Mills megamall fails scrutiny

Supes reject feasibility but developer threatens ballot battle

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, led by its president, Aaron Peskin, voted 9 - 1 to reject the fiscal feasibility of the Mills Corporation's proposed shopping mall and office park for historic Piers 27 - 31. Mills is now attempting to evade scrutiny and threatening to spend millions on a measure for the November ballot to overturn the Supervisors' decision.

The Sierra Club and a citywide coalition of neighborhood groups, environmental organizations, and local businesses known as Citizens to Save the Waterfront have been deeply concerned with the Mills proposal for Piers 27 - 31 since 2001, when the Port of San Francisco narrowly chose it over a more recreation-oriented alternative. While paying lip-service to recreation, the Mills project has continued to be primarily a massive mall with up to 45 chain stores and 165,000 square feet of planned private office space - nearly one-third the size of the Transamerica Pyramid. Despite requests from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, Mills has also failed to commit to adequate testing and safeguards for the public in a proposed marine-recreation area, where a wastewater overflow pipe discharges sewage and stormwater.

A high-turnover 415-car valet-parking garage proposed for the inside of the historic piers has also generated opposition from environmental and transit advocates such as the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and Walk San Francisco, who argue that the mall's thousands of daily car trips would seriously impair the many existing recreational users of the restored Embarcadero walkway and Bay Trail.

In short, this is a struggle not just over one project, but over the future of San Francisco's historic waterfront and the efforts to revive it and gain public access to the water's edge.

Under San Francisco's 2004 Fiscal Feasibility and Responsibility Ordinance (adopted in part as a response to the tens of millions of dollars wasted on the San Francisco Airport's failed runways-in-the-Bay proposal), large city projects getting significant public subsidies are now subject to financial review and approval by the Board of Supervisors before proceeding through the regulatory process. Under this law, the Port of San Francisco submitted the financial terms of the proposed Mills project to the Board in September, requesting approval for the project to proceed.

On Oct. 17 the Board's Government Audits and Oversight Committee held a four-hour hearing on the project's finances. Representatives of the Sierra Club, the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, the San Francisco Democratic Party, and dozens of other organizations, as well as numerous individual community members, testified overwhelmingly against the project.

Former Mayor Art Agnos made his first City Hall appearance in over a decade to voice his strong opposition. As mayor, Agnos made the historic decision to tear down the broken Embarcadero Freeway after the Loma Prieta earthquake - a decision largely credited with sparking the reinvigoration of the San Francisco waterfront that continues today.

The next day the Supervisors voted 9 - 1 to reject the plan's fiscal feasibility. The Port Commission must now decide whether to proceed with the controversial proposal despite the clear opposition from the Supervisors, who must ultimately approve any lease. Mills' exclusive right to negotiate for Piers 27 - 31 expires on March 31, and the Commission must decide then either to renew Mills' contract or to start fresh by issuing a new Request for Proposals for a real recreation project.

WhatYouCanDo

For more information about the Mills project controversy and the latest waterfront news, visit the website of Citizens to Save the Waterfront or call (415) 566-5184.

To join in the San Francisco Group's efforts to stop the Mills mall and to revive the waterfront, contact Cathleen Sullivan at (510) 848-0800, ext. 316, or email cathleen-at-sfbaysc.org