery buildings that were on this site. A lot of it was stored in the warehouse that’s at the bottom end of the basin known as the Del Monte Warehouse. For a long time and recently redeveloped as the Alta Star Harbor adaptive reuse residential project

Yerba Buena SX80: in the sixties. A Gantry crane was installed on top of the now abandoned wharf that we’re proposing to remove to allow containerized cargo. And what my understanding is, it’s 1 of the 1st places anywhere to be set up to handle containerized cargo versus bulk cargo like fish.

Yerba Buena SX80: This is what the site looks like today. This is an aerial. If you’re over top of the Ensignel terminal site, which is the empty wharf to the east of the Basin.

Yerba Buena SX80: looking at the Wind River campus, facing basically straight west out to San Francisco. So the 4 existing buildings, 300 400 500 600 Wind River way. These were built in the late nineties and early 2 thousands. On the right is the estuary and Alameda Marina, and at the left edge of the photograph is the proposed site for 200 Wind River way, which again, 200 Wind River way, was originally permitted in Permit

Yerba Buena SX80: 97 to be a building that was a perfect replica of building. 300 was never built. The original developers didn’t have a need for it.

Yerba Buena SX80: and we’re part of this proposal is to basically slide the siding of that building south and enlarge it to respond to current site and market conditions.

Yerba Buena SX80: This is what the site looks like today. It’s it’s basically an asphalt parking lot alongside of Alaska basin with a large wharf similar to the picture that Lisa showed along the western edge of the basin.

Yerba Buena SX80: the before and after public access diagram. This comes from the existing permit. So the building, highlighted in yellow at the left side of this diagram is the original site and footprint of 200 Wind River way.

Yerba Buena SX80: In the time since 1997, Atlantic, Clement and Sherman Street have been brought together in A. T intersection Clement Avenue coming in from the East didn’t formally exist. That’s a recent improvement. That was part of the

Yerba Buena SX80: Alta Star Harbor, the residential project across the street that renovated the Del Monte Warehouse. So on the right shows the proposed siting. And basically we’ve taken the building and reshaped the footprint and slid it to the south to have more of an urban presence on the street, which again didn’t exist at the time of the original. Permit.

Yerba Buena SX80: And then also, you can see that we’ve in shown, dashed and hashed is the footprint of the the wharf the which is in fairly poor condition that we’re proposing to remove removing those creosote coated piles from the bay. That’s about 41,000 square feet. But then we’re taking and replacing that public access inland. And so we’re moving the bay trail and the public access inland which results in a net gain of about a thousand square feet of public access.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, go ahead.

Yerba Buena SX80: We recognize that the site sits at this important intersection of public space and pedestrian connectivity, right across the street from Jean Sweeney Park. The recent completion of Clement Avenue and the Alameda Cross, Alameda Trail, as well as the Alaska Basin waterfront. Stitching these spaces together was the primary driver of our site design, and we very intentionally wanted to welcome people around and through these spaces, giving them access to the water and all points beyond.

Yerba Buena SX80: The building sits within the intersection of these desired connections in an acute L-shaped configuration framing an interior courtyard that’s oriented towards the water

Yerba Buena SX80: The prominent position on the corner of the new three-way intersection was an intentional move towards a more urban approach to the campus development.

Yerba Buena SX80: Sherman Walk was originally envisioned to be a publicly accessible street and new gateway into the campus, but after consulting with the city and weighing the potential conflicts with pedestrian and bike circulation, we decided to develop this as a grand pedestrian walkway, leading users directly from Jean Sweeney Park to the water’s edge, replacing the somewhat circuitous route. They currently have to walk through the parking lot just to the north.

Yerba Buena SX80: as you can see by the dashed outline and the notes on the plan. We plan to demolish the dilapidated timber wharf and transform what’s currently a parking lot into very green and activated waterfront that that gives an opportunity for campus users and the public alike to engage and interact with this new shoreline.

Yerba Buena SX80: So what we heard from the board in December of last 2 years ago, and how we responded, so I’m just gonna go over what we took away from that meeting.

Yerba Buena SX80: There should be a way for the public to actually get down to the water and use the waterfront, be aware of overprogramming the public space that we were showing ping pong tables. They may feel too corporate. They may be difficult to maintain and manage as an amenity.

Yerba Buena SX80: The shoreline parking spaces shouldn’t feel like they’re in the building’s back of house. The connection from that public shoreline parking should be more clear. The area felt underdesigned.

Yerba Buena SX80: The small triangular parking lot which is at the north end of the building between the north. The northeast face of the building and the shoreline felt too congested.

Yerba Buena SX80: The Bay trail should be a minimum 18 feet wide. To expand the site, plan diagram to show more of the pedestrian connections to the adjacent sites.

Yerba Buena SX80: to show more detail of what is the experience of entering the site. From the the three-way intersection up that pedestrian pathway to the north edge of the building that runs northeast, southwest that we call Sherman Walk.

Yerba Buena SX80: How legible is this site entrance, and that the intersection of Sherman Walk and the bay trail is a keynote. What happens there?

Yerba Buena SX80: And we’ll go over these in more detail on the following slides. But we’ve added a small public dock with a small craft launch and staging area. We’ve redesigned the southern parking lot to reduce spaces and give more more detail and also more of a landscape buffer between the bay trail and the parking spaces. We’ve reduced some parking spaces in that northern lot that felt too congested.

Yerba Buena SX80: We’ve made sure that all sections of the bay trail are 18 feet wide. We’ve added a series of renderings to show the experience of entering the site at the western corner. Walking up Sherman Walk towards the Bay trail. And what happens at that intersection between the 2 pathways?

Yerba Buena SX80: And then we’ve expanded the Site plan and shown a more detailed diagram of all the different pedestrian connections into the site.

Yerba Buena SX80: So this is the this is the Revised Site Plan looks fairly similar to the site plan as presented, which was 2 slides ago, but we’ll zoom into different portions of these, so you can see better the adjustments that were made. So we’ve added 10 shoreline parking spaces in the northern parking field. The ones just along the waterfront north of the building

Yerba Buena SX80: revised the layout of the intersection. The plaza at the intersection between the bay trail and Sherman walk slightly, and we pulled the vehicular crossing back to give it a little more breathing room. From cars. Again we deleted a whole row of parking spaces that were fronting right up against the bay trail and replaced that with more landscape buffer

Yerba Buena SX80: Bay trail 18 feet wide. We’ve added that public dock with a small craft launch as well as a potential future landing place for a public water shuttle

Yerba Buena SX80: with a staging area at the top that replaced the

Yerba Buena SX80: the ping pong tables. So that’s a place to break down your Windsurf. Rig your stand up, paddle board, assemble it, break it down, hose it off.

Yerba Buena SX80: removed some of the non public parking spaces in that Southern lot to give it a little more breathing room between the cars and the Bay trail, and then we’ll zoom in on that. So you get a little more detail of how we’ve refined the pathway connection that gets you from Clement Avenue to the parking spaces and out to the bay trail.

Yerba Buena SX80: Good!

Yerba Buena SX80: And then this is just a key plan that shows some of the features of the site, and the red triangles with the numbers on them, show the different viewpoints of the renderings that will show. But we’ll we’ll reorient everybody as we show those renderings.

Yerba Buena SX80: It’s also worth noting that in the 1st time we presented this what is now called the Bay trail we had called the shoreline Trail, because it was only, I think, about a month before our 1st presentation that it was formally adopted as the Bay trail. The trail’s always been there, but it wasn’t formally part of the bay trail until recently.

Yerba Buena SX80: and then this was a request forward to me through Lisa to show a a side by side of the 2 site plans. And I will say, at this scale, it’s hard to see most of the revisions that were made. But we’ll we’ll zoom into the different areas and give more detail.

Yerba Buena SX80: This is the expanded site plan diagram. So here we’re showing in orange the existing and proposed bay trail and then pedestrian walking paths as well as bike paths.

Yerba Buena SX80: So basically, the site sits at the the confluence or divergence point of the bay trail and the Cross Alameda trail, which is

Yerba Buena SX80: The Cross Alameda Trail, is a combination of a dedicated cycle track and a pedestrian sidewalk separated that run along the site. They cross the street at the right, at the T intersection, and then they keep going west through Jean Sweeney. Open Space Park, Atlantic Avenue has on street bike lanes and sidewalks on both sides, as well as Sherman Street, has the same.

Yerba Buena SX80: Clement Avenue has again the Cross Alameda trail, the cycle track on the north side, and then a pedestrian sidewalk on the south side, and all of those different trails come together at the Atlantic Avenue, Sherman Street, Clement intersection. So that’s a really key pedestrian node

Yerba Buena SX80: in the the original concept of this, when it was 1st presented to the city of Alameda, the what is now Sherman Walk, a pedestrian street was originally going to be a vehicular street which is going to come into the site. So we’d create a four-way intersection. But after looking at it again, and talking with the Alameda planning staff.

Yerba Buena SX80: we felt it was probably more appropriate to take and make that a dedicated pedestrian way to leave the 3 way intersection as it was, and dedicate that connector from the intersection out to the bay trail as pedestrian only

Yerba Buena SX80: and then at the southern tip of the site, the southeast tip. You can see where the bay trail turns north and goes along the waterfront between the building and the the portion of the wharf that we’ll be keeping. Just gonna have a renovated surface on it with public amenities. And then that connects and continues north past 3, 4, 5 and 600 Wind River way, and continues around the north end of the site to the west towards Incidental Yacht Club.

Yerba Buena SX80: This is an enhancement of the southern end of the site. So the key changes that were made here in response to comments was

Yerba Buena SX80: again where the number 10 is up at the top of the page used to be ping pong tables, and there was no public doc. So in response to the the idea of

Yerba Buena SX80: giving the public a way to actually get to the water. We’re proposing a public dock with a small craft launch that we would attempt to make part of the formal Sf. Bay water trail. I think that would be a nice feature. And then, as part of the guidelines of the water trail, there’s the staging area at the top, which is basically an open area which is available for people to set up, break down their standard paddle boards, windsurf rigs. What have you? And that replaces the ping pong tables, which we think were

Yerba Buena SX80: probably not the the best the best amenity for that area.

Yerba Buena SX80: And then at the parking lot. What we’ve done is, we’ve deleted a handful of parking spaces which allows us to pull that

Yerba Buena SX80: the corner of those parking spaces which were previously almost touching the Bay trail to pull those back a little farther, and then we’ve extended. You can see a pathway that goes from the Clement Avenue crosswalk connects that Crosswalk to the bay trail

Yerba Buena SX80: with a spur that picks up the the parking spaces. And so that’s really best illustrated in the next rendering, which is, if you’re standing where the number 14 Arrow is is. If you just come across the crosswalk walking north into the site, and you’ll see the parking the shoreline parking on your left

Yerba Buena SX80: and the bay trail on your right.

Yerba Buena SX80: and this is this is really to answer what was a key question is, what is the experience of coming into the site through these entry points.

Yerba Buena SX80: So as if you’ve just crossed Clement, you’re walking north. You can just get a hint of Brooklyn Basin way in the background, the water on the right side, the building 200 Wind River way on the left, with the public shoreline parking spaces and a very easy, clear route for people to get from their cars out to the bay trail.

Yerba Buena SX80: We’ve also as part of reducing those parking spaces. We’ve added some more landscape in the parking lot to try and create a little bit more of a feeling of separation between the where the cars are parked and the loading dock of the building we considered moving all of the public shoreline, parking out of this area into a different part of the site. But I think, at the end of the day this is a much clearer, more direct way for people to get to the site

Yerba Buena SX80: you’re driving along Clement Avenue. You pass by the water where you can really see it clearly, and the next driveway you turn right in. It’s very clear and obvious how you get to the parking versus if you were to try and get to the parking spaces farther north, even though you’re not near the loading dock of the building. It’s a much more circuitous route through those parking lots. So we just felt the clarity of where to park

Yerba Buena SX80: kind of outweighed that. But then we also balance that by adding additional parking spaces north of the building.

Yerba Buena SX80: This is just to the right of that viewpoint. If you’re coming in the site, if you’re walking along the bay trail from the direction from the east is if you were coming from Fortman Marina, and you’re just starting to pass by the parking turn right where it goes north up the the waterfront.

Yerba Buena SX80: and you can see that the existing wharf that’s been renovated with the public dock coming off it to the very right side of the photo.

Yerba Buena SX80: and by removing that timber wharf it really opens up views to the water.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah.

Yerba Buena SX80: And then again, another main entry point to the site. So the question, What is the experience of entering the site through Sherman Walk? And how legible is that site entrance? So a series of 3 renderings a in the top right? Because if you’re standing in the crosswalk at that intersection, looking towards the building

Yerba Buena SX80: in the bottom left as if you’re midway up that pathway around the main entrance to the building, and the different color paving indicates the the cross traffic from the employee parking lot to the building entrance, and then the final. The bottom right is, if you’re approaching that intersection where there’s a small plaza between Sherman Walk, where it meets the Bay trail

Yerba Buena SX80: which would also be a place for some type of interpretive program that’s still being developed. And you can see the future and sentinel terminal site beyond.

Yerba Buena SX80: at the north end of the wharf, another zoom in.

Yerba Buena SX80: So here this is where you can see there were formerly a row about 10 parking spaces that were right, this small triangular parking lot. They were on the east side of that, filling that whole space where you you basically would have bumpers of cars almost kind of hanging over the bay trail. So we’ve deleted that

Yerba Buena SX80: entire row of spaces responded to the comment that it felt too congested, which we agree. And so now you won’t have headlights shining out to the water. You won’t have cars potentially infringing on the bay trail, and just generally more landscape buffer, more separation between cars and pedestrians.

Yerba Buena SX80: We looked at removing that lot entirely, but it’s part of the emergency vehicle access to keep our our fire. Access to the water side of the building

Yerba Buena SX80: next rendering is from position 18 up at the top of the page, looking downwards, so you’ll see the Sherman walk to your right, the building 200 in front of you, and the bay trail to the left.

Yerba Buena SX80: So this is that keynote where the bay trail meets Sherman Walk

Yerba Buena SX80: which takes you towards straight towards Jean Sweeney Park, off to the right.

Yerba Buena SX80: and then down straight south towards Clement Avenue, and you can see all the Star Harbor again. That adaptive reuse housing project in the distance.

Yerba Buena SX80: Great, thank you, although we don’t call too much attention to it. I did want to point out that we do have a remnant sort of rail spur that we would like to install along the trail, and we? We thought that that would be a really cool sort of nod to that history of this being the terminus of all those rail lines, and a place of sort of loading and unloading that cargo.

Yerba Buena SX80: thinking about that sort of hosting, some rolling lounge chairs, and probably some other furnishings along the way. But in addition to that, we really think that that node at the end of Sherman Walk in the Bay trail is an important place arrival moment at the site. And so we’re looking at opportunities through light or special paving, or the variety of things that you see here to really sort of tell that

Yerba Buena SX80: really interesting story of the of the shipping and and container industry that used to be here.

Yerba Buena SX80: We haven’t fully. We haven’t really fully developed the interpretive and or public art program for this area. But we, we think it would be really interesting if it were some kind of nautical artifacts that speak to the industrial history of the site, and particularly the scale of that industrial history, so that you can, in an experiential and tactile way, sort of understand the massive scale of what used to happen there being a really heavy industrial site. So things like.

Yerba Buena SX80: obviously, it’s it’s almost the the history of container shipping is so important to this site that it’s almost unfortunate that things made out of shipping containers are so common because it would be so appropriate here. But again, it is, it is.

Yerba Buena SX80: I don’t say overdone, but it’s it’s well done. But ships, propellers, anchor chains, anchors. You know, dock lines. There’s along the site. Now there’s these massive cleats where the ships used to tie up, and they’re all just very interesting objects that that really just you see them and you touch them, and they sort of connect you to the just the scale of the type of industry that used to happen there, and the history of it. And so

Yerba Buena SX80: the the idea for an interpreter program kind of revolves around ideas like that. And we’re we’re obviously very open to feedback about what you all think would be. You know, right for that.

Yerba Buena SX80: that area

Yerba Buena SX80: getting close to the end. We’ve tried to focus more on the shoreline improvements than we did on the building. I think our 1st presentation. We had more renderings of the building itself. So we mostly focused on the shoreline. But this is just a good overall view that really gives you kind of an idea of the materiality and the scale and form of the building with those shoreline improvements in the foreground. So where you see bay trail running east to west or north to south, sorry left to right across the image. Basically, the the public shoreline areas, everything from that. And towards the foreground.

Yerba Buena SX80: Another view from a similar vantage point just looking left down the bay trail again towards Clement, you see those rolling lounge chairs that are on sort of rails as a homage to the rail spur and the crane rail that used to roll longitudinally along that wharf

Yerba Buena SX80: sea level rise resiliency. So the only changes to this diagram is that you no longer see a a car parked along the bay trail because we deleted those parking spaces, and on the lower image, you see a the public dock, just off of the portion of the wharf that will remain.

Yerba Buena SX80: You talk about materials?

Yerba Buena SX80: Sure thing, it’s a it’s a fairly simple palette of resilient materials, wood decking to cover that existing concrete structure. As I mentioned, maybe repurposing some rails to run alongside it pavers, and our special moments decomposed granite for the shoulders, concrete sidewalks

Yerba Buena SX80: home.

Yerba Buena SX80: and then our planting, you know, we went out to the site and borrowed very heavily from the existing landscape, looked at things that were thriving out there, and then paired, that with some other bay, friendly and drought, tolerant plants.

Yerba Buena SX80: and the last slide just a summary of the community engagement that we’ve done so far. So we’ve talked to Mtc. Bay trail about just the the location and the design of the bay trail, because, you know, we are proposing to rebuild the section of Bay trail where signage would be appropriate the Alameda Tma regarding the location of the public dock as it pertains to potentially being a future site for the Oakland Alameda Water shuttle, which is new as of last summer

Yerba Buena SX80: Sf. Bay Area water trail again for that small craft launch Bike walk Alameda

Yerba Buena SX80: The city of Alameda planning Commission. We’ve been to one public hearing and are planning to do another, either in late spring or summer of this year.

Yerba Buena SX80: Ensignal Yacht Club, which is our next door neighbor, as well as the Oakland Yacht Club, just to the west of the Ensignal Yacht Club, and then also some more outreach pending to that we’re waiting to hear back from the friends of Gene Sweeney Park and the Okilani outrigger canoe Center, which is on the south shore of Alameda.

Yerba Buena SX80: That’s it.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, well, look, thank you very much. And I just want to recognize the work that’s gone into this project in the intervening year or so.

Yerba Buena SX80: Really appreciate that. And the time you’ve taken to summarize and present the proposal so clearly today. So thanks, guys, Rip, that’s very much appreciated. Let’s just move to clarifying questions from the board. Gary, do you want to kick off?

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, I had just a question about the trees, because I know some of your renders show that

Yerba Buena SX80: some of the renders show trees very prominently as part of the big design idea. What kind of trees are you thinking about? I think it’s a tough, growing environment. I want to benefit from the research you’ve done. Luckily we have our landscape architect here, the perfect person to answer that question.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, that’s a that’s a great question.

Yerba Buena SX80: you can see you can see our our plant list here at the bottom. We’re looking at London. Plain trees in the parking lot. The let’s see the water gum and big leaf maple. Primarily, I think, along that waterfront.

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay, thank you. And then I have a question for Staff. I’m just curious, like the the details, such as, like the rolling lounge chairs, or whatever to what extent are those you know, enforceable? Or is that likely to show up at the end of the project?

Yerba Buena SX80: So our policies and guidelines speak to usability? So if there were. I think we’re all familiar with the High Line, and how, when it 1st opened, there was the rolling lounges that had to actually be locked down because they were causing safety issues. We would want to avoid any development of a park that had safety issues. So if it could be designed in a way

Yerba Buena SX80: that was safe. It would be fine.

Yerba Buena SX80: we’d probably describe it as rolling, but I don’t know.

Yerba Buena SX80: I think we would have to view it as like

Yerba Buena SX80: if it became a safety hazard, we could remove the rolling condition.

Yerba Buena SX80: So that so that’d be one thing is

Yerba Buena SX80: you know, evaluating it for safety and appropriateness. And then the other thing is.

Yerba Buena SX80: if it turns out that there’s value engineering and it goes away completely. Is is any of that

Yerba Buena SX80: enforceable. Or it would just be like, equivalent seating would suffice. Yeah, we would be looking for equivalent seating. Okay? So it’s a concept at this point. Yeah, okay, thank you.

Yerba Buena SX80: Tom.

Yerba Buena SX80: Tom.

Yerba Buena SX80: Thanks. Just a few couple of random questions. 1st of all, are there

Yerba Buena SX80: existing industry or maritime industrial

Yerba Buena SX80: relics there that are of interest. I think you mentioned anchor, Clea, to the other things. Is there a whole lot of stuff? Or

Yerba Buena SX80: I’m trying to think on the site existing.

Yerba Buena SX80: the ones the most interesting ones that come to mind are the the probably the cleats along the edge of the wharf. Yeah, they’re they’re.

Yerba Buena SX80: you know. They look like the cleat that you’d see on a on a boat that are usually about that long, but they’re about 5 feet long, and they look like they weigh about 500 pounds. What exactly we do with them. I haven’t totally figured that out, but I mean. They are a really interesting artifact.

Yerba Buena SX80: you know, I think

Yerba Buena SX80: honestly, the facade of the Del Monte Warehouse, which is again was adaptly reused into a A residential project just at the across the street is a really interesting relic of the maritime history of that site, because it’s a it’s a huge brick warehouse, and that is where they used to store things.

Yerba Buena SX80: you know, I

Yerba Buena SX80: most of what used to be there, I think, was, you know the the warehouses, the cannery, but those were all. Those were all demoed in the nineties when the

Yerba Buena SX80: the site was redeveloped. There actually are on the wharf. There’s also the original steel rails that the the Gantry crane used to ride north and south, on which there might be something interesting to be done with those.

Yerba Buena SX80: Second question on the cross section.

Yerba Buena SX80: I’ve just one thing I didn’t understand.

Yerba Buena SX80: it’s possible. Yeah, it it shows on there

Yerba Buena SX80: future adaptive measure dotted line.

Yerba Buena SX80: which is, I guess, for 2,100 sea level rise.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, the the idea is, you know, the expected life of this project is somewhere in the 50 to 75 year range. And so we’re above all of the the sea level datums other than the base flood elevation in the year 2,100. So the idea is, the the

Yerba Buena SX80: 1st floor of the building is above that datum. But the existing wharf surface is not so. The the idea is just to say that if this project actually makes it to the year 2,100, and that level of sea level rise does come to pass that basically, we would just be raising the bay trail and the shoreline improvements. You’re tied to the these elevations because the existing

Yerba Buena SX80: elevation. And so it would be for kind of

Yerba Buena SX80: difficult right? Yeah, if we were building it new, we would build it higher. But it is, you know, it’s from 1929, I think. Just

Yerba Buena SX80: one more question, and this is nothing to do with the shoreline band. I’m sorry, but I’m curious about the vehicular situation.

Yerba Buena SX80: Do you have a a drop off

Yerba Buena SX80: along Atlantic Avenue. I see Ballards and a plaza there. What do you do about

Yerba Buena SX80: door? Dash, dash, and and Uber, and people drop all that stuff they go through the parking lot.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, let me get back to the Site plan here. So anybody who’s coming to park their car to use the building. They would come in. I don’t know if anybody can see my mouse. Probably not. The main entrance to the Wind River campus is at the kind of top left corner of this image. It’s really screened back. So it’s hard to see. But if you were, if you were dropping something off the front door of the building, you would come in the main driveway you’d pull in. You turn right and arrive at the front door, so there’s no on street drop off. It would all be in the parking lot to the north.

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay? And then related to that is Sherman away

Yerba Buena SX80: Fire Lane emergency vehicle. All that.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yes, Sherman. So yeah. Sherman Street, the public street to the south. But then Sherman walk alongside the north edge of the building. That is fire egress. So those are collapsible bollards.

Yerba Buena SX80: collapsing. Football is in the street. Sorry not fire egress, fire access. That’s that’s A, that’s the fire line need to come in from Atlantic, yes, yeah.

Yerba Buena SX80: thanks

Yerba Buena SX80: okay leo, thank you for the presentation very thorough very, very easy to understand, maybe just a couple of points of clarification.

Yerba Buena SX80: the the main rendering from Atlantic. Clement. Am I correct in reading this, that there’s actually should be a row of trees closer to the building. I just want to make sure that I’m understanding plan versus the renderings.

Yerba Buena SX80: I’m gonna guess we render that we took those out so you could see the building facade and entry more clearly. But

Yerba Buena SX80: so the intent is the plan.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, okay, thanks.

Yerba Buena SX80: And then back to the trees that gary was asking about.

Yerba Buena SX80: It seems like our our. I’m not a landscape architect, but I’m curious if that you’re looking to native species and species for

Yerba Buena SX80: or drought tolerant for this environment. Yes, yes, we would love to. Unfortunately, there aren’t a ton of native species that get large enough that you would

Yerba Buena SX80: that are really appropriate for us to sort of achieve the canopy that we’re looking for, but definitely open to using anything that

Yerba Buena SX80: we might be able to. Okay. Yeah. For example, the maples seem like they’re they’re not indigenous, right?

Yerba Buena SX80: They’re not indigenous. No, no, but every everything is drought tolerant and already found on the site.

Yerba Buena SX80: I think. Yeah, that’s that’s my question. Thanks. Thanks, Leo.

Yerba Buena SX80: Bob, go ahead.

Yerba Buena SX80: Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for the presentation. So a couple of. I have 2 questions. So I think I read that there’s a the program would include authorization for additional length of rock prevention.

Yerba Buena SX80: And I think that’s related to the timber wharf removal.

Yerba Buena SX80: Think I got that right right? But I was just wondering what the nexus is, and between the wharf removal and the rock revetment and

Yerba Buena SX80: or it, maybe it was an access. Now you can access the shore. You want it to look well, because I don’t think the

Yerba Buena SX80: the wharf would have knocked the waves down much, or maybe it did. I don’t know but and and where? Where is the river? Like I didn’t. Yeah, it’s a good question. It’s

Yerba Buena SX80: It’s something that may or may not be necessary, depending on exactly what condition we find when that wharf is removed, so it’s pretty deep, and it’s really hard to see what is all the way back behind it, especially sort of in the lower corner, where it meets

Yerba Buena SX80: the the bottom end of the basin.

Yerba Buena SX80: it, to my knowledge it that the Riprap shoreline basically goes underneath of the wharf all the way from the north edge of the site to the south.

Yerba Buena SX80: The yeah, underneath the it. It’s really you’re right. It’s underneath the concrete portion of the wharf. The timber portion of the wharf sort of outboard of that, and totally in the water. So

Yerba Buena SX80: but it, it’s basically saying that we may need to repair. Replace some of it if we find it to be displaced or some of it missing. So basically on the just on the short perimeter of your site, like underneath the concrete. Okay, yeah. I mean, that makes sense to me. I just, I just wanted to understand that. Yeah, not planning to add any large swaths of new riprap areas. It’s more of just repair. Once we see what’s there. Right? Okay, thank you. My second question is,

Yerba Buena SX80: can you describe the boat dock use, especially in terms of the hand carry carried boat craft.

Yerba Buena SX80: and I guess I’m particularly trying to understand which which I think is a great thing, but I’m just trying to understand.

Yerba Buena SX80: It sounds like they can bring their equipment up on the land or down from the land to the dock.

Yerba Buena SX80: and I was wondering how they cross the bay trail.

Yerba Buena SX80: 2 vehicles, or if that is part of what the programming includes.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah. So

Yerba Buena SX80: we actually have a supply of. So we’re also the operators of the research park at Marina Village, which is about a 1.3 million square feet of office and life science space. And one of the things we have for tenants is a handful of kayaks and paddle boards. We’ve actually got these little rolling dollies that they put them on. So basically, you take the kayak, and one person can roll it on this dolly with a handle

Yerba Buena SX80: and roll it around easy. But yeah, basically, somebody would park their car, put the kayak or the paddle board on a dolly. If it’s you know Kayak or a paddleboard. I guess you can just carry. But yeah, you know, carefully cross the bay trail and walk onto the wharf. It’s basically yeah. I was just wondering. I mean, I,

Yerba Buena SX80: most people are very considerate, and obviously it would slow down just because of the people walking around and the congestion and everything. But yeah. Just wonder if there’s you might need to slow down the bicycles somehow, with some sort of yeah, there may be slowing elements, probably some kind of either signage or treatment of the paving to indicate that there’s a crossing there. It’s just sort of by nature, you know. The bay trail runs between the parking lot and the water. So somebody’s gonna have to cross it at some point.

Yerba Buena SX80: right? It’s not the 1st place that that conflict exists. Thank you very much appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, thanks, Bob. I’ll Stefan.

Yerba Buena SX80: I just have one clarifying question about the the rail spur.

Yerba Buena SX80: And could you add.

Yerba Buena SX80: show us exactly where that might be on the plans and sort of the extent of

Yerba Buena SX80: what you hope to preserve.

Yerba Buena SX80: You mean where the original rail spur was. Yeah, I think you described that it would be incorporated into the

Yerba Buena SX80: sort of the Wharf Bay trail edge. Is that right?

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah. The original. So Gene Sweeney, open space park was up until it was developed as a park was a giant rail switching yard. And you can kind of see in this photo that rail. Spur. It turned. It went from the east west, where you see Gene Sweeney open space. It turned north and kind of ran straight up through the middle of the Wind River campus out to what was a ship pier that was. The the abutments of it are still there at the north end of the site.

Yerba Buena SX80: And then so there’s that. That was the rail spur. And then there was also the the steel rails that the gantry crane on the wharf itself ran up and down on, so it’s proposed as more of a not literally preserving them, but more of a

Yerba Buena SX80: more of a reference to the former rail yard by the use of rails along the wharf. So could you speak to the Gantry Crane line? Is that something that’s actually also being preserved? Or are you proposing to recreate something not preserved because it’s on the timber portion of the wharf that is, again, it’s in really too poor of a condition to try to save. But we would be basically kind of recreating it further inland. Okay, thank you for that clarification.

Yerba Buena SX80: Hey? Thanks, Stefan. just one question for me.

Yerba Buena SX80: just remind us of your approach to maintenance going forward. How? How would you handle maintenance for the project?

Yerba Buena SX80: So we? The whole research park is, I think it’s

Yerba Buena SX80: I think it’s about 30 acres. We have a a contract with a landscape maintenance company that basically is on site full time maintaining, you know, all of our landscaping. But

Yerba Buena SX80: I think I know where this question is coming from. And I think.

Yerba Buena SX80: We’re starting now, I will. I will say that I think over the past couple of years. Some of the areas around the shoreline have gotten a bit overgrown. But starting a month ago, we are putting more attention on

Yerba Buena SX80: maintenance specifically of the shoreline itself. So we we picked up about, I don’t know 5 pickup truck loads worth of garbage that had accumulated down at the water’s edge.

Yerba Buena SX80: no excuse for letting it get that way. Basically, it’s it’s just until you actually walk up to the edge of it and look over. It’s oftentimes kind of hard to see what is accumulated on the Riprap and it, you know, it was brought to our attention the condition that it was in by some of our neighbors from the Oakland Yacht Club, and

Yerba Buena SX80: when we went out there and looked for it ourselves. You know, we immediately got a crew out to again pick up, probably several 100 pounds worth of various garbage that had accumulated on the shoreline. So we’re gonna keep doing that periodically, probably every quarter. Send a a crew of people around to pick up and then we’re we’re also

Yerba Buena SX80: now working our way around the shoreline and cutting down some of the the just larger brush. That’s sort of overgrown out of the riprap and blocked some of the views.

Yerba Buena SX80: also, we’re gonna be repaving a lot of the asphalt paths in Wind River Park. Come this spring once the rain stops, because a lot of it has gotten pretty degraded. So I think it’s just an area that we didn’t pay enough attention to over the last few years, because it is physically the most remote from our office at the east End or the west end of the site

Yerba Buena SX80: but now that’s been brought to our attention, we’ll be focusing more on it. So I think it’s basically, the answer is, we’re gonna maintain it the same way we do the rest of the campus. We just put more focus on this area and not

Yerba Buena SX80: basically

Yerba Buena SX80: not ignore it, even though it’s so physically farthest away from where we all work. Okay, thank you.

Yerba Buena SX80: Awesome.

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay? So that concludes the clarifying questions.

Yerba Buena SX80: we now move to public comment. If we have public comment.

Yerba Buena SX80: I see no hands raised online. So no public comment. Okay? Oh, I’m sorry. Yes.

Yerba Buena SX80: we did receive 2 public comment emails that have been forwarded to the Design Review Board, and I’ll provide those summaries now

Yerba Buena SX80: Katie Hofstetter from Strata Development Group and an Alameda resident

Yerba Buena SX80: strata recently acquired the Star Harbor Apartment building across Clement Avenue from the 200 Wind River site.

Yerba Buena SX80: She expressed support for this project, observing it, proposes improved public access to an underutilized portion of Alameda that has recently seen an increase in residents. The continuation and beautification of the Bay trail connection to the new Bike pathway on Clement would encourage more foot traffic and bike traffic, and the direct connection to Alaska Basin is a huge benefit to a population that must otherwise travel via car to access the water.

Yerba Buena SX80: and Michael Gorman, co-director of the junior sailing program, and in small yacht club adjacent to the proposed site. He expressed support for the project stating Blue Rise Ventures has been a good neighbor, and he is looking forward to the improvement on the adjacent site.

Yerba Buena SX80: The public access proposed will be helpful in allowing the public to access the Oakland Alameda estuary, and all the recreational benefits that will go with it.

Yerba Buena SX80: That concludes the public comments we received.

Yerba Buena SX80: Thanks, Ashley, and we appreciate the 2 people who submitted those comments. So thank you for that.

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay, we will now move to the next agenda item, which is board discussion and advice, and we were presented with.

Yerba Buena SX80: I think there were 4 things that Staff asked us to provide some feedback on

Yerba Buena SX80: and of course, if we

Yerba Buena SX80: want to pick up on something else, please do. But the 4 questions are focused on

Yerba Buena SX80: how legible, how clear are the connections from the adjacent roadways. The bike pedestrian networks, you know, is that going to draw people to the waterfront, which is the objective of our our agency?

Yerba Buena SX80: Second question is the interpretive program designed and cited to maximize, maximize, public use of the shoreline and enjoyment?

Yerba Buena SX80: Do we have any recommendations? Number 3 public access areas appropriately designed to be resilient and adaptive to sea level rise.

Yerba Buena SX80: ensuring high quality, public access, opportunities over time.

Yerba Buena SX80: and the 4th point raised by staff. Does the Board have any recommendations regarding proposed landside amenities that support the water access proposed as part of the project is the launch area in the basin appropriately sited to encourage the public to use this feature. So there are 4 questions there, and I think what we’ll do.

Yerba Buena SX80: It’s just I’ll I’ll I’ll leave it flexible for each of you to pick up on any of those 4 or any other points that you want to make related to other aspects of the proposal. Look, I think we might just

Yerba Buena SX80: change this round. And, Stefan, let’s start with you, and we’ll we’ll come down from is that okay? If you kick off

Yerba Buena SX80: I’ll do my best. Thank you. Thanks, Jacinta. I do. I guess I would start by saying I really appreciate the

Yerba Buena SX80: effort that the team has made to

Yerba Buena SX80: sort of acknowledge and reflect the our discussion last time. And your efforts to

Yerba Buena SX80: address those comments. I think I just really appreciate the the diligence on your part. So I do want to say this. Thank you.

Yerba Buena SX80: I would say, sort of at a high level. With regards to the 4 questions.

Yerba Buena SX80: I’m generally pleased with sort of how the applicant is has sought to address them.

Yerba Buena SX80: I think we have some clarity that the

Yerba Buena SX80: the wharf level, from a resiliency standpoint is providing

Yerba Buena SX80: sort of, I guess, a basis for a resilient mid-century and and beyond condition.

Yerba Buena SX80: I. My largest question, I think, remains around the area that is seems to be the least

Yerba Buena SX80: developed, and that’s around the sort of interpretive program.

Yerba Buena SX80: Which seems to be still sort of conceptual in nature.

Yerba Buena SX80: I think.

Yerba Buena SX80: My sense is that maximizing usability for visitors

Yerba Buena SX80: and the neighborhood in this location

Yerba Buena SX80: in many ways might trump the recreation of

Yerba Buena SX80: of historic components that actually are are not there or

Yerba Buena SX80: don’t sort of actually reflect a historic condition.

Yerba Buena SX80: And so I think I would just sort of sort of keep that in mind as you move forward.

Yerba Buena SX80: The sort of opportunity to provide

Yerba Buena SX80: high quality, open spaces, places for folks to gather and sit

Yerba Buena SX80: and enjoy the the shoreline location.

Yerba Buena SX80: The the

Yerba Buena SX80: any real or realistic elements that could be brought in that actually reflect the the worst history. I think, would be fantastic. But I would probably shy away from

Yerba Buena SX80: the introduction of sort of elements that actually might be fake or false. That might be promoting

Yerba Buena SX80: An idea of something that actually wasn’t there.

Yerba Buena SX80: But other than that, I think I feel a very

Yerba Buena SX80: I feel fairly positive about the the different changes that have actually been implemented.

Yerba Buena SX80: So thank you. Yeah, thanks. Stefan.

Yerba Buena SX80: A bulb.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah. So going over the questions, I don’t really have

Yerba Buena SX80: much of a comment on the first, st the 1st one.

Yerba Buena SX80: except that I did mention this potential conflict between

Yerba Buena SX80: the bay trail and the boat. Launch. Hand carry stuff which I think

Yerba Buena SX80: sounds like you can work on or address that. The second one.

Yerba Buena SX80: I’m well, I’m really glad that you have water access, and it sounds like other people, are happy about that, too, so that I like that, that’s all. My only comment on the second one

Yerba Buena SX80: on the 3, rd one on sea level rise. I think this looks pretty good.

Yerba Buena SX80: I think that the shoreline band and the and the bay trail are

Yerba Buena SX80: can accommodate, I think about. I think you said 0 point 8 feet by 2050

Yerba Buena SX80: using the 100 year water level, which I think is a reasonable that sounds like the intermediate curve.

Yerba Buena SX80: not the intermediate high. But I think that’s okay. You could have gone with the annual

Yerba Buena SX80: high water levels. And it looks like you have an adaptation plan that is

Yerba Buena SX80: feasible. At the conceptual level to raise the property or the perimeter

Yerba Buena SX80: marginal wharf area, because your building pad is higher than the wharf is now. So that looks reasonable.

Yerba Buena SX80: The finished floor elevation. I I wasn’t quite clear exactly. It looks like

Yerba Buena SX80: What was the finish floor elevation again for the building? I know that’s outside the shoreline band. But I’m still.

Yerba Buena SX80: was it 16 point something?

Yerba Buena SX80: I’m gonna have to get 15.6 15.6 feet, I think. Yeah, there’s 2 different datums. I think one is Navd 88, and the other is there’s a alameda datum, and I think there’s a conversion between those 2 about 5 feet. I might have to get back to you on exactly what that is to make sure it’s that we’re talking apples to apples. I I think the staff report says it clearly, and I’m just fumbling here. I apologize. If it’s 15.6 feet in Avd. That is,

Yerba Buena SX80: slightly above the 100 year, I believe. 100 year flood with the intermediate high sea level rise curve at year 2,100, which is really nice to see.

Yerba Buena SX80: So I like that often on the fears we’d

Yerba Buena SX80: don’t see the finished floor higher than the

Yerba Buena SX80: future water level, because for various reasons.

Yerba Buena SX80: and we often don’t get to comment on it, although I always do, anyway. Because it’s outside the shoreline band. But so I do like, I think we’re okay with sea level rise long story short. So thank you for that.

Yerba Buena SX80: I do have a couple of comments on the sea level rise just for your future programming.

Yerba Buena SX80: one would be to in your adaptation planning

Yerba Buena SX80: ideally. Think about this before you complete the the design and construction include consideration of the storm water drainage

Yerba Buena SX80: from the developed areas to the water.

Yerba Buena SX80: Because raising the perimeter would impede that, or maybe I don’t think it would reverse it, but it would repeat, impede the

Yerba Buena SX80: drainage away from the buildings.

Yerba Buena SX80: and then consider the vulnerability and sensitivity to flooding of the utilities in the vicinity of the loading area.

Yerba Buena SX80: Just because I think those are at the wharf elevation which

Yerba Buena SX80: you know. I don’t know if they should be put on a pedestal or something, just to keep them above

Yerba Buena SX80: or raise them later as part of your adaptation plan. But so those are my only 2 comments. I think that’s kind of those are details.

Yerba Buena SX80: Number 4.

Yerba Buena SX80: I don’t have any comments.

Yerba Buena SX80: Oh, wait a minute.

Yerba Buena SX80: Oh, yeah, I like the the launch. I think it looks like you. You kind of modeled the conceptual

Yerba Buena SX80: floating dock and gangway after one of the water taxi

Yerba Buena SX80: facilities. There’s a picture, I think, rather than a rendering.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, it’s loosely modeled on the new public dock that’s at Boho Circle Immigrant Park, which is just to the west of the posey tube on Alameda. Okay, great. So that sounds like the one comment I had, or my 1st thought was, if you have people carrying canoes or kayaks, or something, you might want to make the gangway a little wider than what you would have just for pedestrians on a water taxi.

Yerba Buena SX80: just, you know, because of the

Yerba Buena SX80: couple of people have to carry something big and bulky. And

Yerba Buena SX80: which means that it’s gonna weigh more, which means you’re gonna need a bigger float to hold it up.

Yerba Buena SX80: So. But I think that’s all doable.

Yerba Buena SX80: And then I think the waves are pretty calm in this area. It seems pretty sheltered.

Yerba Buena SX80: And I’m I’m guessing the waves do diffract and refract. So they come down parallel to the

Yerba Buena SX80: or their crests are perpendicular to the, to the marginal wharf to the side, so that the dock oriented that way is the right way to so, anyway. But I you can talk to somebody. The the people that boat there, or

Yerba Buena SX80: a marine engineer to get the orientation and the access and all that straightened out, I think, because it could be a really nice facility.

Yerba Buena SX80: Social

Yerba Buena SX80: sorry. It’s I’ve never seen personally a ripple more than about 6 inches high in this basin. Yeah, that. Well, that’s good news. Yeah, yeah. I appreciate that. It did look very sheltered to me. And because it’s all land on the north side, and then the wharf on the south side probably has a

Yerba Buena SX80: shall. It’s probably shallow under there. They always seem to shoal, not be dredged underneath the wharf. So well, that’s great. Those are my only 2 comments on that last

Yerba Buena SX80: number 4. Thank you. Thanks, Bob. Leo.

Yerba Buena SX80: Thank you, Jacinta.

Yerba Buena SX80: I think my main question or consideration would be the entry at the south end

Yerba Buena SX80: by Clement in the driveway into the loading dock.

Yerba Buena SX80: I think everything else you’ve given a great deal of thought and sensitivity to in a really nice way.

Yerba Buena SX80: It’s just on the south. It feels like given that little bend

Yerba Buena SX80: with trees that the visibility of the public parking

Yerba Buena SX80: sort of feels concealed and therefore not very public. It feels like it’s really part of

Yerba Buena SX80: the service area. So I just wonder if the opening

Yerba Buena SX80: into that area could just be slid southward, so that when you’re making that right turn into the parking lot. You see it. You see the parking spaces.

Yerba Buena SX80: the entry walk runs parallel to it. So there! There’s the general movement into

Yerba Buena SX80: into this area, I think, would just make it a lot more welcoming.

Yerba Buena SX80: Thanks, Leo.

Yerba Buena SX80: Tom.

Yerba Buena SX80: thanks. So I was not in the previous review, but from what I see that. It’s been a very diligent job of responding to everything was brought up.

Yerba Buena SX80: I don’t. I don’t see any

Yerba Buena SX80: major things that rise to my concern. I guess the only thing I would even comment on at this point is the

Yerba Buena SX80: And Stefan kind of alluded to. It already is the the the site. Narrative.

Yerba Buena SX80: What? What is that about? What is it composed of? And there’s really nothing left except some cleats out on the edge of the dock. So what do you do?

Yerba Buena SX80: But what I would really advise against is just is finding some other stuff from somewhere else and stick it there. It’s just it’s too fake. And what I would, I notice there’s some kind of shade structures, series of shade structures. I don’t know what we didn’t. You didn’t tell us much about that, but I assume it’s like a little trellis or something.

Yerba Buena SX80: I would say if you could get a get a narrative that is tightly tied to what the processes were going on there.

Yerba Buena SX80: and then tell that story inside of those structures. Give them more meaning, you know. Maybe tell another chapter, and it wouldn’t be difficult or expensive to do, except that the research would be needed to go into

Yerba Buena SX80: archives and photos. And you know, like Rosie, the River Memorial, they was done with a lot of old letters and photographs and stories of people. So you know, if you had an archivist, archivist, or slash artist of some sort that could bring story, live and be told in those structures. It would be a lot more

Yerba Buena SX80: meaning for them, you know something you really want to check out, and and also I would avoid. Don’t, please don’t copy the the High Line benches and having them roll would be not good. And I’m sure you come up with something else that was more endemic to this site that would sit on this rail that you’re gonna create. But that’s all I have. Thanks, good job.

Yerba Buena SX80: great. I really agree with that. I think that that one image of the tall ships is so powerful, and I didn’t see a date on the in your presentation. But just that image with the date, I think, says it all right there. And those structures. Tom took it in a couple of steps beyond where I was going, but

Yerba Buena SX80: I think that as a 1 of the items here is the entry, you know the access to the shoreline. Is it legible? Is it inviting? Those structures, I think, are really important? You know they they do provide a you know, kind of a visual destination and a queue, because the you know, the pathway in

Yerba Buena SX80: the way you have it rendered is beautiful, and if all those plantings look that magnificent and delicate, you know. That’d be one thing. But if you can imagine if the structures were value engineered out or didn’t come out to be special, and the planting was not perfectly maintained then that entry is not everything that you’ve shown us. So I think you’re doing a lot.

Yerba Buena SX80: you know very well in a very small space there in a difficult space.

Yerba Buena SX80: But it’s important that everything you showed, I think comes comes out right. So I love the idea of making that giving it a purpose, you know, and and making that more important. The other access point. You know, the shoreline walk or the Sherman walk. You know. It’s a fire lane, too, and that’s always a challenge to make it a inviting

Yerba Buena SX80: pedestrian access as well as a as well as a fire lane, and I think the challenge is always to kind of bring down the scale. How do you do that? And you can’t make it less wide. I know that.

Yerba Buena SX80: But we’ve done some fire lanes now 3 times in Bay Area jurisdictions outside of San Francisco. Where where there’s been like a Hollywood drive type thing we call it, where there’s like a strip of planting down the middle. It’s maybe 2 feet wide.

Yerba Buena SX80: In some instances we’ve been able to put low plantings in there and get the fire department to agree that they will straddle that if there’s if it’s just grasses, or some flowering succulent, or something like that, that they’ll just span over it, and they’ll drive down the fire lane and and we’ve gotten it approved 3 times San Mateo, Emeryville, and Daily City, and they’re built. So if you need precedence, you know we’re always happy to share, and you know.

Yerba Buena SX80: advance the movement. The other thing, then, once, if you, if you’re able to divide it down the middle, one side could be decomposed. Granite, you know, engineered for fire trucks. The other side could be concrete or something like that. But I think just changing materials, maybe

Yerba Buena SX80: can can make it much more inviting, and possibly give you the opportunity to, you know, kind of guide pedestrians down one side and bicycles down the other, because I think people will maybe gravitate towards the gravel and the bikes will gravitate towards concrete. So that was that was just thought

Yerba Buena SX80: in terms of the yeah, the interpretive program and the amenities. I was. Gonna say.

Yerba Buena SX80: they’re kind of put out there as separate considerations. But maybe they’re the same. The amenities are the interpretive elements. So they’re occupiable or something.

Yerba Buena SX80: Finally, the

Yerba Buena SX80: I think, because the scheme relies on planting so much is why you’re getting a lot of comments on that

Yerba Buena SX80: the soil preparation is so critical. And the right type of soil and the right type of

Yerba Buena SX80: consultants are people who know how to put soil out there that’s not gonna compact and shrink and disappear.

Yerba Buena SX80: and the kind of trees that can survive in that setting. So I think I think the soil prep and the maintenance. You know, we’ve really turned so much of our attention to that in terms of.

Yerba Buena SX80: you know, landscape design, because that’s a big missing piece of the puzzle. I mean, people are spending plenty of money on plants and installation and maintenance. And they’re not getting the results that they that they should, because the craft of maintenance is kind of being lost. So that’s another conversation that I’m happy to add more to. But in terms of the natives the maple was the one native that you showed

Yerba Buena SX80: with the right amount of soil and the right amount of maintenance. I think you could get it to live there, but I think it’s an uphill battle. It’s a stream side tree. It’s a riparian tree. The sycamore is a great analog for that.

Yerba Buena SX80: I would also look at

Yerba Buena SX80: Catalina Ironwood. You know the Lion of Amnos is a really tough, tough native tree from Catalina Island in Southern California. Takes the wind, thin soil, Rocky Serpentine you name it. It will survive all that, and we used see it quite use quite a bit in the South Bay.

Yerba Buena SX80: and Catalina cherry is another one that’s good. I think Buckeye and Oaks would also, with the right soil. Preparation.

Yerba Buena SX80: you know, are are really well adapted to that. I mean in a native setting. They would be growing, you know, near the shoreline like that. So anyway, I think there are some ideas maybe to pursue.

Yerba Buena SX80: And I think that’s all I have. Thank you.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, look, thanks, Gary, thanks for those points. And

Yerba Buena SX80: I I’m just gonna reinforce a couple of the responses that are being provided. Which are all on point.

Yerba Buena SX80: yeah, I would just emphasize that authenticity of interpretation is really important. So you know, I don’t think that relocated, or, you know, bringing in rails to reference a historic rail line that wasn’t actually in that position

Yerba Buena SX80: necessarily means as much as some other type of interpretation along the lines of

Yerba Buena SX80: what was mentioned earlier by by Tom and Gary.

Yerba Buena SX80: if I remember correctly the building, the refurbished the residential building, which is a refurbished industrial building. I went inside there once, and I think there’s some very interesting interpretation in there, if I remember that correctly. But I’m not 100% sure on that. But

Yerba Buena SX80: anyway, I seem to remember some, you know. Photographic of course, that’s for residential building. But

Yerba Buena SX80: but I think certainly bringing the history, you know, whether it’s a photographic record, you know.

Yerba Buena SX80: placed in a way with some of the history would be really valuable, because when you started with the story of the site, the historic narrative I mean, it’s incredibly interesting. And it was an incredibly significant place. So

Yerba Buena SX80: I’d encourage you to work on that in the program. And

Yerba Buena SX80: so that would be my thoughts just reinforcing. Question 2 comments back.

Yerba Buena SX80: and I think just a comment in relation to question 4. And we’ve just going to reinforce this. But I think in the selection whether it’s plant material, you know, certainly. Put all the effort you can into site. Preparation

Yerba Buena SX80: soil works. But

Yerba Buena SX80: the quality, the selection of final finishes, the selection of final furnishings, you know. I would just encourage you to make them as robust as you can, because

Yerba Buena SX80: I know you’re committing to good maintenance in the future.

Yerba Buena SX80: but these sorts of areas, if they’re not maintained well, they can start to deteriorate pretty quickly. So I just encourage you to really work on that. As you continue to refine the design, I think all of the other comments were on point, so I won’t reinforce any of the others.

Yerba Buena SX80: So I think that’s I think, that

Yerba Buena SX80: summarize. Well, that concludes, I didn’t summarize, but I think everyone took notes. So I don’t think I need to summarize tonight. And and I would just again reinforce. How appreciative we are of the work that you’ve done bringing a you know a doc into the project is, you know, is a significant move, and we really appreciate you doing that, and as well as the other modifications.

Yerba Buena SX80: I think the south entry from Clement. Leo summarized that perfectly.

Yerba Buena SX80: It’s a challenging spot and I think you’ve done some good work there, and I’ve just encouraged that, you know signage for the public parking be really clear in the rendering. It looks very clear. In fact, it almost looks like

Yerba Buena SX80: electrical vehicles charging points. But you know, if you can make sure that the signage for the Bay trail is very clear, and that the public parking is is clear, particularly because this will be a very

Yerba Buena SX80: attractive place for the community to visit, so want to make it easy for them to park and and get there.

Yerba Buena SX80: So look, I think with that. I’ll conclude and just ask if you’d like to make any brief response

Yerba Buena SX80: to what you’ve heard. The only thing I was going to talk about is just the interpretive program. And I think you’re it is obviously the least developed part of the design

Yerba Buena SX80: and part of that is just because it is such a tricky thing of we don’t. Wanna.

Yerba Buena SX80: We didn’t wanna bring in fake objects, but we also didn’t really wanna have the whole interpreter program. Just be kind of, you know, a book on a stick that you read.

Yerba Buena SX80: and yet there is really not a whole lot remaining on the site that is real that speaks to the history of it. The the Alta Star Harbor. That housing project is really amazing, because they were able to keep the entire shell of this on right. So their their interpretive program is basically the structure is still there. And it’s very ornate with all the brickwork, and it’s large, and you know it’s kind of

Yerba Buena SX80: it’s just. It’s very cool, right? And they had that opportunity to do that. And I wish we had that opportunity with an existing structure like that. But we don’t. One of the other ideas we had a photo up there of, what? Like a viewfinder like a telescope, the kind that used to put quarters in and look through. And I think this might have been. Yuri’s idea actually was

Yerba Buena SX80: one of our favorite things is that photo of the tall ships. And what if you could put that viewfinder that it looks like a telescope? But you put it in the viewpoint of the photo, and you look through it. But you see the historical photo. And that way it’s it’s sort of more interesting and more interactive than just a picture on a sign

Yerba Buena SX80: and it makes sure that you are standing in the spot that lets you see, like one to one the relationship between the present and the past. So that was a really interesting idea. But it is tricky. And we’ll keep working on it. But I I acknowledge that it’s probably the least part of the design.

Yerba Buena SX80: Jump in, make a comment. I have some friends or acquaintances that are using making virtual

Yerba Buena SX80: reality videos of sea level rise both the inundation and also the adaptation measures where you put on goggles. And you can see a vision, if you will.

Yerba Buena SX80: And so I I think that people really like that.

Yerba Buena SX80: It’s hard to do anything when you have the goggles on, but otherwise I think it works pretty well.

Yerba Buena SX80: And then, spending a lot of time along the waterfront. I really like ballers.

Yerba Buena SX80: and there’s something about them that. They really have a presence.

Yerba Buena SX80: And I recognize those big things that ships tile. You were mentioning that earlier, and

Yerba Buena SX80: I think they’re really cool. I think it’s an opportunity to put in some sort of interpretive sign, or I don’t know if they’re on the concrete or on the timber.

Yerba Buena SX80: The timber, because that’s where you would tie off right on the on the yeah. I

Yerba Buena SX80: it would be a shame to lose those, or at least, you know, keep at least one. I mean, it’s it’s a pretty interesting

Yerba Buena SX80: somebody could actually make something out of those. I think so, anyway, very big door

Yerba Buena SX80: and door handles. But yeah, no. They for people that that are on both, I mean, it’s it’s, you know. You recognize that right away when you see a big one. You understand that it was for large ships, and

Yerba Buena SX80: if they’re that old, I think it’s it’s quite. They have a lot of gravitas.

Yerba Buena SX80: Yeah, yeah, that just reminded me of something, too. I’m sorry to prolong this. But

Yerba Buena SX80: you know, I think when you get into technology effects you mentioned lighting, you know as possible

Yerba Buena SX80: a possibility for interpretation or

Yerba Buena SX80: effects. And I just think you’ve got to be really clear that that’s going to last the distance. You know.

Yerba Buena SX80: We had an incredible installation along the embarcadero here years ago, you know, whole ribbon of lit cubes, and

Yerba Buena SX80: and that started to fail within a couple of years. So you know, you just have to be careful about what you choose.

Yerba Buena SX80: Okay.

Yerba Buena SX80: okay, so with that, I don’t think we need to see this project again. I think we can leave it in the excellent hands of staff. Is everyone in agreement on that great? Okay? So I think that concludes comments and recommendations.

Yerba Buena SX80: and so we will adjourn the meeting. Could someone

Yerba Buena SX80: put a motion to adjourn the meeting who’d adjourn?

Yerba Buena SX80: Thank you, Tom. Thanks, Gary. I hope the recording picked that up. Okay, so we’ll close the meeting. Thank you again for all your hard work, and wish you the very best with the construction of the project. Thank you.