Toby Rosenblatt: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. This is a regular board meeting of the Presidio Trust. My name is Toby Rosenblatt, chair of the board.

A few logistic matters. For those who may not be able to find seats in this room, there is an overflow facility in the west wing of this building with audio and television feed. There are speaker's cards.

The format we will follow we'll go through a couple of times with you, but we're going to begin with the presentations by the four proposers. And we will take breaks between those. We'll ask each of those proposers to contain their remarks and presentations with a 20-minute period. We'll take very short breaks in between each one, simply to facilitate changing the setup. And then we'll take a short break and we'll have time for comments from members of the public.

The speakers will be asked, if you wish to address us and each other on any of these topics, on this topic, we'll ask you to sign a speaker's card and to contain your remarks within a two-minute period so that we can be sure there is time for everyone. Our intention--we've now been able to work it out so that we the board will be able to stay through the lunch hour into one o'clock, rather than the twelve that was previously posted, so that we should have sufficient time for everybody, hopefully, to address the board and the public.

Let me introduce the other board members. On my right is Bill Riley. Here, next to him, is our executive director, Jim Meadows. Board members here: Mary Murphy, Ed Blakely, Amy Meyer and Don Fisher.

Not on our particular agenda, but I do want to note that Amy Meyer, on Monday of this week, as some of you know, but I hope all of you will know, because she certainly deserves this recognition. She was honored at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors as being one of the very distinguished women making history, at an awards ceremony. So again, congratulations, Amy.

[applause]

All right. With that set of comments, I'd like to turn it over to Jim Meadows, who will describe to you the process for review that began last August, and then take us into the introduction of the proposers.

When that is complete, we're going to ask you to bear with us for a minute, because we, the board members, in order to be able to see this better, and to concentrate on the speakers, we're going to actually pick up our chairs and move down here.

So Jim, if you would get us started.

Jim Meadows: Thank you, Toby. As you're all aware, basically we have adopted this public outreach process for both our real estate transactions and our environmental transactions and our overall mission. And that's basically making the park, enhancing this as a park in this urban area. Enhancing the park and preserving it by the year 2013, to where we have to be financially self-sufficient.

Last year we had about a hundred public outreach sessions that were in various formats, including neighborhood formats, public workshop formats. We also have an addition to that ongoing. We have the monthly Golden Gate National Recreation Advisory Commission meetings every third Tuesday of the month. We have no instituted our monthly planning workshops, which are every second Wednesday of each month. And each one of those has a focused planning workshop program, and those will be announced in our newsletter. If you haven't signed up for our newsletter, please do.

We do have the public board meeting outreach sessions for important matters such as what we're about today. And then basically, we have specific workshops about specific major projects undertaken by the Trust.

For this particular process, what we're dealing with, the selection of an organization that will cause to be constructed the largest single new construction project at the Presidio. And will become one of the key financial elements as one of the key programmatic elements as to the transformation of the Presidio into a self-sustaining park.

We have gone over in the past the evaluation process, as far as what factors we're considering. I would have you go back and take a look at past sessions, at the Trust Act, at the general objectives of the General Management Plan Amendment. And I'm not going to try to go over each one of those selection criteria today.

I would point out two key elements. And one, that this particular 23-acre site is part of a larger 60-acre Letterman complex, which was one of the original major planning areas. And the 60-acre Letterman complex is obviously part of the overall park, the 1,480-acre park.

Decisions that we make in the Letterman process will have an impact upon future decisions that we'll have to make in other areas of the Presidio. So what we select at Letterman will certainly have an impact upon what happens at Public Health Hospital. It will have an impact upon what happens at Fort Scott and the improved areas of Chrissy Field.

We are taking into account that this in an iterative process, and that we are working at that whole piece of the Presidio, which is a constantly changing puzzle. And so we have to take that into account as we make these decisions as we go forward. That not only is from a planning perspective and a programmatic perspective, but also from the financial perspective. And again, our primary mission is preservation, but that's within the reality of we have to become financially self-sufficient by the year 2013.

This particular Letterman process started on August the 14th of last year. And that's when we made the initial request for qualifications. In October of last year, we received, 18 master and sub-tenant organizations gave responses to our request for qualifications. And in early January, on January 5th, we made a selection of four teams, we believe four well-qualified teams, to make final proposal presentations to the board and to the public for a final decision process on [where we're] moving forward.

We received those presentations in written form on the first of March. On the 8th of March we first made those proposals public. And I might point out one of our announcements--it's an ongoing announcement. Everything that we have in written form, videos that we're taking as we go along in this process, are available in the Presidio Trust library at the Trust offices at 34 Graham Street. We also have, basically, copies are available that can be purchased, and we have our outreach sessions that I'd like to talk about today.

The public outreach, we believe, is something that has to be ongoing, but it has to be extensive, and we have to reach every possible group that we possibly can. Today is the first step in that process, as far as the public outreach in a combined session. We have a same type session, but in a different format tonight from six to nine in this same room, that basically will be a more informal format that will allow more give and take between the presenters and the public.

I just would like to go over that format for this evening for a second, to give you an idea of the various methods we have for this public outreach. Today we're going to have presentations by the four groups. And then we're going to allow formal comment from individuals that will be limited, we hope, to two minutes, please, for your comments.

This evening is a more informal approach, where we're going to have basically, again, the four presentations to the audience, and then we're going to ask the presenters to split into four rooms here at the Golden Gate Club. And we'll allow you to rotate on a 15-minute cycles, where you can go in and have an informal dialogue with the presenters, asking questions, making your comments. We will have a staff person available there to record these comments, and all these comments will be available in written form as soon as possible after the meeting.

That's going to actually run, to run that full process is actually going to run till about 9:30. So I would alert you that it will be a fairly lengthy evening, if you're planning on coming and taking full advantage of that.

The videotapes of the presentations will also be made available by about mid-April, April 15, in our library, where basically you can come and get your own private viewing of what went on in the work sessions.

This is a public input process, and we are committed, the board is committed, and they've directed staff to make sure that we take full public input into the process for the board's decision as far this most important decision as to where we're going forward.

In parallel with the process that we're doing for selection, we have made the determination that because that the UCSF use for the Lehrer complex, for instance, as envisioned in the General Management Plan is no longer an option, and the Lehrer Building is contemplated for deconstruction, that it was appropriate to have an environmental assessment done of that change to the original process that was done between 1990 and '94. We are conducting an environmental impact statement, a focused environmental impact statement, that's going on in parallel with the process for selection.

We will have a draft EIS statement that will be presented before our formal advisory commission, the GGNRA Advisory Commission, on April 20th. We will have a workshop, there will be a presentation by the Trust on April 21st. And the time and location of both of these meetings is in a handout that you have available to you that basically is both in written form, and we have a parallel form that should be on a handout at the table, either that you got coming in or you can get when you go on your way out. That process will culminate in a published environmental impact statement and a public meeting by the GGNRA Advisory Commission on June 15th.

Basically, that covers the background. Today's meeting logistics, we're asking each group to hold their presentations to 20 minutes. We optimistically hope to be able to turn around in five minutes from presentation A, B, C and D. We need to get that done as quickly as possible. We will take the public comment after all four presentations have been completed. If you haven't signed up for public comment and you decide that you wish, would you please fill out a public comment card, and we will take the comments in the order of having received them. And we will take those comments until we've exhausted or until one o'clock, whichever comes first. We'll be calling them in that order.

So with that preamble, I would like to very simply introduce each team, and to start the presentations at this point. The first team, by virtue, by the way, of alphabetical presentation format, is the Letterman Complex Development Partners, including Mr. Tom Samuels from the Walsh, Higgins and Company, which is proposing a mixed-use campus, including offices, hotel and a conference center. In addition, they propose an assisted senior living center and restaurants and cafes. The conference center will provide job training and welfare-to-work programs.

Mr. Samuels.

Tom Samuels: Thank you all very much for coming. We appreciate the opportunity of presenting what we believe to be a persuasive proposal for the Presidio. I would like first to say a brief word about who we are. Letterman Complex Development Partners is a group of companies that have come together. San Francisco and San Francisco area-based companies that have come together as a team to deliver this from start to finish and to manage this project as we go along.

Walsh, Higgins and Company is a national developer. We do multiple use projects all over the country, largely in public-private partnerships. And we were, by way of example, rated the tenth largest commercial developer in the United States last year.

With us on our team as the principal lead architect is Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, obviously well known in this area but also a nationally acclaimed architectural and engineering company.

There are several other consultants and engineers who I will not belabor you with today, but we have a very large team. And that team will be added to as we go through this process of designing, finishing the concept, and designing the project and getting it built.

With me here today are two other principal speakers for our team. Mr. Peter Ellis, who is a principal at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and who will discuss the physical aspects of our plan. And Gloria Root, who is a community consultant who has more than ten years of experience directly with the Presidio, and who has been an absolutely integral part of our team in trying to figure out how we can best fit our development into this community. Because that is exactly what our intent is.

I'd like to start our presentation today by simply saying that when we contemplated this development and thought about coming here and building nearly 900,000 square feet at the Presidio, we first went back to the goals that were set by the Presidio Trust, the General Management Plan Amendment, and all the other stakeholders in this project. Published informally, formally and otherwise, and looked at those goals, and asked ourselves, what is the best way to achieve those goals?

And as we go through our presentation today, we are going to return in each case back to the goals as we understand them. The goals of creating economic self-sufficiency. The goals of being a public place, a great national park. The goals of diversity. Very significant community goals that we are going to try to, and believe we have, successfully achieved.

Our major intent, and the major goal that we understood from reading all of the literature, was, while having a sustainable, responsible development, one which recognized the historical significance of the Presidio, one which recognized the great natural beauty of this location, one that recognized the community that surrounds it, recognizing all of those points, we believed that we needed to have a project which would contribute the most significant economic benefits to the Presidio as a whole that we could. And you will hear us, as we go through, come back to that goal of economic diversity as we go along.

Just quickly telling you what the major land uses are, this land use chart right here shows the conference center and lodge component of our development, which is right down here. It shows the office building component of our development, which is right up here. And it shows the Culinary Institute of America, which is a development right here. And it shows our senior housing, which is right here, all oriented around a major green space. And I would say that our intention was to have a place that was open to the public, and one that contributed to learning and education, and one that contributed economically to this Presidio community.

Having said that, I'd like to turn over the podium to Mr. Ellis, who will describe in somewhat more detail our planning objectives.

Peter Ellis: Well, architecturally, planning-wise, the fundamental goal is to create a sustainable environment. And to respect the magnificence of the Presidio at absolutely every single turn. And every move we made, from how we sided our building to the height of our buildings, to the landscape, to the orientation, to the way we dealt with storm water, to the way we dealt with cars, transportation, the public and pedestrian ways, has all been geared towards making this a sustainable community.

Our second major goal was to bring the public into our sight every which way we could. We wanted to invite the public to enjoy this project, to make it a part of the entire park system. And to do that, we have the Commons, which ties into the Palace of Fine Arts, the intent being to link the Palace of Fine Arts and the city into the Presidio, across Doyle and Gorgus into the Presidio and up to the Presidio Lodge.

The second major connection is from Lombard Street, to bring in the neighborhood, and to bring them through the pedestrian way over to the Thoreau Center and to the rest of the Presidio. And to make a pedestrian and civic place that would serve the community as a whole. Not only the neighborhood, but the entire Presidio and the city.

We've also opened up other pedestrian gates, along Chestnut and Francisco Street, so that everywhere we can make this plan permeable. Bring the public in so they can enjoy the public facilities that our project has to offer.

Now, let's go for a little walk. If you are attending, let's say the International Conference on Sustainability, and you're going to be spending three or four days here, at the Presidio Lodge, you might come arriving off of Lombard Gate and coming up to the front door of the lodge. Now, this front door is exactly where the current front door of the hospital stands. And you would be really arriving right over here.

Let's say you're walking. Of course, you're very environmentally conscious. You will come with your Birkenstock shoes. And you will arrive there at the lobby, which is intended to be completely transparent so that as you walk through the lobby you will see--and in most national park lodges, you see a great natural feature. Well, we don't have a mountain. We don't have Mt. Rainier. But we do have the Palace of Fine Arts and the dome. So as you walk through the lobby you will see the dome, the Commons, and the great civic square in front of you.

Now, after you check in, you'll walk into your room. And perhaps you're three floors up and you happen to have paid a little bit more, so you've got the room that faces the bay. So you're in your room on the third floor of the hotel and you're looking down, and you see the stairs descending from the lobby to the pedestrian way, which is crossing this way. And you look down at the terrace, which belongs to the lodge and the conference center. And the bar opens up to the terrace, the cafe opens up to the terrace. And from here you enjoy the Commons. Or you might have breakfast in the main restaurant over here. And again, you are part of the community, and the community can also use these facilities. They belong to the public. This is the community living room. All activity flows from this spot.

Now, you also may notice as you look out your room that the Culinary Institute is located here, with their most prestigious restaurant--they will be operating four restaurants--on the roof. And you may choose to have lunch there. They will also be operating other restaurants along the pedestrian way.

The senior living will be over here. And you will notice from your room that it's lower than the other buildings, because as we get deeper into the Presidio, the landscape must dominate. Absolutely, the landscape must dominate the architecture.

In the design of the Commons, and in the spaces between the buildings, we've used the landscape to create a setting and to screen the buildings. We want the landscape to be more dominant than the buildings themselves.

We've also instituted a site drainage system, where we, instead of putting all the water into clay pipes below the soil, we will drain all the water through a water feature right down the Commons. Hence, the excess runoff will go down to a cistern that will be located in one of the basements of the research building under the green. And that water will be used to reirrigate the site, so that we can take the storm water, channel it and irrigate the site, and not use the city water system for irrigation.

Now, as we move down the steps, we may step into the pedestrian way. And along the pedestrian way, which again, is right here--and in this view, we're looking right back to Lombard Street, to Lombard Gate--to our right is the Culinary Institute with its four restaurants. And they face south. And there's plenty of seating to enjoy the sun. It's also protected from the wind. And on the other side is the lodge itself, with its meeting rooms, which also open out to the pedestrian way and provide other facilities for the public. Maybe Peet's Coffee. Maybe bicycle rental. Maybe a deli. But they are open to the public. They are open to everybody.

Now, along O'Reilly Avenue, we have very intentionally located the senior living there, because we believe that housing which is of lower scale should be across from the very beautiful houses that are already there. We want to make a neighborhood street. We think a street is appropriate here, and what better choice than to have our senior citizens enjoying this great environment of the Presidio and living on this street and giving it life again? So that is O'Reilly Avenue. The scale of the senior housing matches the scale of the existing houses across the street.

And if you've been out to the Presidio, if you've been out to the Thoreau Center during the week, you will see many of our senior citizens already there at the Thoreau Center enjoying the wonderful passageway between the buildings and the one coffee shop that exists there. So we wanted to replicate that notion of the covered walk. And they can use this as part of their life, looking out to the Commons, enjoying their gardens, and enjoying the other passersby who can walk from the Palace of Fine Arts up to the lodge.

Finally, the water feature is an opportunity to bring the ecology of the historic Presidio back to like. To choose plant species that have been typical of the Presidio throughout its history, and to bring back birds and other things that happen to crawl through the--back to life along the stream bed.

So with that, I'd like to bring Gloria Root to the podium.

Gloria Root: Thank you. I would like to address myself to why I believe the Walsh, Higgins proposal best fits the Presidio mission. That mission is stated in the Presidio Plan, the GMPA, which was carefully hammered out with a lot of public input over several years. Because of its history, we take that mission statement very, very seriously, and we have worked very hard to make our plan compatible with the GMPA.

One of the early realizations that the people of San Francisco had about the Presidio when the base closure was announced was that the Presidio was a community. The Walsh, Higgins plan responds to the long-held value of returning the Presidio to a community. And we do that by proposing a mix of uses that will truly create a small village with residences, restaurants, places for learning, visitor accommodations, workplaces, and recreational open space.

We believe that Letterman is the right place for these uses because the GMPA calls for balancing urban and park uses. The Letterman area is the area that has historically been one of building concentration, and it has housed a greater variety of uses than other locations, such as the Main Post or the Public Health Hospital. It is also on the edge of the Presidio, which provides an opportunity, and in fact an obligation, to be compatible and integrate with the character of the scale of land uses that are outside the Presidio. And I think as you look at the land use map you'll see that the city streets are echoed, as people can enter and penetrate the Presidio wall and come into the site.

The SOM design recreates the historic [grain] and pattern of development that's found in the area, by continuing the street pattern, by the scale of the lodge that we are proposing. And they also open the stunning view of the Palace of Fine Arts, as we have shown over there.

Turning to the Presidio Lodge, we are proposing a wonderful and memorable facility in the tradition of the great railroad hotels that were built in national parks to attract visitors from the East. They were built to encourage Americans to come and see the beauty of the West, and also to garner public support for the national park movement, which was nascent at that time.

We feel that this is no less important for the Presidio. For many years we spoke of raising the national awareness of the Presidio as a great body of land a great addition to the national park system. So to sustain and nurture this goal, we need to make the Presidio a truly national park by offering accommodations to visitors so that they are attracted to come here. And it is our goal to make this lodge as unique to its setting as the Prince of Wales Hotel is in Glacier National Park, or indeed the Ahwanee is in Yosemite National Park.

Just as a hotel will raise national awareness of the Presidio, an international conference center can raise international awareness if it is so marketed by the appropriate company. Our team does include Marriott, who can do this, because they have the global marketing infrastructure in place. And the quality and stature of their skills are attested by the fact that they manage the Wye River Conference Center, which some of you may recall is where the most recent Middle East peace accords were negotiated this year.

For a moment, I just want to look at some of the other goals of the General Management Plan, and briefly mention how we will respond to them. One is to convey the importance of public service and community participation. And we will do this by a public interest seminar series that we are proposing to make available to groups like the Bay Area Water Transportation Task Force or the Doyle Drive Reconstruction Project, make these facilities available to them for their free use in connection with their public outreach programs.

So in conclusion, I think we are responding in a way that is very mission responsive. We are proposing a diversity of land uses, which means that we can attract a diversity of people to the Presidio. And that in turn means that we can create economic diversity which will help reach economic self-sufficiency for the Presidio by the year 2013. We are offering a strong economic base, and that will enable us to produce the public amenities which we talked about today.

But after all is said and done, what we are proposing now are concepts. We think our concepts underlie a great plan, but far from stopping here, we are looking forward to working with the trustees, with the Trust staff, and with the public, to help shape this concept into a project that's worthy of this site, that is faithful to the Presidio plan, and that would be a proud addition to the national park system.

Tom Samuels: Thank you, Gloria. I think Gloria put her finger on what our objective, what our mission is, and it's what I started out our presentation today saying. And that is that we really are about achieving these goals of economic self-sufficiency. Our analysis is that at least the financial proposals that are on the table that we've read, that the Walsh, Higgins proposal provides the highest amount of lease payments, the soonest cash flow, and provides the greatest diversity and therefore sustainability of economics.

We believe our scheme is absolutely compatible with the national park role and mission, and are prepared to work harder to make it even moreso. We believe that we have created a place of learning, and we believe that we are providing public amenities for the community, for the Presidio, and for the city as a whole.

Having said that, I want to underscore Gloria's point that we are flexible. We recognize that this is a process, and that we are absolutely prepared to work with the community, with the trustees, with the staff, to get this done.

And lastly, I'd like to say that Walsh, Higgins and Company and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and the rest of our consultants are capable of getting this job done. In the last 15 years, we have developed over 1,200 acres of multi-use development, largely in public/private partnerships. That's almost 50 projects the size of Letterman. We can deliver this, we will deliver it, and we'll do it in a responsible way, and in an interactive way with all of the stakeholders.

Thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity to present our proposal.

[applause]

Toby Rosenblatt: We're going to take a short five-minute break. We'd like if you could just stay in place, and as we change out, and we'll have our next presentation in about five minutes.

[break]

James Meadows: I ask everyone to take your seats, please, so we can get started with the next group. I would point out again that we have sign-up sheets if you're interested in making a public comment after the completion of all four presentations. That we would ask that you would sign up and pass them over to the edge so that someone can take them, and we will call you up in the order of receiving them.

We would also ask out of courtesy to all four presenters, that if you have any telecommunications devices, i.e., cell phones, could you please turn them off while we're here in the meeting? And then we'll move forward.

I believe the second team is ready. This is the Letterman Digital Arts, and Mr. George Lucas and Mr. Chris [Glennen] of Lucas Digital Limited. They're proposing a wholly-owned subsidiary by Lucas Film Limited, nproposes to build a Letterman Digital Center of offices and workshops. In addition, an institute of digital learning and special effects archives are included in the proposals. Mr. [Glennen] and Mr. Lucas?

George Lucas: Members of the Trust, my name is George Lucas, and I'm the Chairman of the Board of Lucas Film and the Letterman Digital Arts Center. I'll be brief. I think my distinction is that I am not a real estate developer, and I'm not here really to pursue a business opportunity. I'm not motivated to gain any economic return on the ground lease you'll be awarding.

I'm very much for having a sustainable situation here at the park, that has the least amount of impact on the park. Especially in terms of traffic and adding more congestion. I'm not a big one for building more shopping malls, and sort of an L.A. development mentality. My motivations are different.

I'm a Northern Californian by birth, and I personally am very excited about Northern California's unique challenge to create a great urban national park. When I learned that the Letterman site would be available for redevelopment, I saw that my own vision and the Presidio's fit perfectly together. By creating this artistic digital center at the Letterman site, I would bring to the Presidio those employees and artists who are helping to shape the future of cinema.

Digital cinema is the cinema of the 21st century. And it's an art form that is just now being put forward and being pioneered. And the artists and engineers and craftspeople who will work in this facility will help form a community that will be world-renowned for its great ideas. And I guarantee, because I'm very interested in architecture, I'm very interested in preserving the land, I think that what would be created here will also be world-renowned for its beauty and its location and design.

The opportunity to work with the Trust to achieve this vision would be a privilege and a priority for me. I am personally interested in this, and I also realize that this is an evolving process. I've developed facilities in Marin for many years. They are state of the art, and at the same time, a very great asset to the community. And bringing the benefits of digital technology to education, and to building environments, and creating this creative campus are two of my highest personal priorities.

In designing the center, I'm very interested there be a park within a park. We have put as much of the facility as we can into open space for people to enjoy as a park. We put all the parking lots underground, and the campus buildings are understated, respectful of their historic legacy, and appropriately situated on the site. And it opens up to a great lawn with promenades, cafes, coffee bars, and other amenities to the public.

I also wanted to limit the building density, and again, as I say, put the parking underground to maximize the open space and create a less intrusive, low-impact, park-like setting.

We worked very, very hard to create a facility that has the least amount of impact on the park, to keep it a park. And in achieving this vision, meant working with some of the best urban designers and architects. And I'd like to have two of the best right now, Larry Harpin and Kevin Hart, quickly walk you through the specifics of our design.

Larry Harpin: George has really stated how he approached me and said to me how can we achieve what George has said? Which is a place which is a park, not a development, not a mall, not a college campus. It has, we finally decided, a great open space itself, which reaches towards the neighborhoods and the rest of the country. It uses the buildings to enclose on the south side this great open space. And Dee, could you change that slide?

I finally thought as I was working on it, how could we possibly achieve the things that George is talking about, and that could fit well into this open space, that goes on for 10, 15 miles northward as part of the great national park of the Golden Gate? So this is my original scheme, which takes the area--this is Lyon Street, just so that you know our orientation. There's the Palace of Fine Arts.

As an open hand, that was the whole idea. That this would be a great open hand. We developed this around a park that is seven acres in size. The great open meadow, and the buildings form a necklace around it. Next slide, please.

And there is the model, which you see. There's the Palace of Fine Arts. There's the great, open space. The buildings surrounding it in a very orderly and beautiful way. And here are the penetrations between the buildings that give you the great views of the Palace of Fine Arts, and there you can see it.

Now I want to emphasize again, we have no roads, we have no parking, we have no malls, we are a park within a park. And the rest of the open space that is included in our proposal, that equals 15 acres in total, which is 60 percent of the site. And here you can see how it works in a model form, and we drain in a great [swail] that looks like the Sienna Piazza on its [all] green down in a [swail] to a lovely small lagoon.

And now, Kevin, would you please talk a little bit about the buildings around?

Kevin Hart: So as Larry said, in order to achieve the size of this park, we move the buildings to the west along O'Reilly and to the south, along Letterman Drive. And these buildings have people in them, that are essentially creative people. If you'd back up one, Dee.

The buildings are open to the park. They're open to courtyards. And they're set up to terrace down the hill, and are connected by these connector buildings that have porches on them. And just so that you know, the employee entrance is here, off from the north, and the visitor entrance would be up here.

Now, the Secretary of the Interior's standards are very clear when it comes to developing new buildings in a national historic landmark. Of course, this is more than just a national park, it's an historic landmark with buildings that are really wonderful things, designed to be themselves. They are simple, they're kind of Shaker-like in their simplicity. But there is another tradition that has to do with this site, and that of course is the Panama Pacific Exposition.

When the Army shared this property with the city in order to put on the exhibition--and we're observant of that as well. Of course, there's this great domed landmark that remains in the neighborhood. And we're trying to put those two traditions together with this design. So that these simple buildings that terrace down the hills, connected by these porches, and then our Commons building that is reminiscent of the exposition architecture of the Panama Pacific.

There's another very interesting tradition here, of course, and it comes from Letterman. The Letterman Hospital itself was a center of innovation. It was named after an inventor, and it was a center of invention, and it will continue to be so. But the thing that it was designed around was these pavilions connected by porches, and intended, it was revolutionary a hundred years ago to make buildings that provided fresh air and daylight so that the patients got better faster. It's very interesting that the same principles we use today to make what we call sustainable buildings, these buildings that instead of using artificial light, make the most of daylight. Instead of using air conditioned air, they use natural ventilation with operable windows, and displacement ventilation under the floor.

We're going beyond those normal things and using a kind of rain water harvesting system that would collect the water from the roofs. Collect it in a cistern which in fact is in the basement of the existing Letterman, so that we won't have to demolish as much of the existing Letterman buildings as we would have otherwise. That rain water is collected in an underground cistern. It feeds the lagoon, and that water is used to irrigate what is really the centerpiece, as Larry said, of this whole thing, which is the park.

Now, all of these technical issues are very important, but really what we'd like to get back to, Larry, if you'd say a few more words about it would be like to experience this park.

Larry Harpin: Well, one of the things of course, is this great, open hand that reaches towards the neighborhoods. We did take the position of opening up the Lyon Street wall at Chestnut Street. You can walk through onto a great necklace that is a promenade. Up at the top of the park, as you can see, there's an entrance, and then this great promenade allows for coffee bars, places to sit. But these are all devoted not to income. They're devoted toward people's need. And as you see, the cafe gets a wonderful view of the park looking out at the Presidio. But perhaps most important is the feeling of all of these things coming together.

This view is from the top of the Presidio park. Our entrance area where pedestrians can walk down. Then go on--this is an early sketch that I made of what I hope this would look like. There's a lagoon, there's a [folly] down at that bottom, and then [gusterm], which was used by [Cable Validy Brown, tended out] a wonderful little structure in a park where there would be restrooms, perhaps places for buses to let off people.

And as you can see, this park is not an organized, formal kind of an open space which is narrow and just serves for [walk], but it's a place where people can sketch, where they can feed the ducks, where mothers can walk their children. It's just a park that is worthy of the idea of a national park, where buildings are incidental to the whole thing.

I just want to end my remarks and Kevin's by pointing to you this existing condition where Letterman Hospital now is, and where the balance of the parking is along Lyon Street, and I will show you what it looks like as we develop our project. The parking and everything is all given over to the wonderful [park-likes] and the buildings around it, like very, very much to develop balance of the kinds of buildings that are in the Presidio park now.

I now would like to turn this over to a video that we made, that will give you a little more of the flavor, both of the ILM in George Lucas' area now, and tell you more about what we're planning to do. Thank you very much.

[video begins]

[music]

Narrator: Film as a technology has been around for more than a hundred years. And ever since they started trying to tell stories with film, not long after film started to come into its own, visual effects were created. And they needed to composite different layers of film together to create scenes.

George Lucas: In the '60s, film had gone into a period of realistic movies, and the art of special effects had drifted away. Although it had been one of the founding branches of the film industry, and the art of filmmaking. The whole idea was it was an illusion and a special effect.

With ILM, I was able to bring together a group of artists, and train them to deal in the older arts of illusion.

[music]

Male voice: San Francisco was essentially leveled in 1906. The Pan-Pacific International Exposition was seized on as an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that San Francisco was not a burned out hole of its former self.

Kevin Hart: The site where the Letterman Hospital is now, was in fact part of the PPIE. There's the dome, the Palace of Fine Arts. There's the crescent-shaped building around it, and there's the little lagoon. The Letterman Center is right here, right now, that occupies that whole shape.

See these buildings? That was an exhibition building for the Pan-Pacific Exposition. It's kind of interesting to think that now that the Presidio is changing into a national park, there's a new kind of sharing going on.

Larry Harpin: See, as you come in here, I want to get it looking that way. For this view, that's a great view. As we come in, that's a great view. People, one of the great things we're doing is these views.

Kevin Hart: Right, made the buildings relate to the green space.

Larry Harpin: Right, exactly.

Kevin Hart: The power of the green space is its shape.

[music]

George Lucas: Well, I was born and raised in Northern California. I grew up in Modesto, I ultimately went to school in Southern California for a few years, and then I came right back here to San Francisco to start my film career and my company.

I was told at the time that you could not be in the motion picture business and live in San Francisco. But a few other stalwart filmmakers and myself managed to make it work up here. And I'm very proud of being a Northern Californian. I'm very happy living in San Francisco. I've lived here in the Bay Area for over 30 years.

ILM was begun when I started working on Star Wars. I needed a special effects facility to make that film, and in the process, ended up developing an operation which consisted primarily of a lot of equipment, but most importantly, a group of talented artists who had special skills that, for the most part, had been lost in the film business.

Female voice: Film was every bit of the medium. It was the initial photography, it was the intermediate steps that we had to take, and it was the final compositing. Now, we take film and we scan it into the computer, monkey around with it in the computer, and film it out.

ILM is a fascinating combination of talent. People are artists before they come here. They have artistic lives outside of here, and then they come together to work as a team toward the art of filmmaking as a whole. And it's an incredible combination of inspiration and talent, and a sort of a synergy of these people working together toward a common vision, that then ends up on the screen.

George Lucas: I started developing Skywalker Ranch right after I completed Star Wars. And it was really the success of Star Wars that made my company being to grow, and forced me to think about larger facilities. And a place where I could house all the people who came with the success.

I like to work in a facility that fits into the environment. That looks like it's been there for a period of time. I'm very much an advocate of historic architecture. I think it's important that the people who work for me be in a very park-like setting, have very comfortable surroundings, because mostly what we do is think and are involved in very creative type work. So the thinking, the contemplative process is very important to us.

Bill Browning: I see that George has an amazing passion for environmental issues. And you can really see the quality and care that's been applied here at Skywalker Ranch. The ecological restoration that's been done on this site is really, really well done. And it reflects in the lives of the people who work in the facilities as well. Buildings that have that quality enhance our lives.

George Lucas: One of the reasons I'm interested in putting the facility in the Presidio, one, it's the perfect kind of environment for the kind of artistic people who work for me and do the kind of creative work that we're involved in. But I also think I am in a unique position to be able to afford to put in a good facility that is proper for something as important as a national park.

Kevin Hart: There is a new generation of national parks which are dedicated because of their historic and cultural value. In a very real way, we're continuing the tradition of the Letterman Hospital. Letterman Hospital was designed around these pavilions. Very narrow floor plates, which meant that daylight and fresh air could get to every part of the building.

The Presidio is really a wonderful collection of buildings. There are buildings from many different eras, and they don't all match stylistically. But the amazing thing is that as you go through the Presidio, you would swear that they're all the same. And the way it's done is by use of color and material. And the new buildings will follow along in what I think you could accurately describe as a kind of Presidio style. The sort of off-white, vanilla ice cream stucco, red tile roofs, very simple shapes, sensible. After all, this was a military place. This was not a place of high-image architecture. This is not a muscular, expressive of the architect's ego or of the ego of the developer.

All of the cars in this place will be underground. That's one of the things that George Lucas has done at Skywalker Ranch. It's an astonishing thing to do, honestly. To invest what it will take to put the cars underground. But it's also absolutely the right thing to do.

George Lucas: The facility that we're hoping to build in the Presidio not only includes Industrial Light and Magic and Skywalker Sound, but also Lucas Learning and Lucas Entertainment.

Lucas Learning is an educational multimedia company that is helping to facilitate high technology in schools. Part of the digital group that's going to be working in the Presidio facility are the interactive games, interactive multimedia portions of our company, which do both educational products, and also create games and other forms of entertainment.

Susan Schilling: One of the things that the Lucas companies wanted to accomplish when they set up Lucas Learning was to make sure that there was an opportunity for Lucas Learning to benefit from all the learning that all the other companies had already done. So we're sitting right now next to Lucas Arts, which is a great synergy. We get to have a technology sharing arrangement with them where everything that they've done in the past, if we can make use of it, we've got access to it.

Kevin Hart: As architects, we have this great optimism that in fact, a building can help you work better. George Lucas has encouraged us to do that in all of the ways that we can. Whether it's by bringing in more daylight, whether it's by making the buildings function so that they create community. A building can offer opportunities for people to meet one another serendipitously. You can encourage interaction among people.

Larry Harpin: This is one of the great experiments of our century. Here for the first time, there is a national park that has invaded the city. Now that's quite a new experience. And that dichotomy between the two ideas of human use and nature itself is what's happening at the Presidio. And we're trying to do exactly the same thing in our proposal. We're devoting about half of the area to the buildings, the courtyards, the place where people will be working. And the other half of it, we're doing it as a national park, as green, as places for people to promenade, for people to use.

[Folly] is in an English term for an area at the bottom of a beautiful, long vista with a lagoon [unintelligible outside talking about the site].

It will be a place that will denote the entrance to the park. It will be one of the main entrances to the park. It will serve as a bus stop, as a background to the lagoon, as a place where there may be a coffee bar, and things like that.

George Lucas: San Francisco is a movie center. It's a very small movie center, but it's a very leading edge movie center. And we have many people up here who make movies, and I think it's appropriate that we have a centerpiece that is a cornerstone in the idea of digital cinema. A place that people can identify in the Bay Area and say this is where the leading edge is being pursued.

[music]

[end of video]

James Meadows: We're going to have to conclude the presentation with the videotape at this point, and we'll take a five-minute break and move on to the next group.

[applause]

[break]

James Meadows: ...into the answer room for any talks so that we can get the next group on on a timely manner.

If I can ask everyone to take your seats, please, so we can start with the next group.

Our third presentation group is L&R Presidio Partners. Mr. Curtis Eisenberger, L&R Partners and Mariposa Management Company.

They're proposing a mixed-use project that includes offices and facilities focusing on education, research and health. An inn and a visitors center are also proposed. Mr. Eisenberger?

Curtis Eisenberger: Members of the Trust board, Trust staff, community and friends, my name is Curtis Eisenberger, and I represent L&R Presidio Partners. L&R Presidio Partners is composed of L&R Properties, Mariposa Management Company, Mariani Investments, and Arcadia Land.

And I have to say in brief recognition that we are working with a terrific group of experts and consultants that make up the heart and soul of our team. And while these companies are listed in our presentation, I would like them all to stand for just a brief instant, and take the recognitions they deserve for the wonderful job they've done. For without them, this presentation would not be possible.

We are quite honored to be chosen to make a presentation.

[laughter]

Nobody stood up, I'm sorry. Everybody's too humble.

We are quite honored to be chosen to make a presentation of our proposal to the Presidio Trust. We believe that our proposal not only meets the intent of the Trust, but enhances the entire community. To elaborate on this, I would now like to turn the presentation over to our project manager, Larry Florin.

Larry Florin: As you watch our site morph up on the screen, I want to reiterate what some of the other presenters have stated, and that is the challenge for the Trust board, as I'm somewhat familiar with, is to preserve this as a national park, while at the same time providing the revenue stream that's critical to make this experiment really successful.

But we don't see the revenue stream and the future of the park as necessarily being at odds. We believe, and when we put our program together, that sustainable, accessible development makes good business sense.

For specific inspiration, we went back to the goals of the General Management Plan Amendment. There are three overriding principles from that plan that we utilized in designing our program.

The first idea was that we would create a lively and active community that was a model of environmental sustainability. We have fully integrated sustainable principles into the plan, whether it's in the architecture, which minimizes energy consumption, or in the construction techniques, with we use components of existing buildings for parking. Or through our balance of uses in order to create a truly mixed-use community.

The second principle that we drew from was the goal of identifying tenants, or a range of users, that will help the park to fulfill its mission of creating a dynamic setting for a network of institutions devoted to stimulating understanding of an action of the world's most critical issues.

The Goldman Institute of Aging provides research and education on the issue of Alzheimer's disease. The College of Traditional Chinese Medicine is an institution that is bringing traditional Eastern healing techniques to the Western world. The World Center is a group dedicated towards bringing together the world leaders to discuss global issues. Source One Hydro Farms is a commercial farming operation producing organically grown vegetables for local consumption.

We've identified users in the areas of multimedia technology that are not just involved in designing new cutting edge technology, but also dedicated towards training the community in how to use this technology.

The third critical aspect of our program is accessibility. This is--and I need not remind you--a national park. And national parks are places which the public is encouraged to use. There are no fences anywhere on our site. Rather, we will be encouraging the public to come in and utilize our programs.

The design of our facility contains courtyards, green swaths, footpaths, and biking trails. The Culinary Institute provides dining opportunities in a natural setting. Source One Hydro Farms and the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine will provide hands-on educational opportunities in conjunction with the Exploratorium. We envision a farmer's market where the public will come in and buy fresh produce.

The final aspect of our plan I wanted to talk about is our village inn. When we looked at this site, we believed that this represented a good opportunity for a unique visitor destination facility. We've identified a local, progressive hotel operator, Joie de Vivre, who has designed a facility fully integrated into the surrounding environment.

The inn will benefit from being close off proximity to the surrounding educational and dining facilities, and will welcome world leaders, world-renowned chefs, and innovators in technology to the site.

I'd now like to turn this over to Silvia Kwan and Jeff Stahl, who will talk more about the specific design of the project.

Silvia Kwan: Good morning, I'm Silvia Kwan, president of Kwan [Himmy] Architects, and with me is Jeff Stahl, our design director. And we're representing the design team today, which is a team that has unmatched experience in making communities.

We're very proud to have created and collaborated this project together in a very short but dynamic process that we'd like to share with you today. Our mission is to create a true, sustainable urban village that honors and respects its heritage in a national park at the edge of a great city.

We have created a harmonious place for people to live, work and play. Our design blends in with the historical context and scale of the Presidio. We have broken down a scale of the buildings so that they are smaller, and allows views through to the medical officers' housing on O'Reilly, and to other features of the site.

The architectural character of our buildings respond to and complement the styles of the existing architecture at the post. Our plan is designed to invite the public into the entire village. Open space permeates through all the areas. This works with our proposed concept, because it is a true, urban, mixed-use village.

Each and every use is compatible from a sustainability point of view, and from the perspective of a jobs/housing balance. This balance, which our project does achieve, is important, because it allows the village to be lively and active throughout the day and into the evening. This place will not become a ghost town at night. It will be a good neighbor.

Let me take you on a land use tour of the project. The uses are carefully placed on the site, so as to maximize synergy among the different uses as well as to how they relate to the surrounding streets and the rest of the park. For example, the Goldman Institute and Chinese Medicine share some facilities, and they're both located next to the child care center, bringing generations together.

The village inn and retreat is at one end of the common. The Culinary Institute of America, who will also have restaurants on the site, is located there. And the other office and educational uses that Larry mentioned are located amongst the blue. And finally, the [On Gorgus] is a potential theater, with the tennis courts, the YMCA tennis courts, relocated to the west.

There is, of course, the important urban agriculture and public market element that we call the Gorgus Marketplace. And finally, a residential area that ranges from housing for students of the Culinary Institute to family housing. And that of course is located adjacent to the existing residential community.

Now Jeff Stahl will address the access and circulation plan.

Jeff Stahl: So how do you get around the sustainable urban village? Well, first of all, our site access and circulation emphasizes alternate means of transit over cars. The extension of Torney Avenue directly through the site brings bus routes, transit stops, bike routes into the center of our transit-oriented community. An extensive network of walking paths connect all areas of the site for ease of travel by foot, and I have to say, we can't have enough of those, judging by all the dogs I see out walking their people throughout the site all day long.

Vehicular traffic is controlled to diminish impacts on our neighbors. Primary site access will be from two new signalized intersections along Richardson Drive leading onto Gorgus Avenue. These will be coordinated to provide better access to the Exploratorium as well. A new route through the site connects Gorgus Avenue to Presidio Boulevard to relieve the pressure on Lyon Street. We can now eliminate the right turn from Richardson onto Lyon that causes so much traffic onto that street.

The extension of Torney through the site permits the elimination of Letterman Drive. Instead, creating in its place, an enhanced landscape area for a nature and history walk Silvia will talk about in a second.

Additionally, our careful selection of a community of uses builds in many traffic reduction benefits. For instance, the Goldman Institute has an existing transit program which would bring its elder clients to the site in shuttles. And with our jobs/housing balance on site, the morning commute for many residents, like Culinary Institute students, will be a quick walk across the commons with a stop to pick up a cup of coffee on the way, and eliminating traffic trips altogether.

And finally, varied uses on the site means a wider distribution of trip times throughout the day, eliminating the significant peak traffic levels.

Silvia Kwan: Inviting open space and other public amenities is a major design goal of ours. The oldest tradition of a village, that of a front door opening out onto the common or the village green, is one of the cornerstones of our plan. Good edges make good neighbors.

The existing natural landscape buffers along Lyon and Lombard Streets will be augmented and enhanced. Not only will they act as filters, they will be an important element for usable open space, such as locating a walking path with sports courts on the Lyon Street buffer.

We have taken out Letterman Drive, as Jeff mentioned, as a vehicular road, and put in a nature and history trail, which leads pedestrians to a visitor center through this generous, new open space.

Like a string of pearls, the more intimately scaled courtyards link the open spaces of the village. The housing courtyards have community gardens. The Chinese medicinal herb gardens, and the gardens of the Culinary Institute are accessible to the public.

The smaller-scaled public courtyards at the office educational buildings provide spaces for outdoor conversations and group discussion.

And on Gorgus Avenue, a public market and urban agriculture component is located at the most public part of the project's open space system. And this is what the completed overall project will look like. Jeff?

Jeff Stahl: This is the view from a low-flying plane. Now let's zoom in and take a closer look. The Commons is our central gathering place, comparable in size to Washington Square in North Beach, with herb-bordered lawns and an ample central plaza for events. It is completed by the fountain circle by the inn.

Like the Montgomery Street barracks at the main post, we think repeating simple building shapes around the commons contribute to form a comfortable public place that is both civic and human-scaled.

To the left in this view, residences with traditional porches and stoops are inviting places for neighbors and visitors to stop and chat. And these homes, we feel, are critical to a sense of safety and well-being on the site, by providing eyes and supervision to the public spaces around the clock.

In the foreground, office buildings with rooftop energy-saving features can be seen, like clear story windows for day lighting. And those chimney-like elements are not chimneys, but wind-driven turbines which provide fresh air in the buildings. Lynn Simon will talk about these sustainable features more in a minute. Next.

At the Lombard gate, a crescent of housing creates a welcoming gesture, while the transit-oriented Torney Avenue extension leads directly from here, into the center of our community. A traffic circle orders circulation, while preserving direct access along Lombard into the main post. Existing walking paths will be routed away from traffic, and onto the history and nature walk in the enhanced landscape buffer along Lombard Street.

O'Reilly, which is our western edge of the site, is really one of the most sensitive conditions of the site. Where the issue of how to weave our new community into the existing fabric of the Letterman site is really critical. We believe we've accomplished this by scaling down our office buildings, shown on the right, to step down in height towards the street and towards the existing medical officers' housing on the left. A rhythm of building courtyard building invites visitors to meander through the courtyards or stop in at ground level service or retail spaces located along O'Reilly.

This is a view from the terrace at the inn, at the top of our Commons. From its upper level location the terrace at the inn affords dramatic views of the Commons, the dome, and the bay beyond. I'm sure it's going to become one of the most popular spots at the Presidio, and one I'd like to go to shortly after this presentation, if it was available.

In the foreground, the traffic circle calms vehicles and is just one of many pedestrian-friendly features of the sustainable urban village, which include tree-lined streets and different paving textures that you can see here. Office educational buildings on the left have arcaded ground floors for weather-protected passage among buildings. And parking is located out of sight under the Commons in the basements of the demolished hospital and research buildings.

And finally, Gorgus Marketplace Square, just opposite the YMCA, will be one of the liveliest places in our community. Greenhouse hydroponic gardens produce greens for sale in market stalls below. As another of our environmental education elements, they're ideally located for tie-in with Exploratorium programs. The urban agriculture on our site produces the equivalent of a five-acre farm, and is the catalyst for weekends' farmer's markets in the square, which is ideally located to link the activity of the Commons with the anticipated liveliness of the Gorgus Avenue mixed-use zone beyond. And you can also see here a possible theater with additional restaurant or retail space shown in the background.

Now I'd like to introduce Lynn Simon to talk about how we make our community environmentally friendly.

Lynn Simon: Good morning. The Presidio, and the entire national park system, have made sustainable development a primary goal. We have embraced this, and aim to exceed yours and the community's expectations in order to create a community in which our children's children will benefit. But what does sustainable development mean to us?

Sustainable development, first and foremost, respects the history and uniqueness of the Presidio. But also utilizes the natural resources available on the site. Increases access to daylight, fresh air and views. Manages water as a limited resource. Supports waste reduction and recycling. And buildings are designed to be flexible for uses that change over time.

We are using this entire project as a teaching tool, in order to increase awareness on sustainable development for tenants, residents, visitors, entire Presidio community, and the city. One of the most significant issues we faced was how to rid the site of the Letterman and Lehrer buildings. We have chosen to deconstruct the buildings, reclaiming as much of the existing structure and building materials as possible. What we can't reclaim we'll recycle, and what we can't recycle we will demolish and reuse on site. We will reduce the amount of demolition by reusing these existing basements for parking. When we demolish the remaining structure, we will reuse all of the concrete rubble on our site for new construction. We will use this material for road base, pavers, and maybe even roof tiles.

As a result of our deconstruction strategies, we have eliminated 7,000 truckloads of concrete leaving the site. That's a hundred trucks a day for three months, and represents a 75 percent reduction in construction traffic. Since we are reusing the material on site, there are 7,000 more truckloads of new material that won't need to be brought to the site. Our sustainable construction activities will eliminate excessive amounts of noise, dust and pollutants created by traditional demolition activities, including the hauling away of tons of concrete.

This issue of sustainable development is being addressed in a very productive and creative manner from the very outset of this project. One of the guiding principles of sustainable development is making healthy, supportive environments. If you look around this room, it has many elements of sustainable building: good access to daylight, natural ventilation, and access to views. This is a result of a narrow building width. In order to create sustainable environments, we have designed our buildings, which are only 60 feet wide, to capture the scale of the historical Presidio buildings, enabling us to harvest natural ventilation and light.

In continuing our primary goal as the project serving as a teaching tool, we are harvesting wind as a source of energy. We are using wind turbines that drive air into the building, alleviating the need for electric fans, providing a continuous fresh air supply to occupants. We are also using the deconstructed concrete rubble in the existing basements as a thermal storage to pre-cool the building.

This is truly a village of shared resources. The whole community is linked by the use of solar hot water for space and water heating.

And lastly, this team is providing for extensive harvesting of on-site water runoff from roof areas and pavements and gray water, water used in sinks and showers. The water from these sources will go through an extensive filtration process to purify the water. It is anticipated that 80 percent of irrigation water can be used from these sources for the first three years, and then a hundred percent in future years. We anticipate having surplus irrigation water available for use elsewhere in the Presidio. Some of the water will also go through a secondary filtration process, so that this water can be used to irrigate urban agriculture. Food from these gardens will be used in the restaurants on site, and sold at the public market.

Our mission, and the Presidio's, is to create a sustainable urban development. We believe we have exceeded your goals and vision, since it is truly an integrated approach, where waste is minimized, energy efficiency is maximized, and healthy environments are being created. We are providing access to the public through our urban agriculture program, our public market, and our diverse and inviting open spaces.

Now I'd like to introduce Phil Bowman of L&R Property Corporation.

Phil Bowman: Hi. My name's Phil Bowman, and I'm a senior vice president with L&R Property Corporation.

The reason that we're here today is we're trying to form a partnership with the Presidio Trust and the community. That's our view, anyway. And we think that the characteristics of a good partner are experience, financial strength, and compatibility and mutual goals.

Briefly, I'd like to tell you about our experience. L&R goes back about 46 years. Originally, we were part of a company you may know of called Lennar Corporation. And for the last 30 years we've been involved in commercial and mixed-use development. Most recently, as of November of 1998, we went public separately and are currently traded on the New York Stock Exchange. We're a national developer as well as a capital provider, and we're in over 400 communities throughout the United States.

Locally, we're the master developer on Mare Island, a 4,000-acre former Naval base, and we are over in Vallejo. And we are also involved with the Agnews State Hospital site in San Jose. We're currently teamed up here in San Francisco with Mariposa on a mixed-use development called Brannan Square, in South Beach.

As I mentioned, we're public. We're a multibillion dollar company. And last year we had revenues in excess of $250 million. And what we are most proud of about our financial strength is in our 46-year history, we have always been profitable in every one of those years.

We think that we're very compatible with the Trust's goals. We have experience and strength and commitment to create a very successful project here, with the Presidio Trust and with the community. We are very committed to the concept of sustainability, and to reiterate Larry's earlier comment, we believe it is good business and good sense.

Thank you very much.

[applause]

James Meadows: We're going to take another quick five-minute break, and then we'll have our final presentation.

[break]

James Meadows: Could I ask you all to take your seats so we can start the last of the four presentations?

While you're taking your seats, I have one more time as far as an announcement goes, if you have a request for public comment, if you will pass your speaking cards to your right, they'll be picked up by Presidio Trust staff, and they'll bring them up here, and they'll be responded to in the order that we've received them. We will have time to hopefully hear everyone's comment. If we should run out of time today as far as public comment, we would invite you to the public workshops, both tonight and on April 6th.

The fourth presentation is a combination of the Shorenstein Company LP and Interland Corporation. Mr. Doug Shorenstein of the Shorenstein Company. They've proposed a mixed-use office and housing, including a library and retail shops surrounding a central public green. Mr. Shorenstein.

Doug Shorenstein: Thank you. Well, I suppose the good news is that the presentations are almost finished. So thank you for--

Audience: Louder!

Doug Shorenstein: Hello! As I was saying, the good news is the presentations are almost finished. Maybe it's better that you almost couldn't hear me. That might make it even better.

I'm Doug Shorenstein and this is Richard Reisman from Interland. We're proud to have the opportunity to be a part of the Presidio's future. The Presidio actually has been an important part of my past and present. I actually grew up on one side of the Presidio, right near Lake Street. And I presently am a neighbor on another side of the Presidio today. I actually am almost embarrassed to say that I had my first kiss on Baker Beach, and I taught my kids to ride their bikes in the Presidio, actually at the Letterman.

I look forward to working closely with the Trust in creating an open environment in the Presidio that, one, complements the park and community, and two, meets the goals of the General Management Plan. We feel that the Presidio Village in our concept actually meets such goals.

Our concept is to create synergies between live/work, low-impact, non-commute housing that interacts with multimedia Internet technology, which, by the way, we feel is the emerging industry of San Francisco today. That works with three organizations serving the Presidio and community.

Our goal in the result is actually to create a global Internet classroom with synergies created between technology, which will package and disseminate the information produced from our community-based organizations which reside in the Presidio Village.

Our users actually bring this concept to life. CNET is a leading Internet and multimedia company based here in San Francisco. CNET will work with the community and will disseminate and help package the information from our users in the Presidio Village.

The village will actually become an educational technology center that will help teach the public to better utilize technology and learn about our Presidio programs.

Number two, we have the Women's Technology Center, which will incubate technology jobs and work with CNET.

Three, we have programs that address the park and the environment, including the National Park Foundation, and Conservation International, which will actually relocate a part of its operations from Washington D.C. into the Presidio Village.

And fourth, we have educational organizations that reflect the unique history of the Presidio. These organizations include the Sutro Library, San Francisco Historical Society, and the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center.

Finally, there are two key other aspects of our proposal that we feel meets the Presidio trust goals. One is our ground lease economics and structure. We feel that our economics meet the near-term financial goals of the Presidio Trust, and our structure actually allows the Presidio to participate in future appreciation of the Presidio Village.

And second is our design. We feel we have a terrific design team which is headed by the renowned international architect, Robert Stern, who we'll hear from shortly.

Finally, I just want to reiterate that I am very committed to working closely with the Trust to achieve its goals. I hope to have the opportunity to work with the Trust and turn our shared vision and dream into reality.

And now I'd like to introduce Halsey Miner, who's the chairman and CEO of CNET. Halsey?

Halsey Miner: Hi, I thought I'd start out by providing a brief history and some background on who we are, for those of you who aren't familiar with our company. I founded the company actually in New York in 1992, and in February of 1994, I moved my wife and our four employees at the time out to San Francisco. And I did so because of the fact that San Francisco is a wonderful, creative community, that has ethnic and intellectual diversity, and really for the free-flow of ideas that results when you have those two things together. And also really, for the quality of life. And today, CNET is the worldwide leader in providing technology news and information about computers and technology. And we do this really in two ways, through a series of CNET-branded Web sites, as well as TV programming about technology.

Each and every day we have more than two million people who come to our online sites. We have operations on four continents. We have hundreds of thousands of users who come to us from all over the world, from more than a hundred countries each and every day.

We also produce five award-winning TV shows that reach about 8 million viewers in the United States each week, and they're now distributed in 40 countries around the world.

We're a little different than most Internet companies that you read about, because we're actually profitable. We're publicly traded. We have a $3.5 billion market cap. We have about $350 million in cash and securities in the bank. We're very strong financially. And we have 500 really excited and really determined employees.

And what I'd like to do at this moment is play a brief videotape, which I think does a great job of kind of illustrating our company, and our employees, and our commitment to the community, and then come back and finish up.

[video begins]

[music]

Richard Hart: Hello, I'm Richard Hart. I'd like to take a couple of minutes to introduce you to some of the people I work with here at CNET, the computer network. And to tell you a little bit about the business we're in.

Female voice: We bring our audience an insider's view.

Female voice: Plus great consumer tip and the hottest downloads.

Male voice: From cars to computers, we cover it all. CNET is a new media company. A worldwide leader in technology news and information on the Web. And producer of the longest running, farthest reaching television programs about technology. We're headquartered in San Francisco to be near Silicon Valley, the source of much of that news and information, and to take advantage of the city's television resources.

CNET's network of Web sites is consistently ranked as the Internet's leading source of information about computers, the Internet and new technology. Millions of people come to us each day for the latest developments in this emerging industry.

Male voice: Everybody's familiar with television and how powerful that medium is to communicate thoughts and ideas and teach people and so forth now. And I think people are starting to get an idea of how powerful the Internet can be. And CNET's really on the cutting edge of trying to figure out, "Hey, how are these things going to work together?"

Richard Hart: In 1995, CNET launched a new genre of television. Fast-paced, compelling programs covering the Internet and digital technology. Our shows air on the USA network, the Sci-Fi Channel, and in national syndication, as well as in 45 countries around the world.

Okay, that's a look at what we do. Now, who we are. The CNET community is about 500 employees. Most of them, like me, live in San Francisco. They don't all drive electric cars, but most of them take public transportation. And so many would be eager to live in the Presidio Village, it would be no problem meeting traffic management goals.

Male voice: I talk to people at UC-Berkeley, San Francisco State, all the students are very interested in getting into new media. And I know people who want to move from different parts of the country to be here, because this is where the action is.

Our ability to hire more and more people has been a tremendous, tremendous asset. And any business, it's people who make you good or bad, and I'd have to stay that News Dot Com, and CNET as a whole, have been successful because of the kind of people we've attracted.

Female voice: It's a totally open community. All of our employees are always invited to speak their own mind, to be creative, to present us with their ideas, and to really feel a part of what is going on here.

Female voice: We're creating lots of jobs in new media, and this is now the hub in media. We're no longer the stepchild on the West Coast. So we don't have to go to New York to look for talent anymore. Actually, New York comes here to try to steal talent from us, but of course, San Franciscans wouldn't move.

Richard Hart: Most of us are here because we want to work for a dynamic company on the leading edge of a very rapidly changing industry. In fact, CNET people are used to reinventing this industry on a daily basis. There's a community resource here. People who are creative, energetic, forward looking, and who've already demonstrated their eagerness to support and contribute to the local community.

Female voice: We sponsored a school right around the corner, it's a local school. It's about 20 different employees take their lunchtime once a week, and they go up, and they basically educate the children on computers and how to get online and what a Web page is.

Another program we have at Garfield is a reading opportunity. And so we have a lot of employees that go up there, again, on their lunchtime, going up and reading to children.

Male voice: I think I was a part of a program called Power Lunch Buddies. So we just basically go up there and have lunch with some kids that really appreciated somebody there, consistently, week after week, saying, "Hey, I care about you."

And I think that that really made a difference to a lot of those kids. And it made a lot of difference to the folks from CNET that were participating.

Ed Terpening: We kind of reach out to a lot of different groups to satisfy different needs. And the Volunteer Center of San Francisco contacted us, and we found out they didn't have a Web site. And it was like "Wow! Well, this is what we do. I mean, we can really help out with that." And started building a Web site, and gave them expertise in terms of creative, and how to connect to the Internet.

David Overmeyer: One of the things that we will provide is an interactive classroom available for various uses at the Presidio. One of the things we envision is a classroom where we could train senior citizens how to use both the Internet and computer technology. We'd also have the room available for schoolchildren, for training, again, on computers and technology. We'd also hold various different classes for the general public as well.

Robin Wolaner: We have a lot of young people who are learning new media at CNET, and who are then taking that knowledge, and they take it to other jobs. They do it in [freelance], they do it in their donations to the charities that they care about, of the skills that they learn here. So I really feel like we're creating an unbelievable wealth of knowledge and new media production that filters out throughout the Bay Area.

Male voice: It's a very exciting area to work in, and I think we take some of that excitement out to the community and get them involved in the Web, and help them understand how it could benefit what they're trying to accomplish.

[end of video]

Halsey Miner: So I think we fully expect to bring our same track record of participation in the community to the Presidio. And that our participation will only grow and thrive as we become a member of the Presidio community.

And I think we've very clearly outlined some opportunities for how we can benefit not only our fellow tenants, but the larger San Francisco community. One of them was mentioned was the CNET interactive classroom where we'd have a classroom that would be open to anybody in the community to come in and learn about technology and the Internet.

One of the other really interesting things that we're doing is develop healthy, national park foundation, extend their fundraising efforts to the global community leveraging the Internet. Go to the next slide, please.

I, like Doug, I live next to the Presidio. In fact, my kids have grown up going into the Presidio. And CNET has really grown up here in the city of San Francisco. We went from four employees to now 500. The company was founded on the principle of free and open access to information and education. And we do that for a global audience. That's what we do. That's what the Internet's about. And that's something that we as a company are exceedingly passionate about. And I think that we have the capability, and I think really it's a unique capability, to help the Presidio realize its goals of education and public access, but only to carry it out on a truly global scale.

And I think we also provide the park with an invaluable connection to the future. And as a small sample of what we can do, and I think also a small example of the power of the medium in which we work, today we're launching our tree-free proposal. Which is a Web site that's available at www.presidiovillage.com. It has all the information that we provided here today, as well as much, much more. It's really available to everyone. And we also have a version right out here in the lobby that you can peruse at your leisure.

At this point, I'd like to introduce Dr. Kevin Starr. He's the California State Librarian, and he's head of the Sutro Library. He's the Presidio Village's bridge from the past, and really the keeper of the fascinating history of the Presidio.

Dr. Kevin Starr: Thank you very much. In pre-European times, the first Californians, [Meewalk], Ohlone, and Pomo, native Americans of the central coastal range, crossed and recrossed the rolling hills of what would one day be known as the Presidio. Perhaps the crew of Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hine saw these hills as well as they sailed into the bay in 1579.

Since its establishment as a Spanish fort in 1776, the Presidio of San Francisco has been linked to culture and the public realm. In the years 1776 to 1846, the culture was that of Spain and Mexico.

In 1846, it became American. And even here, there was an emphasis upon public access to culture. As the soldiers of Colonel John Drake, Stevenson's Regiment, who had been allowed to bring their wives and children with them from New York, were quartered here in the Presidio, and later discharged here as American colonists.

The books brought around the Horn to the Presidio by the Stevenson Regiment were the foundation of the California State Library, formally organized in 1850. Some of these books, the oldest in the possession of American California, rest on a shelf in the state librarian's office in Sacramento to this day.

In the mid to late 19th century, the Presidio developed as an important adjunct to the metropolitan civilization of San Francisco. Unlike most military reservations, the Presidio was open to the public. It was also a conservationist effort, with thousands of eucalypti planted across its bare hills. For San Francisco novelist Frank Norris, writing in Blix, 1899, the Presidio embodied the special magic and charm of San Francisco life. There on a hillside, overlooking San Francisco Bay, his characters, newspaperman Condi Rivers, and his fiance, Travis Blix Bessemer, greeted the new century full of hope and promise. So too, one hundred years later, do we greet the new century, the new millennium, with an opportunity to bring the Presidio of San Francisco to its next natural state of evolution.

Should the Sutro Library of the California State Library, together with the San Francisco Historical Society, be relocated in Presidio Village, as proposed by the Shorenstein Interland venture, the circle will be circled. For it was here that the California State Library was de facto established by the men and women of the Stevenson Regiment and their books.

The Sutro Library is one of the great creations of pre-earthquake San Francisco. Assembled by pioneer mining, engineer, real estate developer, book collector, forced conservationist and philanthropist Adolph Sutro, 1830-1898, who served as mayor of San Francisco from 1894 to 1896, the Sutro Library was by the turn of the century one of the largest and most distinguished libraries in private hands in either Europe or the United States.

The Sutro collection is rich in San Franciscana, with books, manuscripts, photographs, posters, and other images associated with the rise of San Francisco in the 19th century.

Once established in Presidio Village, the Sutro Library, in conjunction with the San Francisco Historical Society, will embark upon a continuing program of public exhibitions, public lectures, public symposia, with other public-oriented events.

The Sutro Library of the California State Library will also bring to San Francisco the vast resources of the mother library itself, the California State Library in Sacramento, with its 35 shelf miles of books. To include manuscripts and rare books and its historic photographic collection of more than 300,000 images.

Already on deposit at the nearby California Palace of the Legion of Honor, and hence available for display at the Sutro in Presidio Village, is the California State Library print and drawing collection, one of the most impressive of its kind in the country.

The Shorenstein Interland proposal then will bring an alliance of important cultural institutions. The California State Sutro Library, the San Francisco Historical Association, and the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center among them to Presidio Village. The rich resources of these institutions will be showcased through a yearly cycle of public programs and public exhibitions. The interface of these rich, historical materials, moreover, with the digital technology and global reach of CNET, will project these resources into cyberspace through ongoing programs of digitization and Internet programming.

Through Presidio Village, the rich, historical legacy of the San Francisco Presidio, and its adjunct metropolitan culture, will find its window on the world. Millions will learn of this great park over the Internet long before they visit here.

153 years ago, the men and women of Colonel Stevenson's regiment, along with their children and their books, began the cycle of American California. Today the Sutro Library of the California State Library, which is the direct heir of the books these pioneers brought around the Horn, ask you, the trustees of this global treasure, to allow the great library begun here, and its continuation in the Sutro Library to at long last, come home.

It is now my pleasure to introduce a distinguished architect and scholar of cities, a man known not only for his brilliance and design, but for his magisterial books on the rise of New York City, and his award-winning PBS program on American architecture as that architect embodies American hopes and dreams. The dean of the school of architecture at Yale University, Robert A.M. Stern.

Robert A.M. Stern: Thank you, Kevin. I'll try to go as fast as possible but I think we have a little time problem. In any case, it's a pleasure to present our ideas for this village, which is the physical expression of a residential, communications, cultural and environmental mix that we think is a remarkable opportunity for this city and for the use of the Presidio.

Ours is a park village with 56 percent of the land in green space, all of it public, none of it in private courtyards. We mix public and private uses to attract users who will contribute to the experience of the Presidio as well as take from it the great refreshment of its nature.

As we see it, Presidio Village is not a development or a corporate compound or a destination for overnight transients. It is a community within a larger community. The sense of place within the landscape is fundamental. The Presidio is composed of a park and two small-scale villages now, Fort Scott and the Main Post. We propose a third village with intimate streets, small-scale blocks. Our village is open, permeable, and pedestrian-friendly. It is not a set of superblocks with parking lots.

Our architecture will be understated, with a simple pallet of styles, materials and colors designed to be built and operated in an environmentally friendly and responsible way. Our buildings speak the language of the Presidio using the language to say something new. Our buildings connect to, but will not be mistaken for the original historic Presidio structures. They express their various uses.

Our mix of uses and the desire to respond to varying neighbors lead to a natural variation and of architecture. Office buildings with operable windows for natural ventilation, glassed-in porches for intimate scale and variety. Residential buildings with varied massing, windows responding to specialized [rooms] gives an intimate and homelike quality. Our special buildings, especially near the Gorgus Avenue YMCA are lower in scale, slightly more industrial in character, and mix ground floor retail with loft-like live/work spaces.

The original Presidio villages included residences, offices, shops, and places of entertainment. They were the military's microcosm of traditional American towns. Ours is a new village in that tradition, a neighborhood with residences, offices, shops, and special institutions with their own special soul. Combination of live/work in a compact village is a model of sustainable planning for future community. Mixed-use allows sensitive connections in surroundings. New residences will face residences on Lyon Street. Offices will face the historic offices on O'Reilly. Retail mixed uses will enhance the [quality] of Gorgus Avenue as it is now.

The clear message we want to send out is that this is a public place, this is a community. We want to invite the public into it with a network of green spaces. There is a central park, lushly landscaped. 56 percent of the site is green and landscaped. All the landscaped areas are open to the public. Major existing stands of trees are preserved. Car parking is almost exclusively in under the buildings, not under green spaces. We do not have paved plazas with trees in tubs, or tricky plantings above garages. What is shown as green is real dirt covered with grass and trees.

Wrapping the buildings with green spaces is a fundamental hallmark of our effort. A park surrounds the village, not as a barrier, but as an inviting public place, an invitation. The buildings themselves create smaller, more intimate parks and public places.

Shady streets with generous garden setbacks are one of the critical building blocks of Presidio Village. These streets enhance the public nature of the village. A village needs streets. Narrow streets slow traffic and encourage pedestrians, bicyclists, rollerbladers, and whatever else the 21st century will think up.

Some parallel street parking for visitors is provided. Every one of us dream of finding a space in front of the place we're going to visit. But all the residents and all the people working in the offices and the library and so forth will be able to park there cars underneath the buildings.

Letterman Park is what we're calling this public green at the heart of the village. Like the forts in the Presidio, the center of the village is marked by a large, open green space. What were marching grounds in the forts, here is a real town green, a symbol of the public and civic qualities of the villages.

So I just want to conclude this presentation, which, as the lead architect is the basis of work with many consultants and collaborators and our clients, that we are making a park village. We are offering an architectural plan expressive of a remarkable combination of uses, which we feel will add value--not dollar value, though that's not out of the question--but real value for everyone to make the Presidio a remarkable place, building on its past, building on its future, and an educational vehicle about the landscape, about environment, about the world of learning and teaching, which is what, I think, is all our responsibility to the present and future generations. Thank you on behalf of our team.

[applause]

James Meadows: Mr. Shorenstein, I'm going to have to ask you to conclude at that point. I'm going to have to ask your team to conclude with that statement.

I'd like to ask the board if they would rejoin me here on the podium, and if you have public comments, hopefully you've passed the cards over to the right and we've picked them up. I would ask that as we call you up that you would please restate your name and hopefully your address, so that we can record both your comments and how we're moving forward with them.

Toby Rosenblatt (?): Again, I would like to ask the speakers, please, to be prepared to contain your remarks within the two minutes, so that we have time to get to all of these.

The first speaker is Michael Marsden, to be followed by Redmond Kiernan, and then Margo Park.

Michael Marsden: Mr. Chairman. Members of the Presidio Trust, I'm Michael Marsden, chair of the evaluation committee of the Letterman site for the Neighborhoods for Presidio Planning, NAPP, a coalition of the immediately adjacent neighborhoods.

We're not going to make any specific recommendation of one of the four finalists at this time. Rather, we want to present what we think are the seminal elements that you should consider in making your decision.

First and foremost, the underlying philosophy of the proposals relates to this document, Final General Management Amendment Plan. It sets a very high standard, a high bar, of public purpose, giving back in a national park for the 21st century much to the public as part of what we all know has to be economically viable and a major revenue generator for the Presidio.

But this is the seminal site where the majority, the vast majority of the new construction of a non-residential goes. This sets the tone and the hallmark, so we ask you, in the wonderful words of a prior planner, make no small plans for they do not excite the heart of man. Meaning men and women, at this point. Really shoot for the highest standards possible.

In closing, I'd like to note that there are some uses that we feel are not appropriate at this site. A traditional hotel being one, assisted senior living being another. And finally, residential, while very appropriate to interrelate, we want to make sure you're aware of the difficulty of not intimidating, inhibiting, the public which are of necessity to be the recipients and the users of the vast spaces, not the offices themselves. Make sure that the design works from that point of view, even including looking at a larger site, if necessary, to have this a public facility that the public feels comfortable in, invited to, can share some part of.

Thank you.

Redmond Kiernan: I'm Redmond Kiernan. I'm the second of three speakers for NAPP, Neighborhood Association for Presidio Planning, which is a coalition of ten neighborhood groups adjacent to the Presidio.

On this premier entry site to this national park, you should strive to achieve a development that is park-like and park-welcoming to visitors, with uses that are consistent with the organic act of the National Park Service, the vision and mission of the Presidio, and as friendly to adjacent neighborhoods, as well as the city and county of San Francisco, while achieving the financial objectives that you as the Trust must achieve to get the needed income to operate this park.

I commend four points of view for your consideration. Is the experience for the visitor one of welcome to, and information about, a national park? Do the uses to be accommodated provide for an integration of services to support and enhance other tenancies within the Presidio? Does the organization of space and the uses provide for future flexibility over time, to accept changes in occupancy as they occur, with new Presidio mission-related uses that are able to come in?

All of the proposals appear somewhat dense, given the program to house 900,000 square feet allocated over 23 acres. The development in the Presidio is limited to replacing currently existing square footage. We at NAPP suggest that you consider a larger area for elements of this program, such as other portions of the 60 acres of the Letterman complex, or other areas of the Presidio, in order to lighten up the impact in this one particular area.

We also suggest that there be a significant buffer zone created to make this park-like along the Lyon Street edge, to differentiate the Presidio park building complex from that of the Marina and Cow Hollow.

And we thank you for your consideration.

Margo Park: I'm Margo Park, the third speaker for the Neighborhood Associations for Presidio Planning. We're interested in having an excellent site plan that does not turn its back on its neighbors to the east, on the other side of the Presidio wall. Following are some of the design criteria that we consider essential at the Letterman site.

Create a genuine gateway into the Presidio. Letterman's located on the periphery of the Presidio and adjacent to the most heavily used gateway into it. When visitors come through that gateway, they should know that they have left the city of San Francisco and entered a national park. The look should be open and well-landscaped, like a park.

Protect the quality of existing development. Development on the eastern side of the 23-acre site should comply with the 30-foot height limit along Lyon Street. Development on the western side should be set back from O'Reilly Street, and well-landscaped to provide a transition between larger scale and higher new construction, and the small-scale Victorian duplexes across the street.

Preserve views and encourage pedestrian access. The public open space element of the selected plan should be visible and accessible from Lyon Street. No walls of buildings that turn their backs on the neighbors. No roads that parallel Lyon Street on the west side of the road. No above ground parking lots. Take advantage of the gentle slope of the site and the view of the Palace of Fine Arts and the bay.

Finally, as a general principle of land use planning on sites located on the periphery of the Presidio, NAPP favors the design of buildings and open spaces that assure a lower, moderately low intensity of public activity. We think that open spaces designed for markets and concerts, or buildings that include hotels, theaters or large restaurants, would attract crowds of visitors and cause an undesirable amount of activity in nearby residential areas, and contribute to further parking congestion on local streets.

We hope you'll work with the chosen developer to incorporate these important parameters.

James Meadows: Jennifer Gridley, Lou Lowenstein, Michael Alexander. The next three.

Jennifer Gridley: I'm Jennifer Gridley, president of the Cow Hollow Association. Cow Hollow is the area bounded by Lyon Street, Pierce Street, Greenwich and Pacific. And we're greatly encouraged by the process to date. So many wonderfully creative ideas have come forward, and we're delighted to have been part of the process, and look forward to our continuing participation.

In response to the four development proposals described today, we have the following three comments. One, we need to remember that this is a national park, and that any development must be appropriate for a national park. It is the entrance that sets the tone for the balance of the park.

Second, the parking proposed in all of the development proposals are inadequate for the number of people that will occupy the complex. We fear that this will greatly impact the adjacent neighborhoods, specifically Cow Hollow.

And thirdly, that the proposed density is the equivalent of four times the current density of Cow Hollow. We would like to see the proposed density be appropriately scaled to what is their neighbor.

And finally, I'd like to say that I want to reiterate what Mr. Meadows said earlier about this complex being something that will enhance and preserve the Presidio as we know it today.

Thank you.

Louis Lowenstein: My name is Louis Lowenstein. Along with Richard Goldman and Paul [Redfay], I was one of the original founders of NAPP. I'm not going to say very much. I think you've heard a great deal today. Brevity is the best thing that I can contribute. Other than the fact that NAPP was named by somebody that you all know very well, Toby Rosenblatt, and we're thankful for his contribution to our association.

[laughter]

Toby Rosenblatt: Thank you, Lou.

Michael Alexander: Good afternoon, Trust members. I'm Michael Alexander. I chair the Sierra Club's Presidio Task Force.

We think this is a good process. Every proposal is better today than it was when first presented. The developers all got religion, but they're not yet saints. Every proposal needs significant further improvement. Any of these proposed uses could occur somewhere else. Being in this national park will virtually guarantee their success. That's why chosen uses need to give back something in addition to money. Enhance the Presidio in its mission, welcome and excite its visitors, complement its other tenants, and be a good neighbor to the park's neighbors.

Choosing a developer comes later. Today we test each use, program and activity against our values and standards, and the urban design concepts which we think best fit this magnificent site. For guidance, we as you look to the GGNRA enabling legislation, to environmental and historic preservation laws, and to the general objectives of the Presidio General Management Plan.

We ask these questions: is the proposed use appropriate to be in this national park? Is it best sited at Letterman, or elsewhere in the Presidio? How does it enhance recreational and educational opportunities? What are its benefits to the public at large? Does it welcome the Presidio's visitors? Who's invited, and how many? We need public attractions with minimized public impacts. Does this use help meet the Trust's farsighted policy for a jobs/housing balance? And how successfully does it minimize traffic impacts and benefit sustainable design and use?

In general, while all four proposals are improved, they all need to do more to serve the Presidio's visitors. From another state or from across the street, the American people who own this park need to feel that it is theirs, and not feel that they're intruders on a private enclave.

The public-serving organizations that are proposed, while very welcome, mostly are small. They seem more sizzle than substance. We need more of them, and more synergy among them.

Our next speaker will give our preliminary evaluation of uses and design, but the bottom line is that Letterman is making progress. Even today's offers are far better than the ugly, unusable blockbuster buildings and vast parking lot that now sully the national park. Press on.

Edward Houghton: I'm Edward Houghton, also for the Sierra Club. And this is our preliminary evaluation of proposed uses.

We think that Letterman, at one of the Presidio's main gates, probably would benefit from a mix of uses of moderate intensity. Less active than the Main Post, but more active than Fort Scott or the Public Health Service Hospital area. Housing is appropriate here. It could include many of the smaller, lower-cost units the Presidio needs to achieve its jobs/housing balance. It is close to Chestnut Street services, and is compatible with the neighborhoods to the east of the historic wall.

Some office uses, serving visitors where possible. A smaller inn or retreat, with public-serving facility is more appropriate, we think, than a large, general service hotel in a city with 38,000 such hotel rooms. Conference but not convention facilities associated with lodging, with due regard to their impact on a future Fort Scott conference center. Cafes, perhaps a restaurant, and small retail which serve the Letterman community. A visitor center at Letterman or near the park's eastern entry, rather than at the Main Post.

We have questions about the Sutro Library, its mission, whom it serves, and where the money would come from to build it. A more appropriate library and visitor center at this gateway could help introduce people to the West's great national parks.

Some uses seem more appropriate at other sites. Senior assisted housing. A quiet and low-impact use could be done at the Public Health Service Hospital. A multi-restaurant/Culinary Academy at the Officers' Club on the Main Post.

All of the proposals could provide better recreation opportunities. A fitness center for employees, better to join with the YMCA across the street, to build a community recreation center.

These are some of the key design features we will look for. Urban design that is compact and village-like, walkable and easily served by public transit. Its main access should take advantage, of course, of the wonderful views of the Palace of Fine Arts. It should invite the visitor, and not feel like a private enclave. The view of the Presidio as seen from Lyon Street needs to be more park-like. Buildings should be screened from view.

We like many of the imaginative ideas for sustainable design and use. We particularly admire the water feature, which collects storm runoff and feeds it to the Palace of Fine Arts lagoon. It is beautiful and practical, and solves problems for the Presidio and for its neighbor, the city of San Francisco.

Finally, we urge every measure which reduces the need and desire to use a car.

Toby Rosenblatt: Thank you. Donald Green, Bob Planthold, and George Roach.

Donald Green: How do you do? I'm Donald Green. I'm with the Laurel Heights Neighborhood Association, about four blocks, five blocks south of the park. We use both Arguello Gate and the Presidio Gate, as well as Lombard.

I was head of something called the Yosemite Restoration Trust. I'm an economist and have looked at some of these things in the past.

My concern here is the density of use at the Lombard site. I think it may be possible to look at alternatives to put housing, instead of trying to put 500 units there, or even 250, there is room to put additional housing through conversions of the housing we had in about six areas throughout the Presidio. There are approximately a thousand units there. By converting some of the four-, five- and six-bedroom homes to smaller homes, you can get some of the housing needs met without new building. By the same token, the GNP suggested using shared housing, so you'd have two or three employees or families in one unit rather than having everybody having their own unit.

By doing this, you could reduce the density at Lombard substantially. You would not reduce the rent to the Trust. In fact, you might even get more, if the construction costs were less. We're talking about 50 to $100 million of housing being built in that site, as well as $200 million of total costs.

So I would urge you in the next two or three months that you have before you complete the environmental impact statement and before you actually make an award of a contract, that you do come up with a housing plan for the Presidio that will look at alternative sites, and at the same time consider the lodging facilities at Fort Scott as an alternative to Lombard, so that we keep somehow a distribution of intensity throughout the park.

Thank you.

Bob Planthold: I'm Bob Planthold. I've been involved with advocacy for seniors and the disabled now for about a dozen years. And that's a constituency that still is too often left out of programmatic access to many aspects of this city's life, despite the fact that we are a growing percentage of the population. 18 percent now of the city are seniors, 22 percent in another few years.

I'm trying to ask you to challenge yourself to look outside your abilities and think of your limits, so that when you look at these proposals, you try to be able to include any and everybody to use whatever is the developer proposal that you pick.

I've seen pictures of some great lawn sites. And it seems impressive to many. But we know that there was the debacle at Treasure Island. You need to understand how difficult it is for lawn sites to be accessible for concerts, if you're using a walker and it's uneven or muddy. I'm also a single parent. And years ago I had to push my kids in a stroller, despite also the crutches.

You need to think about are there going to be sidewalks around all of the building perimeters. Green space is helpful, but if you don't have sidewalks, you're going to have some major problems of access. The buildings may be accessible in some ways, but programmatic access, I also want you to think about. Not everybody will be able to come to the Presidio when they want, whether because of health, weather, infirmity, transportation difficulties.

So I ask you to think what different proposals, partners, collaborators would have a Web site so that people can find out what are the hours of service, what are the fees for any of their services, what educational opportunities can they take advantage of over the Web? That's one of our projects at Senior Action Network. We're trying to get seniors educated on the Internet. And so that's something I ask you to think about, whether you can benefit everybody by having this as a component, such that people don't always have to physically come here to benefit from these proposals.

Thank you.

Toby Rosenblatt: George [Rad], Millicent Vogurt, Patricia [Voy], Simon Haskell. Any of those people present?

Patricia [Voy]: Patricia [Voy], Cow Hollow Neighbors in Action. Of all the neighborhoods you hear from, it's our neighborhood that has the most at stake. We're at the Richardson Triangle, we're at the Lombard Gate, and we go up the Lyon Street through Greenwich up to Union Street. We overlap with the Cow Hollow Association, but the majority of our association is at the Lombard Gate.

We are concerned about several of the issues, the proximity of the buildings next to our homes on Lyon Street. The one thing that disturbed me about all four presentations today was not one of them mentioned tour buses. Not one of them mentioned what special events they were going to have. Not one of them mentioned the parking and traffic elements, and how they were going to affect the neighbors. And they did not address some of the major issues, and I agree with the Cow Hollow Association that the parking on all four of these is deficient.

What I am more concerned about is the mention of theaters. We already have a theater in the neighborhood. It's called the Palace of Fine Arts theater. We don't need another theater. We've got movie houses. We have four movie houses within twelve blocks. Why do we need movie houses?

We've had flea markets and open markets in the neighborhoods before, and they were very, very, very unacceptable because of parking and traffic. We have 8,072 restaurant seats within twelve blocks. A lack of 4,300 parking places at this time. We have five major motels that are trying to expand. We have a Rite-Aid, 10,000 square feet, with only 16 parking places that's trying to come on the Lombard corridor, which during peak hours is at 96.7 percent capacity.

We have a major issue coming up. We need to work at this, we need to slow this process down, and see if we can work out a long-range plan that will help the Presidio Trust as well as the adjoining neighbors.

Retail space, we have thousands of square feet of retail space available right outside the gate. We really do think that we can do a better job on all of these with more planning.

I think some of the architecture in some of these projects is very good. I counted three of the four projects with 60-foot buildings. What about the RFQ? It said 40-feet buildings. I agree with the NAPP, with Margo Park, with the 30 feet near the Lyon Gate. I'd like to see about a 135-foot buffer between our homes and whatever gets built.

I think there's some issues that we could really sit down and work on if we had a chance to. Right now, what I'm seeing is programs being handed to us. We have to make quick decisions. Our neighbors are going to see all four of these promotions for the next seven days. They're going to be available to the immediate neighbors, and we'll be back to you on the 6th with what our decisions are concerning which one's the best.

Thank you.

Toby Rosenblatt: Simon Haskell, Jim Salinas.

Millicent Vogurt: My name is Millicent Vogurt, and I'm here to read a statement from Supervisor Sue Bierman.

I urge you not to select the proposal for the Marriott Hotel at the Letterman complex site. I'm sure you are aware of the bitter labor dispute at the Yerba Buena Center Marriott Hotel downtown. But I want to make sure that you are aware of Marriott's nearly 20-year history of broken promises behind that struggle.

For the past two decades, I have been involved in shaping the Yerba Buena Gardens. I remember when Marriott was chosen in 1980 by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency to develop the big "jukebox hotel." One reason that Marriott was selected over competing hotel companies was Marriott's assurance that the hotel would be union if their workers chose to organize. I attended the Redevelopment Agency hearing in which Marriott's representative, David Jenkins, assured the commission of the Marriott's willingness to be a union hotel.

19 years later, Marriott has tried every trick in the book, including a seven-year legal battle, to renege on its commitment not to fight unionization. To this day, the company still refuses to sign a fair union contract with Local 2, which became the workers' representative in 1996.

Currently, the hotel is being investigated by the National Labor Relations Board for numerous, severe labor law violations, including the unfair firing of two union supporters. I strongly support the Marriott worker's right to a fair contract, and I have communicated this to the company. I've spoken out time and again at rallies in front of the hotel, and along with other community leaders, I recently met with the general manager, Hank Biddle, to ask him to settle the contract.

Marriott has been given numerous chances to live up to the pledge it made to San Francisco. Unfortunately, the company has not done so, prolonging a nasty, protracted labor dispute.

I urge you not to intensify that dispute by granting Marriott a hotel in the Presidio. Thank you for your consideration.

Jim Salinas: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and board members. I'm Jim Salinas. I'm a little confused this afternoon. I feel like I should be here as the president of the Recreation and Park Commission here in San Francisco when I see the open space issues. I feel those are the issues I would like to speak to you in regards to this afternoon.

But instead, I'm here as the president of the San Francisco Carpenter's Union, and I have the privilege this afternoon, which is not always a luxury for me, to speak on behalf of a relationship that spans at least two decades or more. That relationship is with the Shorenstein Group, who we believe to be a model for responsible corporate citizens, where it affects the communities in a positive manner.

The Shorenstein Group has a life-long commitment to ensuring that working men and women in San Francisco in and around the Bay Area are paid a decent wage and provided decent benefits. They also impact the community in a positive manner in that they make sure that the apprenticeship programs are open to those people such as myself who come from the more disadvantaged communities.

We have black and brown brothers and sisters who normally don't have the opportunity to get into these apprenticeship programs. But as a result of these programs, and the programs developed through the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, we have the ability, and you have the ability, and I'm hoping that the mission statement to which you spoke to earlier contains the objectives and the goals where those issues are concerned.

I would ask that this board consider and recognize the fact that the Shorenstein Group obviously has a longstanding track record, a very positive track record, and that we work together to ensure that this project comes in on time. And as always with the Shorenstein Group, it comes in on time and within budget.

So I implore this board to consider that. It truly makes an impact on San Franciscans and local people throughout the Bay Area where those apprenticeship programs are concerned. So I implore you to please take that into consideration when you ultimately make that decision.

Thank you for your time this afternoon. Thank you.

Toby Rosenblatt: Chuck Athert. And after him, Bill Huff.

Chuck Athert: Hi, my name's Chuck Athert. I'm a father of a one-year-old son, Jackson, and an employee at CNET for the past two years. I'm here to speak to CNET's commitment to its parent and employees. And it's demonstrated this commitment in many ways. When my son was born a year ago, I was given a week off to bond with my son and to care for my wife. I was also encouraged to take full use of my benefits under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Since, I've been able to take advantage of flexible work hours to allow me to attend my son's doctor's visits and check-ups. I've also been able to work from home when he's been sick, and I've not been able to come in, since both my wife and I work. But most importantly, I appreciate and I think it's a general appreciation, CNET's universal value that my most important job is one as a parent. And we're a young organization. A lot of young people. But CNET's demonstrated to me that as a parent, that's my number one job. Thank you.

Toby Rosenblatt: T. Gardner? Mike Casey?

T. Gardner: Hi, my name is T. Gardner, and I'm the manager of desktop support for CNET, and I'm here to talk about how CNET responds to its employees with diversity and social responsibility. Basically at this point, I've been an employee with CNET for just over two and a half years. During this time, I have not only been supported, but I've also been able to give support to the gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender community through CNET's vocal and constant force.

One of the things that we did in April of '97 is we were asked, when we came to CNET's management and asked them to support us marching with gay pride. Well, part of what happened with this is somebody had a great idea to support an outgoing group called Lyric, which is a gay youth organization. And what happened is we were able to raise a substantial amount of money, get them computers, get them networked, and provide them with the support they needed into the gay and lesbian community.

Part of also what happened is we asked CNET to provide us with an email listing which enables us to work together as a unit, providing support to CNET employees, reaching out into the community of CNET, as well as to the gay youth organization we've chosen to support. And we're constantly being encouraged to do this.

We've also been able to support each other emotionally in an ever-changing workforce. And one of the things we are also able to do is to constantly strive to keep reaching out in the community and let CNET's name be known as a diversity company.

One of the other things that I've been contemplating while being asked to do this is basically, the environment at CNET is so open and friendly that everybody is constantly encouraged to be who and what they are. And to show that in their artwork, for myself, in my management abilities. And to constantly strive to make CNET the best possible place including diversity and our social responsibilities to the community of San Francisco as well as the East Bay team members that are over there. Thank you for your time.

Toby Rosenblatt: Thank you. Mike Casey?

Mike Casey: Good afternoon, my name is Mike Casey. I'm president of the Hotel Worker's Union in San Francisco, Local 2. We've heard a lot about compatibility and synergy today in presentations, but I can't think of a proposal that is worse for the Presidio than the one that includes the Marriott Corporation. And in fact, the Walsh, Higgins proposal is a marriage of inconvenience in many ways for the Presidio.

It brings together two of the most notorious anti-union corporations in Northern California, VNH and the Marriott Corporation. Marriott's history in San Francisco, as Supervisor Bierman's letter referenced, is a history of broken promises. From 1980, when they initially said they would agree to contract neutrality, to 1996, when they finally had to recognize the union through a court order, that they have done everything since then to violate the law and harass workers for union activity. And you don't have to take my word for it.

In fact, over the course of the last 17 months, four investigators from the National Labor Relations Board have interviewed upwards of 60 or 70 workers at the Marriott. And they have discovered that Marriott is guilty of surveillance for union activity, prohibiting workers from even talking to other workers about the union, threatening workers for distribution of union literature, wearing union buttons and other union activity, soliciting workers to decertify the union. They held meetings making promises that workers would be richly rewarded for busting the union. They unlawfully withheld $1.5 million in wage improvements, and another half million dollars they owe the workers over benefit improvements. They've disciplined workers for union activity, and the list goes on and on and on.

Marriott is the epitome of a bad corporate citizen. They, despite their earnings of $12 billion last year nationally, they averaged pay $7.40 an hour. And where they can, they chisel workers out of their health and welfare benefits everywhere.

The Walsh, Higgins proposal presents a real threat to the serenity of the Presidio. We're appealing to you not to reward a corporate, law-breaking citizen like the Marriott Corporation from giving them a plum as this. So we appeal to you to do that. We also join our sisters and brothers in the building trades to support the Shorenstein proposal, and just so you know, we also have a good relationship, if you're intent on having a hotel here, with the Joie de Vivre Corporation, which has not done what Marriott has, and that's actually taken a much more pro-union, pro-employee attitude in the way in which they deal with employees. Thank you.

Toby Rosenblatt: Lynnel Minkens and then Sandy Lacy?

Lynnel Minkens: Good morning, my name is Lynnel Minkens. I'm a housekeeper at the moment at the Marriott Hotel. I've been at the Marriott Hotel for two years and about eight months. I just wan