Skip to main content

Reimagine Potrero Yard with Us – Summer Milestones

Reimagine Potrero Yard with Us – Summer Milestones
By Adrienne Heim

A rendering of the future modernized Potrero Yard

A potential rendering of the future modernized Potrero Yard

The Potrero Yard Modernization Project will rebuild the existing Potrero bus yard to ensure we maintain our bus fleet as efficiently as possible and enhance the facility’s resilience to climate change and other natural disasters. The Project will also ensure our staff is able to perform their work in a safe and efficient way and address the City’s broader goals for new housing and affordable housing.  The Project has issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ), an important step for modernizing the yard.

The Project Concept

The modern yard will be able to store 213 buses, increasing capacity by approximately 50%.

In addition, the facility will include the following features:

  • LEED Gold Certification
  • An elevated structural and seismic building standard
  • Infrastructure for battery-electric buses
  • Centralized location for Street Operations - Muni’s “first responders”
  • Centralized, modern space for Muni operator training
  • Active ground floor uses on Bryant, and possibly 17th streets

“This exciting project will help fix two of the city's most pressing issues: lack of affordable housing and unreliable transit service,” said Alexander Hirji, Potrero Yard Neighborhood Working Group member and San Francisco Youth Commissioner. “The yard portion of the Project allows the SFMTA to maintain buses effectively, send them out to the riders, and it allows for future bus technology innovations in years to come. Up top, the affordable housing portion allows this city to make strides toward its goals for providing quality affordable housing to residents. This project will shape the Agency for many decades, and in a good, sustainable, and equitable way.”

An image showing a three level bus yard with mixed-use housing on top

A modernized Potrero Yard would have multiple uses.

Housing on Top of the Yard

An image of the Potrero Yard

Potrero Yard is home to much of Muni's trolleybus fleet

The SFMTA is proposing up to 575 rental units of housing with an initial affordability target of 50%. The city’s committed to addressing the shortage of affordable housing and is therefore challenging potential developers to seek additional funds to maximize the affordability percentage, up to as much as 100% affordable. Many factors informed the proposed project’s size and unit count, such as building height, massing, financial feasibility and shadows on Franklin Square.

Two months ago, virtual community conversations were hosted to provide a refresher about the project and discuss where we are in the process. If you were unable to attend, please listen to the June 6 conversation to hear the project team and members of the community discuss the project. 

We’re excited to announce that we’ve achieved three major milestones last week:

  1. The Project’s Request for Qualifications (RFQ) was issued to begin the developer procurement process followed by a press release

The RFQ is the first of a two-step process to bring a developer partner under contract with the city. This stage is to pre-qualify a group of professionals who have the experience and financial backing to successfully complete this project. Ideally, we will end up with three qualified developer teams. 

The second step is to ask those pre-qualified teams for project proposals as part of the Request for Proposal (RFP) stage, which will end up in the selection of a single developer partner.

  1. Special legislation was introduced by the Board of Supervisors last Tuesday, August 18, to set rules for a long-term agreement with a developer team that would design, build, finance, operate and maintain the new yard.

The legislation obligates the project to prevailing wages, a Local Business Enterprise (LBE) program, the city’s local hire policy and first source hiring ordinance. The ordinance also allows payment of a design stipend for up to two unsuccessful respondent development teams. This special legislation will first be heard by the Budget and Finance Committee consisting of Supervisors Walton, Fewer and Mandelman.

  1. A meeting to introduce all the topic areas that will be covered in the environmental impact document (referred collectively as the “project scope”) will be held by the San Francisco Planning Department on Wednesday, September 2, beginning at 6:00 p.m. 

You may also view a video presentation by SF Planning for the project and provide comments to cpc.PotreroYardEIR@sfgov.org concerning the scope of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) until 5:00 p.m., September 18.

The meeting event will take place on Zoom: https://swca.zoom.us/s/92577630432/ Meeting ID: 925 7763 0432, or join by phone at 1.888.475.4499.

The purpose of the meeting is to collect comments from other regulatory agencies and the public on the draft scope. This is an opportunity for the public to add topic areas that SF Planning may not have included in their initial scoping process. More information can be found at the Planning Environmental Review Documents page under Potrero Yard Modernization Project – 2019-021884ENV.

Community Outreach

We will be tabling on Labor Day weekend, September 5 and 6, from noon to 5:00 p.m. at John O’Connell High School (Harrison Street between 18th and 20th streets) for the Carnaval San Francisco Latino COVID-19 Healing & Recovery – Salud es Poder event hosted by CANA-Carnaval San Francisco in partnership with the San Francisco Latino Task Force, community based organizations, health providers, and San Francisco City Departments.

We’re also planning to host English- and Spanish-language virtual community events to discuss the second step of the developer procurement process, the RFP, which we hope to issue in early 2021.

Learn more about the project by visiting www.sfmta.com/PotreroYard.

For more information, please email PotreroYard@sfmta.com or call us at 415.646.2223.

 



Published August 27, 2020 at 06:53AM
https://ift.tt/34OCz63

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New top story from Time: How Spirited Away Changed Animation Forever

https://ift.tt/3xVoGP5 Twenty years ago, on July 20, 2001, a film that would become one of the most celebrated animated movies of all time hit theaters in Japan. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, titled Spirited Away in English, would leave an indelible mark on animation in the 21st century. The movie arrived at a time when animation was widely perceived as a genre solely for children, and when cultural differences often became barriers to the global distribution of animated works. Spirited Away shattered preconceived notions about the art form and also proved that, as a film created in Japanese with elements of Japanese folklore central to its core, it could resonate deeply with audiences around the world. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The story follows an ordinary 10-year-old girl, Chihiro, as she arrives at a deserted theme park that turns out to be a realm of gods and spirits. After an overeating incident ...

Amit Shah to visit West Bengal as BJP, TMC cross swords after attack on Nadda's convoy https://ift.tt/3gzz9Yq

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah is likely to visit West Bengal later this month. It will be Shah’s second visit to the poll-bound state within a month. 

New top story from Time: The Documentary Final Account Is a Rare Trove of Unfiltered Interviews With Former Nazis—Too Unfiltered, Some Historians Say

https://ift.tt/3u2CDYI In 2008, documentary filmmaker Luke Holland was looking for a sense of closure. His Viennese maternal grandparents had perished in the Holocaust and, more than six decades later, he wanted to better understand what had happened. So he decided to ask the people who would know: SS members , Wehrmacht fighters, concentration-camp guards and civilian witnesses. “ At first, I embarked on a project with the completely improbable aim of trying to find the people who had killed [my grandparents]. It was quickly clear that I was not going to achieve that,” Holland wrote in a statement about the project. “But I realized I could actually meet their peers. I could meet people who had also raised their arms and their guns for Hitler , people who had committed atrocious crimes. And maybe through them, I might better understand the context in which the Holocaust played out in the heart of a supposedly civilized Europe.” Holland did more than 250 interviews, bu...

New top story from Time: China Says It Will Provide COVID-19 Vaccines to Almost 40 African States

https://ift.tt/3f34nYP BEIJING — China said Thursday it is providing COVID-19 vaccines to nearly 40 African countries, describing its actions as purely altruistic in an apparent intensification of what has been described as “vaccine diplomacy.” The vaccines were donated or sold at “favorable prices,” Foreign Ministry official Wu Peng told reporters. Wu compared China’s outreach to the actions of “some countries that have said they have to wait for their own people to finish the vaccination before they could supply the vaccines to foreign countries,” in an apparent dig at the United States. “We believe that it is, of course, necessary to ensure that the Chinese people get vaccinated as soon as possible, but for other countries in need, we also try our best to provide vaccine help,” said Wu, who is director of the ministry’s Africa department. While the U.S. has been accused by some of hoarding vaccines, President Joe Biden on Monday pledged to share an additional 20 mi...

New top story from Time: Keeping Up with the Kardashians Is Ending. But Their Exploitation of Black Women’s Aesthetics Continues

https://ift.tt/3gahnMY The inaugural episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians , which debuted on E! in 2007, begins with an irreverent domestic scene. Kim Kardashian , the undisputed protagonist of the show, rummages through the fridge as she’s teased by her family for the size of her posterior. “I think she’s got a little junk in her trunk,” says Kris Jenner, the family’s matriarch and “momager.” She calls her daughter’s butt “jiggly,” as Kim’s sister Khloé Kardashian chimes in from the kitchen table, “Kim’s always had an ass.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] That the opener of the watershed reality show—which ends June 10 after 20 seasons—centered on the family’s fixation on Kim’s rear foreshadowed the now-ubiquitous public obsession with her body, and particularly that specific feature of it. This outsize fascination was perhaps best embodied by her controversial 2014 Paper magazine cover, shot by Jean-Paul Goude, where her bare bottom is flanked by the line, “Br...

New top story from Time: ‘Most Heinous Attack.’ Merrick Garland Pledges to Take on Domestic Terrorism as Attorney General

https://ift.tt/3dGuLHC As the federal government continues to grapple with the fallout of the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol Building by pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6, the Biden Administration has remained close-lipped about how it plans to confront the rising threat of domestic terrorism. This week, Americans got a first look into how that effort may unfold with the testimony of Merrick Garland, the nominee to be the next attorney general. In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday and Tuesday, Garland declared that investigating the Capitol insurrection was his “first priority” and promised to “do everything in the power of the Justice Department” to stop domestic terrorism. He also warned that the events of Jan. 6 were not a “one-off,” and that the U.S. is facing “a more dangerous period” than any in recent memory. Garland would know. More than 25 years ago, he led the Justice Department’s prosecution of the perpetrators of the 1995 Oklahoma Cit...

New top story from Time: Deaths and Blackouts Have Hit the U.S. Northwest Due to the Unprecedented Heat Wave

https://ift.tt/2UgzckI SPOKANE, Wash. — The unprecedented Northwest U.S. heat wave that slammed Seattle and Portland, Oregon, moved inland Tuesday — prompting a electrical utility in Spokane, Washington, to resume rolling blackouts amid heavy power demand. Officials said a dozen deaths in Washington and Oregon may be tied to the intense heat that began late last week. The dangerous weather that gave Seattle and Portland consecutive days of record high temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 degrees Celcius) was expected to ease in those cities. But inland Spokane saw temperatures spike. The National Weather Service said the mercury reached 109 F (42.2 C) in Spokane— the highest temperature ever recorded there. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] About 9,300 Avista Utilities customers in Spokane lost power on Monday and the company said more planned blackouts began on Tuesday afternoon in the city of about 220,000 people. “We try to limit outages to one hour per...

FOX NEWS: Mom accidentally walks by daughter’s Zoom call naked, recalls story in hilarious Facebook video: 'Humiliating'

Mom accidentally walks by daughter’s Zoom call naked, recalls story in hilarious Facebook video: 'Humiliating' This first-grade class got quite the eyeful. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3gw5HCs

Raksha Bandhan 2020

Raksha Bandhan 2020 is going to be celebrated in India according to the lunar calendar month of Shravan which is August 3 this year. During the celebration women tie a variety of Rakhi on the wrist of their brothers with a wish to keep all misfortune, distress, evils away from their brothers. In return, brothers promise them for protection and to stand by her in every circumstance. During the rituals, brother offers some gifts to their sisters as a customary gesture. Raksha Bandhan is a very important festival in India. During the festival, sisters who resides far away from their brothers send them Raksha Bandhan quotes to brother through SMS or any other electronic medium. Similarly, brothers sent to their sisters Raksha Bandhan quotes to sister through these media to express their good wishes and well beings for their sisters. In this festival, Raksha Bandhan Quotes, Raksha Bandhan Images, Raksha Bandhan greetings typically trends on all social media platforms. People sen...

New top story from Time: HRC Files Lawsuit Challenging Florida’s Transgender Sports Ban—and Announces More To Come

https://ift.tt/3howgdO LGBTQ civil rights group The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) announced on Wednesday that it has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit challenging Florida’s “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law on June 1 banning transgender women and girls from taking part in women’s sports. HRC argues that the law violates both the Constitution and existing federal anti-discrimination law. HRC also announced plans to file similar challenges to anti-trans laws in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee in the near future, marking the first time it has taken legal action in those states. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “We have seen an unprecedented attack on transgender young people, which requires an unprecedented response,” HRC’s President Alphonso David tells TIME of the group’s decision to bring litigation. “We’re [all] entitled to equal protection under the law. And what this law does is discriminate against transgender girls. It trea...