A Brief History of Ferries on the Bay...
Waterfront Design Roundtable
So You Want to be a Travel Book Writer
Good News for Port Sonoma
Water Transit Agency Sets First Meeting Date
Bay Crossings Reader of the Month: Denis Ko, Harbor Bay stalwart
Thousands of Bay Area commuters to San Quentin? 
Bay Crossings Photo Contest
Our Ferries a' Buildin'
Waterfront Design Roundtable

Getting The Bay Area Waterfront Shipshape

Roma Design Group, one of the premier urban design firms in the nation, has agreed to sponsor a series of roundtable discussions on the renaissance of the San Francisco Bay waterfront. The inaugural meeting took place at a luncheon meeting on October 16, 2000 at the Roma Design Group offices in North Beach and included the following participants:

Boris Dramov, President of Roma Design Group

Richard Springwater, Partner, Wilson Equity Office

Will Travis, Executive Director of San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC)

Jim Chappell, President of San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR)

Jack F. Bair, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, SF Giants,

Peter Victor, Vice President, Office Leasing, Boston Properties

James W. Haas, Chair of the Committee to Remove the Embarcadero Freeway and citizen activist

Diane Y. Oshima, Manager, Waterfront Planning, Port of San Francisco

The meeting first concentrated on the history of the development of the waterfront over the last decade. With the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway in 1991,a major barrier was removed and the City became reconnected to its waterfront. Now there are broad walks for pedestrians and cyclists, and a palm-lined boulevard. A spacious new plaza links the Ferry Building to Market Street. Historic street cars connect Fisherman’s Wharf to the Ferry Building, where new ferry docks will restore it as a major regional ferry terminal. The freeway removal and the building of the new Embarcadero Roadway set the stage for the renaissance of San Francisco’s waterfront. A new ballpark has been built along the waterfront and the first season has been successfully concluded. An exciting process is beginning that will benefit the entire urban environment, including the emergence of the new Gap headquarters, the new Muni hotel, the renovation of the Ferry Building and Pier One, and the evolving South Beach neighborhood.

South Beach gradually became established and now thrives with the ballpark. Similar success stories are envisioned with the upcoming cruise terminal and renovation of the Ferry Building.

The Port of San Francisco Waterfront Land Use Plan that came about in January 2000 was a breakthrough. The Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), the Port of San Francisco, the State Land Commission, the environmental community, the business community along with others collaborated on this plan which was designed to provide a context for planning and development along the San Francisco waterfront. It consists of some very general criteria and policies that each of the organizations brought to the table. For example, BCDC head Will Travis wanted "the Bay to be a little bigger and (have more) public access to the waterfront. (With this plan) we have something that provides the flexibility and will allow those individual visions as they come forth and the waterfront to be dynamic and change over time".

The participants agreed that no single project is responsible for the exciting changes happening along the waterfront. Rather, a series of planning efforts coupled with the earthquake set the stage. Added to this is the involvement of the community and its push for diversity. Such community involvement made the process take longer than many would have liked but all agree that the result is a lot richer and worth the extra effort.

Following are excerpts from the discussion:

Community Process Leads to Diversity

Boris Dramov: From a strategy point of view, this waterfront was not created by one thing. Its diversity is what distinguishes it. I was in Bilbao recently, which was a phenomenal project that the Guggenheim did in that industrial city. They were really looking at transforming this industrial riverfront and came up with a great idea which was to join with the Guggenheim and build a phenomenal structure. And to the greatest degree, it’s been that single act that helped start things off. That’s not what happened in San Francisco. In San Francisco, we have housing. We have some offices. We have a ballpark. We have historic buildings. It’s been a very different process. And as much as I do think that the ballpark has been a phenomenal addition to the waterfront, consider if you had built a ballpark with nothing around it in the middle of an industrial area. Instead, the Giants came into an area that already had many things going on and added to it. San Francisco, from the beginning, didn’t go for the single fix, for example with a convention center on the waterfront, the Sydney Opera House on the waterfront, the Guggenheim on the waterfront, the festival marketplace on the waterfront. Diversity takes longer but the result is a lot richer. South Beach took a while and we see that South Beach works really well with the ballpark. The cruise terminal will come in and the freeway removal and all of that but what distinguishes San Francisco to a great degree has been this process that has allowed a very significant amount of diversity to be built in.