On the Waterfront
It took us awhile, but we think we finally got a handle on the all the hubbub over the plan to build that shopping mall/YMCA at Piers 27-31. Which is a good thing because yesterday, the Board of Supervisors voted the sucker down. There goes four years of planning and non-existent fund raising.
Our drama begins with Aaron Peskin pulling out a rarely used, little known ordinance that ruled that any huge development has to be re-examined and analyzed part-way into the development to check on its economic feasibility. Peskin, whose district covers the area being discussed, has been a long-time critic of the plan, as have most of the other Supervisors. Ever since the plan was announced in those halcyon days of 2001, the usual squeaky wheels have been squeaking about the usual things and got the Supervisors to listen. Never let it be said that your Board of Supervisors won't waste a good opportunity to get more Working Class Hero bona fides.
Anyways, as the plan was being analyzed, it came out that the YMCA, who are supposedly partnering with Mills Corp. (a shopping mall development company), had raised no money in the four years since the deal was made. That’s no money as in bupkus, zilch, nada. And it also turns out they're not even on the contract. Needless to say, something smells rotten about all of this and it ain't the Bay.
Obviously, the financing to this thing is looking pretty iffy. So iffy that an analyst for the city crunched the numbers and recommended that the plan be dropped. In response, Mills Corp., basically said there was nothing to worry about, they got it covered-- move along, nothing to see. 'Cause they got major cash flow and they'll be fronting the money for the YMCA. Mills even offered to pay back the city $2.1 million in rent credits as a way of, well, buying everyone off so the plan wouldn’t be examined. When that failed, they cranked up the P.R. and put out a full-page ad blasting Aaron Peskin-- in the New York Times. For some crazy reason, that backfired and only pissed Aaron off more. (Note to Mills: next time you run an ad in the paper, call him short. He loves that!) They also held a rally on Monday accusing opponents of the plan of wanting to shoot the deal down because they’re all a bunch of uptight white people who don't want gang-bangers and wanna-be gang bangers coming into their 'hood. We love when shopping mall developers get all Do The Right Thing. Said a feisty Aaron Peskin in response: "You can run but you can't hide."
The Port Commission, however, is claiming that if the deal doesn't go through, they'll be stuck because they were planning on using the money gained from the development to help pay for the rest of the port. After all, politically correct abandoned lots, which this city has in major abundance, don't have the skills to pay the bills. Gavin is, of course, nowhere to be heard from.
This whole thing started way back in the glory days of 2001. At the time, there were two competing proposals: one by Mills Corp and the YMCA, the other by Chelsea Piers of New York. The advisory group looking into the matter recommended the Chelsea Piers option because it was more financially sound and better thought through. So the Port Commission went with the other option. This came after a huge and pretty fierce battle in which supporters of Mills Corp. criticized supporters of the other option as being too Yuppie. But the main reason why the Port Commission voted for the Mills proposal was at the behest of Willie who did what he usually did-- twisted a few arms, made a phone calls, bought a few people off. It was said that Willie pushed the Mills option because they were going to help with the building of the ill-fated and long-forgotten new Niners stadium and wanted to make them happy to keep them interested. And so much for that.
So, in short, what you have is a half-assed plan put together by a half-corrupt Mayor that winds up falling apart because the half-baked financing causes a snag that's jumped upon by the half-sane progressive community and half-competent Board of Supervisors to prevent it from happening. In other words, just like everything else that happens in this city.
Right now, Mills is considering their options. Where it all stops, nobody knows.