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: Hongkongers Line Up to Buy Last Edition of Pro-Democracy Apple Daily Newspaper

https://ift.tt/3vYZQfu (HONG KONG) — Across Hong Kong, people lined up early Thursday to buy the last print edition of the last remaining pro-democracy newspaper. By 8:30 a.m., Apple Daily’s final edition of 1 million copies was sold out across most of the city’s newsstands. The newspaper said it would cease operations after police froze $2.3 million in assets, searched its office and arrested five top editors and executives last week, accusing them of foreign collusion to endanger national security — another sign Beijing is tightening its grip on the semi-autonomous city. In recent years, the newspaper has become increasingly outspoken, criticizing Chinese and Hong Kong authorities for limiting the city’s freedoms not found in mainland China and accusing them of reneging on a promise to protect them for 50 years after the 1997 handover from Britain. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The pressure on the paper — and Hong Kong’s civil liberties — increased after authorities r...

Creating a Better Market Street: Car-free Enforcement to Resume

Creating a Better Market Street: Car-free Enforcement to Resume By Mariana Maguire It’s been over a year since Market Street went “car-free” on January 29, 2020 , but shortly afterwards, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down our city and changed how people move through San Francisco. As the city begins to reopen and vehicle traffic is increasing, we are by stepping up compliance and enforcement efforts to keep Market Street car-free starting March 29, with the help of SFMTA’s Parking Control Officers (PCOs) and the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). Under the year-old car-free rules established as a part of Better Market Street , no private vehicles are allowed to travel along Market Street eastbound from 10th to Main streets or westbound from Steuart Street to Van Ness Avenue. Traffic is still allowed to cross Market Street, but there are no turns allowed onto the street in the car-free area. These restrictions apply to all private vehicles, including Uber, ...

New top story from Time: Simone Biles Is Already the Best Gymnast Ever. She’ll Be Even Better for Tokyo

https://ift.tt/3qlhBnM When you’ve won seven national championships, 19 world titles, five Olympic medals ( four of them gold ), and your leotards are already decorated with a rhinestone goat (a nod to Greatest of All Time status), is there anything left to prove? For most people, the answer is no. But Simone Biles is not like most people, or even most Olympians. The 4 ft. 8 in. 24-year-old from Spring, Texas, is not only the most dominant gymnast of her time—she is likely the greatest in history. With an unmatched blend of skill, power and daring—and more than a splash of charisma—Biles has won every all-around national, world and Olympic competition she has entered since 2013. Her record haul of 25 World Championship medals is five more than that of her closest rival—who retired in 2004. Biles has four gymnastics skills named after her, an honor reserved for the first competitor to execute a new move in a major international competition. And she has a fifth that she is lik...

New top story from Time: Accused of Being “Woke,” Pentagon Pulled Into America’s Culture Wars

https://ift.tt/3gUrTXM After weeks of political backlash over Pentagon’s recent attempts to promote inclusion in the military, the nation’s top officer chided lawmakers who accused the armed services of becoming “woke.” “I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned and non-commissioned officers of being ‘woke’ or something else because we’re studying some theories that are out there,” General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday at the House Armed Services Committee about the Defense budget. Watch: Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, just now on Critical Race Theory, ‘Wokeness’ & Jan. 6. “I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist. So what is wrong with understanding…the country which we are here to defend?” pic.twitter.com/KsRtOoWN0w — James LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) June 23, 2021 The Pentagon has gradually be...

FOX NEWS: Horse photobombs maternity shoot with hilarious smile: 'Always into mischief' When Amanda Eckstein and Phillip Werner posed together for their maternity shoot, they didn’t think a horse would steal the show.

Horse photobombs maternity shoot with hilarious smile: 'Always into mischief' When Amanda Eckstein and Phillip Werner posed together for their maternity shoot, they didn’t think a horse would steal the show. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/2UEG8Zv

New top story from Time: The Pandemic Caused the Biggest Decline in U.S. Life Expectancy since World War 2. Black and Hispanic Americans Have Suffered the Most

https://ift.tt/3j8iYEM Although James Toussaint has never had COVID-19, the pandemic is taking a profound toll on his health. First, the 57-year-old lost his job delivering parts for a New Orleans auto dealership in spring 2020, when the local economy shut down. Then, he fell behind on his rent. Last month, Toussaint was forced out of his apartment when his landlord—who refused to accept federally funded rental assistance —found a loophole in the federal ban on evictions. Toussaint has recently had trouble controlling his blood pressure. Arthritis in his back and knees prevents him from lifting more than 20 pounds, a huge obstacle for a manual laborer. He worries about what will happen when his unemployment benefits from the federal government run out, which could come as early as July 31 . “I’ve been homeless before,” says Toussaint, who found a room to rent nearby after his eviction. “I don’t want to be homeless again.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] With coronavirus ...

FOX NEWS: Firefighter helps veteran suffering from PTSD episode on airplane Firefighters don’t just fight fire.

Firefighter helps veteran suffering from PTSD episode on airplane Firefighters don’t just fight fire. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3ddRzO9

New top story from Time: South Korean President Moon Jae-in Makes One Last Attempt to Heal His Homeland

https://ift.tt/3zNEV25 Moon Jae-in can still hear the roar today. South Korea’s President had been seated next to Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang’s May Day Stadium on Sept. 19, 2018, for the close of the Mass Games when North Korea’s leader beckoned him up to the dais. Beneath a vast collage calling for Korea to “unite the strength of the entire people,” Moon urged the 150,000-strong crowd to “hasten a future of common prosperity and reunification,” while revelers brandished white flags with powder blue outlines of a unified Korean Peninsula. For Moon, it was a transformative experience. The North Koreans’ “eyes and attitudes” showed that they “strongly aspire for peace,” he tells TIME. “I could see for myself that North Korea has completely changed … and is doing everything possible to develop.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] That speech was the first by a South Korean leader in North Korea and the high point of a long, often agonizing process of engagement that Moon had charted...

FOX NEWS: Rattlesnake bites 5-year-old girl multiple times in dad's backyard, revealing previously unknown allergy Education is the best way to prepare for emergencies.

Rattlesnake bites 5-year-old girl multiple times in dad's backyard, revealing previously unknown allergy Education is the best way to prepare for emergencies. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3vOQO4j

Delhi's air quality hits 'very poor' level first time this season https://ift.tt/2IqcAsn

The national capital's air quality was in the “very poor” category on Tuesday morning, the first time this season, with calm winds and low temperatures allowing the accumulation of pollutants. According to the Ministry of Earth Sciences' Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi, an increase in farm fires in Punjab, Haryana and neighbouring regions of Pakistan is also going to impact the air quality in Delhi-NCR.