New talent at Footprints Local

Elizabeth Skow, twenty-year San Franciscan and new Quesada Gardens block resident, is now writing and editing alongside Jeffrey Betcher (who is THRILLED!). Jeffrey writes:

It was thrilling enough when Liz moved in across the street from me a few months ago, because I knew that she is the kind of person you want living nearby: a caring, involved neighbor.

I had met her at a Bridgeview Garden gathering two years before, saw her reportage in the New Bay View Newspaper, and watched as she did a great story on Quesada Gardens co-organizer James Ross while earning her degree from San Francisco State University.

That was when she began to fall in love with the Quesada block, she said later, and set her mind to join the movement of positive change emerging here...as a resident.

Liz is a second generation journalist, whose work has appeared in the Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, and the San Mateo County Times. She grew up in New Hampshire, where her father, John Skow, a freelance magazine writer, taught her to write and to use a chainsaw, both skills she has found indispensable.

When the co-founders of the Network decided to start a vehicle for information about the positive things happening in our community, the involved community members worked together to deliver on that vision...and to earn your respect. That was 2006.

It has been a labor of love and volunteerism ever since. It has survived on the hope that it will generate small acts of kindness: perhaps you will forward this to a friend, get involved in something you might not know about otherwise, or express a feeling of pride about the place you live because of something you saw here.

The Bayview Footprints Network of Community Building Groups has never shied away from changing with the times. A deep community review of the network created changes we all are still benefiting from.

Now, we welcome Elizabeth Skow and the changes she will bring that will make this local news vehicle even better.

You can call it "the Opera House"

The Bayview Opera House Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre, originally known as the South San Francisco Opera House, is now known to locals simply as the Opera House. It is one of San Francisco's oldest theaters.

Located at 4705 3rd Street, nestled just a couple blocks from the Quesada Gardens in the heart of the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, the Opera House remains a historic treasure. Its original Douglas Fir floor, horseshoe balcony and forty-five foot stage proscenium are as charming as they were on opening day. Recent upgrades include a digital projector and an outdoor stage and courtyard.

A San Francisco's Masonic Lodge constructed the ornate Victorian building in 1888 as an "amusement center," and as part of a larger construction project that included a Masonic Temple adjacent to the theater.

The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of California, organized in 1850, oversaw sixteen "Subordinate Lodges" in San Francisco by the 1880's including the South San Francisco Lodge which met at Myrtle Hall on Railroad Avenue and at its 1528 Gerald Avenue headquarters. At that time, South San Francisco encompassed what is now Bayview Hunters Point, and Railroad Avenue was the name for the neighborhood's main road, now 3rd Street.

For their "amusement center," the Masons contracted with Henry Geilfuss, a German architect who moved to San Francisco in 1876. Geilfuss designed many structures in the City, notably the William Westerfeld House at 1198 Fulton, which stakes out a corner of Alamo Square Park. He is known for blending Italianate detail into Victorian design, and brought that sensibility to this new project by blending Italianate, Gothic and Stick styles.

After completing construction in 1888, the Masons called their new theater the South San Francisco Opera House, a name that is still written above the front entrance to the theater.

In its early years, the 300 seat theater hosted a number of dramas, minstrels and vaudeville acts that were well-known at the time. Among them was Gordon William Lilly's Pawnee Bill's Medicine Show, one of the first of the era's traveling exhibits that characterized the vanished American frontier in popular, if not accurate, ways.

David Belasco also presented work at the Opera House. The son of Sephardic Jews who had emigrated from London during the Gold Rush, Belasco was born in San Francisco. He learned his trade in the City's theaters before moving, at age 29, to New York City where he found fame as a producer, director and playwright.

Like any centenarian, the Opera House has seen its ups and downs, some of which trace the boom and bust cycles of the neighborhood in which it sits.

The first shows were provided by road companies that brought performers, costumes and scenery by horse-drawn wagon from wherever the previous theatrical run had been. The dominant form of entertainment in those days, these shows attracted patrons in large numbers. Opera House theater-goers arrived by horse and buggy dressed for a big night out. Intermissions were long enough for a ticket-holder to walk to the brewery, just across Railroad Avenue, for refreshments.

Changing times stalled legitimate theater at the Opera House for decades. When rail transportation became common, road companies booked venues based on railroad stop locations. The closest stop to the Opera House was a long two blocks away for companies transporting sets and costumes. When the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire destroyed most of the City's other theaters, road companies stopped coming altogether.

The Masons began using the Opera House as a community social hall through the war years when the neighborhood was experiencing an economic upswing associated with shipbuilding activity at Hunters Point Shipyard. When, after the war, business at the Shipyard fell off, the neighborhood, its residents and the Opera House all suffered. In 1965, the Masons ceased all operations at the building, and the threat that the building would be demolished became dire.

That same year, the Western Opera Theatre, part of the San Francisco Opera Center and sponsored by the Equal Opportunities Council, mounted shortened productions of The Barber of Seville and La boheme. Seventy-seven years after being built, the facility that has "Opera" as its middle name hosted its first traditional operas.

In this transitional moment, Ruth Williams stepped into leadership. A community resident, activist, playwright and actress, Williams played a key role both with staging productions at the Opera House and with saving the building from demolition. She was an influence on many other artists emerging at that time, including film star Danny Glover.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to rename the facility for Ruth Williams on December 7, 1995. Williams is commemorated with a large sculpted bust that sits on a terrace just outside the theater.

In subsequent years, the Opera House served primarily as an African American youth center. It has been operated by the nonprofit Bayview Opera House, Inc. since 1989 as one of six City-owned cultural centers providing low cost arts education and cultural enrichment to the City, and has received majority funding from the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Community groups such as Infinity Productions, Pathlight Productions and the Children's Mural Program kept the pulse of art and performance alive during difficult years with programs geared toward the African American community in Bayview Hunters Point. After a period of management that was questioned by government oversight and community members, the Opera House now seems to be entering a new era. The building has been renovated, inside and out, with historic preservation in mind.

New community-serving programming has been introduced at the facility in the past several years as San Franciscans are once again discovering and rediscovering this community treasure. In April of 2011, the Bayview Opera House became the neighborhood's first landmark to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, protecting the building from any future changes not authorized by the State Historic Preservation Office.

- Jeffrey Betcher

Pictured: The painters who did the exterior restoration pose at the community event celebrating their work.

Along with the Opera House, these other great Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood structures are also on the local list of historic places:

Albion Brewery, 881 Innes Avenue
Quinn House, 1562 McKinnon Avenue
Shipwrights House, 900 Innes Street Video
Sylvester House,1556 Revere Avenue

Studios at Hunters Point to open

The Hunters Point Shipyard Artists (HPSA) invites the public to the 20th annual Spring Open Studios on April 30th and May 1st, from 11 am to 6 pm. The event takes place in two studio locations in Bayview Hunters Point. Over 150 artists of all kinds will have work for sale, including sculpture, painting, ceramics, textiles, metal and stonework.

Free and abundant parking and free refreshments at many individual studios, as well as catered refreshments available for purchase.

The director of this year’s HPSA Spring Open Studios, Wendy Robushi said that this event sometimes draws over a thousand people. “HPSA Spring Open Studio was really the original Spring Open Studios–now everyone has events like this, but ours was one of the first,” Robushi said.

Each year the artists who wish to exhibit at the event pay a fee and somebody in the group comes forward to coordinate the event. It’s a big job, according to Robushi, and a paid contract position, but there is never enough money to make it a full-time job. She had the help of several volunteers, without whom, she says she couldn’t have done it. In years past the HPSA has depended on press releases, but this year they changed their tactics and sprang for a new website and paid advertisements.

The heyday of the event was during the dot com boom of the late nineties and early aughts, when so many people had money to throw around, Robushi said.

“I am optimistic that despite the economy, the ads and website will bring people to this event.”

HPSA is a grassroots collective of artists who rent studio space at the shipyard and at Islais Creek Studios nearby. The Spring Open Studio event is the collective’s main focus. This enables artists to show and sell their work. At one time, several galleries represented Robushi’s work, but the economic downturn has resulted in their closure. This is the case for many San Francisco artists, Robushi says, and that makes the Spring Open Studios even more important to the survival of art and artists.

The main location of the Shipyard artists is called The Point. Jacques Terizan, the first artist to lease space at the location, saw the potential to use the abandoned shipyard buildings as an artist colony. With help from his children and a coalition of community leaders and environmentalists, Terizan achieved his vision, and by the late ‘70’s, The Point was home to over 300 artists. Many of these artists were evicted and relocated to Islais Creek Studios, but bringing them back to the shipyard area is part of a master redevelopment plan.

Seth Wachtel receives community award

Seth Wachtel, Professor of Architecture and Community Design at the University of San Francisco, was awarded the Karl Paige & Annette Smith Community Leadership Award by the Quesada Gardens Initiative on Saturday April 16th in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood. The presentation took place at the Bridgeview Teaching and Learning Garden, the newest project in Quesada Gardens Initiative’s network of gathering spaces, gardens and art projects.

Wachtel has been central to the development of the new project, located at the intersection of Bridgeview Avenue and Newhall Street, working with community leaders and USF students to design and build a showcase garden and gathering space on a seemingly unusable parcel of city land. He has been involved with Quesada Gardens Initiative since 2006, and has been a key leader in many projects that the grassroots group has undertaken.

“Seth embodies the best of USF’s spirit of community involvement,” said Jeffrey Betcher, Quesada Gardens Initiative’s Co-Founder and Organizer. “He has made it possible for us to turn our community’s vision for itself into practical reality.”

Wachtel is the Director of the Architecture and Community Design Program in the Department of Art and Architecture and is Co-Founder of the Garden Project Living-Learning Community at USF. He has worked in architecture and construction in India, Colombia, Haiti, Israel, Mexico, Nicaragua, Zambia, and the San Francisco Bay Area. His focus is low-cost building and urban landscape in underserved communities, and the development of innovative construction techniques that produce sustainable and aesthetically and culturally appropriate buildings for human environments.

Wachtel runs USF’s Community Design Outreach, International Projects, and Construction Innovation courses which provide students the opportunity to work on real world design and build projects for underserved communities both locally and internationally. He is also a recipient of the USF Service-Learning Community Outreach Award, the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Service Award, and a nominee for the Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award.

Photo: William Campos

Images from Bridgeview event

All photos by William Campos. From top: Jeffrey Betcher, Annette Smith, Eliot and dad Seth Wachtel after Seth wins the Karl Paige and Annette Smith Community Leadership Award. Annette at the mic. Bob Grover, the Mayor of Latona. Brandon Oldham, USF community liaison. Chris Waddling, Palou Garden project leader talks with Seth and Elliott. Irene Molinari, born on Latona (literally), and a powerful community leader. Joel and Mary McClure, Bridgeview Garden project leaders share some love with neighbors. Ralph Schardt, Michael Lee Environmental Foundation Executive Director champions the community. Quesada Gardens neighbors and staffers Tony "Green Goatee" Tarket, Jacob Watta, and Tom Galante.

Bridgeview Garden grows, community celebrates

About fifty Bayview neighbors and their friends gathered on Saturday April 16th to celebrate progress on the new gathering space and entryway to the Bridgeview Teaching and Learning Garden.

Annette Smith, Quesada Gardens Initiative’s co-founding gardener and the organization’s board of directors Chair Emeritus, began the event with an invocation. She thanked all those who support the Quesada Gardens Initiative, the grassroots group that coordinates what has become a network of gardens, gathering spaces and public art projects in Bayview.

Annette and Jeffrey Betcher, Quesada Gardens Initiative organizer, presented Professor Seth Wachtel, from University of San Francisco, the Karl Paige and Annette Smith Community Leadership Award.

“I feel like I should be giving you an award,” Seth said to the group. “USF students learn about designing public spaces by beginning with the people who live nearby. They just don’t experience that approach anywhere else.”

Seth was the first faculty from the university to make contact with the Quesada Gardens Initiative, through a since-graduated student, Dionisia Montanez, who returned to the project she had worked so hard on in prior years so that she could applaud her former professor. Many current USF students helped with the event, including service-learning student liaison Brandon Oldham who talked about how meaningful their months of service in the community had been.

Joel and Mary McClure, Bridgeview Drive residents who have led the Bridgeview project for many years, and who sit on Quesada Gardens Initiative’s board of directors, talked about how their project got started when they saw what was happening a block away on Quesada and asked neighbors for help.

“Quesada Gardens is our mooring,” Joel said. “It’s been a lot of work to create this garden and gathering space, but these things can’t happen without the support of organized neighbors.”

Ralph Schardt, Executive Director of the Michael Lee Environmental Foundation, the group that footed the largest part of the materials bill for the Bridgeview Garden, spoke at the event.

“The Quesada Gardens Initiative is a good investment,” he said. “Communities have an important role to play in defining their own environments. Groups like this accomplish just that for pennies on the dollar.”

Organizers who contributed to the event include Corine Pettus who made two of her famous pies, sweet potato and buttermilk, Tony Tarket who shared garden education materials, Jacob Watta who promoted the group’s volunteer program, and Tom Galante who organized the food and lemonade tables.

Jim Ansbro, a leader with the Latona Garden group, contributed Easter gifts for young visitors. Irene Molinari and Bob Grover, also from Latona, attended.

Balboa High School student Hean He, who volunteered with the Bridgeview Project many times, passed out brochures. Will Campos, a young photographer in the neighborhood and frequent volunteer on Quesada, took pictures.

Bayview contractor, Vidal Perez, who built the new gathering space with his team, also attended the event.

James Ross & the "Kentucky Gardens Initiative?"

You can take the man out of Quesada Gardens, but not Quesada Gardens out of the man. At least that appears to be the case with James Ross, who sends regards to his Bayview friends from Kentucky where he is spreading the love of community gardening and community media.

Those following the growth of the Quesada Gardens Initiative in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood will remember that James, along with his family, moved back to his hometown of Danville, Kentucky a year ago.

James is still remembered and missed on Quesada. He is a co-founder of QGI, was the coordinator of the Baybloom Backyard Gardens project, and became the best organizer any group could ask for. No one will be surprised to learn that he is doing community gardening work in Kentucky, emphasizing the value of backyard and small-space gardens.

In recent days, James and other community members, all part of a group known as The Danville Garden Club in Central Kentucky, planted ten trees. James is pictured above, pausing a moment during the planting.

He is also talking with other local-living and food production organizers near him on a new radio show called "Gardening with James" on WHBN AM every Saturday at 8am and online at hometownlive [dot] net. The show is designed along the same lines as "Life on the Block," a weekly Public Access Cable television show he produced in San Francisco.

After the first episode of his new show, James was stoked. "It was a blast," he said, "talking and teaching listeners how to grow a Butterfly Garden in their own backyard without having to spend a lot of money."

James, his wife Lisa and their sons Isaiah and Apollos are all well. Contact them by email.

For more:
James Ross and Quesada Gardens by Elizabeth Stow December 2008
Ross family on the move April 2010

"Bayview is..." our library

The soon-to-be-demolished Bayview Branch Library on 3rd Street at Revere was full of life once again on Saturday, April 2nd as neighborhood residents squeezed in to celebrate the contribution of the old building and library staff through the years.

Participants could be heard sharing stories about experiences at the library, and expressing some sadness that the building where those memories began would disappear. At the same time, excitement about a new, larger building was evident everywhere.

Linda Brooks-Burton, longtime Managing Librarian, and her colleague Jessie Wylie orchestrated a series of performances featuring young musicians and dancers from the community. With a backdrop of books and historical photographs, Mary Booker delivered two spoken word performances, Supervisor Malia Cohen spoke, and a dance band swooned into the late afternoon. A BAYCAT videographer was on hand to record reminiscences about the library.

See below for a few images from the event.

Images from library closing

SF Wholesale Product Market - Bayview treasure

Much of the business of the San Francisco Wholesale Produce Market is done old style: with a handshake. - Michael Janis, from a SECF presentation

The San Francisco Wholesale Produce Market will be improved in phases in the years to come, enhancements that include construction on the four main buildings on Jerrold Avenue, and adding a new parcel at 901 Rankin, according to Brian Liles, an architect workin on the project.

Michael Janis, General Manager of the Wholesale Produce Market, one of Bayview's most unique assets, brought Liles, Monica Melkesian (Project Manager) and Helen Sess (Board Member) to formally announce the project to the community at the SECF Commission's February 10th meeting.

Here is the full text of the presentation as captured by Carla Vaughn, Commission Secretary.

Commission Chair Kennedy introduced and welcomed Mr. Michael Janis, General Manager of the San Francisco Wholesale Produce Market.

Mr. Janis thanked Commissioner Kennedy and the Commission on behalf of the entire San Francisco Wholesale Produce Market family. He advised this was
the first public presentation of their Retention and Expansion Project and they thought it was important to be at the Commission for the first presentation.

Mr. Janis introduced SF Wholesale Produce Market board member, Helen Sess, Monica Melkesian, Project Manager, and Brian Liles, architect of Jackson Liles Architect. Mr. Janis introduced the Commission to the market and shared the vision of the market.

Given the unique hours of operation many people are not familiar with what the market does.

The market operates in the middle of the night and very few people get to see the market. Fresh produce is provided in many different ways, through neighborhood grocers, through large independent grocery stores like Mollie Stone's, through some unique businesses like SPUD, which is a home delivery company, much like the old milkman use to do. What is really unique about the market is a product that is literally cut in Salinas today would be on sale in our market tomorrow morning. The market family is a very unique one that operates in the middle of the night and is made up of 30 individual businesses that all have one thing in common and they are joined at the hip around fresh produce. They compete against each other but they work together collectively. There are about 650 people who work on the market as part of our market family and they work within about 30 merchant vendor businesses.

The customers are extremely unique and varied such as JB Cafe, a small cafe, independent grocers such as Mollie Stone's Market that has eleven stores throughout the Bay Area and they just added a store in the Castro. There are stores like Good Life Grocery in Potrero Hill and also in Bernal Heights that have been a customer of the market for many years. There are stores throughout the Mission such as Valencia Farmers Market. The customer base varies in the hundreds upon hundreds primarily in San Francisco but throughout the Bay Area. The system in the market is unique also in that it is very old style and much of the buying and selling is done by handshakes. Many of the relationships go back many, many years. Many of our growers have been selling to our vendors for literally generations. One of the most unique aspects of the market is some of the relationships we have beyond buying and selling. The one we are pointing out here is with the Food Bank. Our relationship with the Food Bank is a very special one. It goes back many, many years. It resulted last year in over a million pounds of fresh produce was donated from the market to Food Bank and that resulted in about a million three hundred thousand meals that San Franciscan's were able to benefit from with our partnership with the Food Bank. The Food Bank trunk is literally in the market every morning and goes from business to business picking up produce. Commissioners Chung and LeBlanc were in the market this week and got to see a little bit of that. If any of the other Commissioners would ever like to see the market we would be delighted to provide a tour.

The market family is about 30 businesses. We have businesses that are over 100 years old and we have those that have formed within the last decade. Some of the examples of our business Washington Vegetable was founded in 1931 and they were founded literally on Washington Street at the original market district in San Francisco which is now the Embarcadero Centers. Earls Organic is another one of our very notable businesses. He started his business in 1988 literally with a desk and on his own.

He now has about 45 employees and he is in 20,000 square feet of space. Greenleaf is probably our most visible business on the market. It is also our largest business. Many of you have probably seen their white trucks running around town with the green lettering on it with jingles about food and produce and things like that. They started their business over 35 years ago in the market and it has an incredible story. The founding of it, the motivation was literally to save a commune in San Francisco. The home where the commune was based was going to be sold and the people thought they needed to save the home and they went into the produce business. They now have over 150 people working at Greenleaf and they have a national reputation.

Our vendors work very hard to bring a wide variety of produce to you. It ranges the gamut from international produce like tomatillos and wild mushrooms to conventional to organics. We are fortunate that Earls Organic who I mentioned earlier is one of the foremost organic businesses not only in the Bay Area but really on the West Coast and we are very lucky that he founded the business on our market. If you are in the market in August you’ll see incredible varieties and selections of tomatoes. Even this time of year Commissioner Chung and Commissioner LeBlanc commented about the variety of tomatoes they saw. In August when it is really coming locally you see even more.

THE MARKET TODAY: Mr. Janis provided an overview of the current market location. The market is made up of five major buildings bonded by Rankin and Toland streets. The newest building which was purchased in 2000 and Whole Foods Market has their northern California central distribution center based in that building, as well as Earls Organic. Whole Foods is opening their newest store in San Francisco on Monday in the Haight on Stanyon Street.

The buildings were brought on line in 1963 and although they are serving the market very well it is time to look to the future and look to improvements. The activities in the buildings are very intense. Inside the buildings and on the front docks are where the sales actually take place. In between the buildings is where forklifts go back and forth, hand trucks and product is moved between vendors either selling to each other or loading customer trucks.

VISION: Brian Liles provided details of a proposal for the market’s vision for the future. The proposal is a phase program of improvements that will be implemented over many years. These improvements incorporate construction on the four main building sites and the addition of an adjacent parcel at 901 Rankin. 901 Rankin is viewed to be the first phase of the proposed project and will include warehouse space and associated office space. In addition the market would like to find a way to include a demonstration kitchen and associated meeting space. The subsequent phases of the project on the market will be on the market’s existing site. These improvements will occur on the four main building sites, and will also include a small marshalling yard. 2101 Jerrold will remain as it is since it was just recently constructed and finished in 2000.

The latter phases of construction that take place after 901 Rankin will either renovate the existing buildings providing grade level parking at the current location and under freeway 280, or provide new construction with rooftop parking. At the completion of these improvements depending on whether new construction or renovation takes place the market will increase in size from approximately 100,000 to 200,000 square feet. Inside the new or renovated buildings will be the infrastructure to support a vibrant market place where produce will be displayed, purchased and loaded. The building improvements will include a durable flexible warehouse space, adjacent office space above, and a dock area below. All of the building improvements whether renovated or new will have seismic strengthening new building systems such as, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing. The improvements will meet lead silver standards for sustainability in energy use. Key features will be renewable energy, such as solar heating on the roofs, or possibly wind energy. Day lighting would be provided by sky lights and clear story windows, construction waste management and recycling, use of regional building materials, bicycle accommodations and potentially a green roof. The focus will be to provide functional, durable infrastructure that will serve the market far into the future.

Mr. Liles reviewed the proposed site and roadway improvements. Currently Jerrold Avenue, which approaches the market on either end, splits and public traffic circulates around a median of market buildings and some grade level parking. Industry Street which is north of the market does not connect through to Toland Avenue. Innes Street which is just to the north of the market does not connect through to Toland Avenue, and neither does Kirkwood Avenue which is just to the south of the street. This limits their overall utilization into the surrounding transportation grid. The conditions of Kirkwood and Innes are also substandard lacking curbs, gutters, sidewalks, and street lighting with the street paving actually being in fairly poor condition. All of these conditions result in their underutilization. Rankin Street to the north of Jerrold which picks up at the east end of Innes and connects back to Jerrold Avenue is quite narrow and not very useable. Loading and other market activities happen right out on the apron of the existing buildings creating a mixture of public traffic and market operations. It is important to realize that many of these market functions happen throughout the night when it is dark and visibility is limited. Given these existing conditions the market is proposing a number of improvements to the streets adjacent to it. These improvements are intended to work in concert with each other and to provide a new and improved overall transportation network. The market proposes to create a new intersection at Innes Avenue and

Toland, and another new intersection at Kirkwood Avenue and Toland. These two intersections will increase the connectivity and utilization of these important street assets. There will be a new alignment connecting the east end of Innes to Jerrold Avenue, widening that connection and making it useful again. That alignment will run roughly parallel to the Cal Train spurs.

The market proposes to improve the conditions of all of these surrounding streets the actual way that they are built. With the sum of these improvements the market proposes that public traffic will be rerouted around the market utilizing these improved street areas. People will be able to flow from Jerrold up and around Innes and back, and do likewise with Kirkwood. Both Kirkwood and Innes will be two way streets. With this rerouting of traffic the market seeks to minimize the conflict between the public traffic and market operations.

These improvements will create a more typical street experience which willreduce confusion about which roadways are intended for public traffic and which areas are intended for market use. The improvements will route all of thetraffic around the market and vehicles inside the market will be limited for those necessary for market operations. In tandem with the proposed improvements will be two new entry and orientation points at either end of the market at Jerrold and Rankin, and Jerrold and Toland. It will allow you to come in and enter the market and gain orientation to it’s’ buildings and the marshalling space in between.

Mr. Liles provided images related to the proposed details of the rebuilding of those streets. The rebuilt streetscape is proposed to include new sidewalks, curbs, and gutters on both sides of the street. A better environment will be created for both pedestrians and motorists alike. Improvements additionally will provide street trees, additional landscaping, storm water control elements, and street lighting. All of these improvements will make the streets more attractive, useable, and sustainable. Mr. Liles provided images of new curb, gutter, sidewalk, street trees, and new paving. Another image showed the current condition of the area.

Commissioner LeBlanc asked if the traffic improvements would be completed first.

Mr. Janis responded it was anticipated the road improvements would be completed within the first phase. The process will provide flexibility and allow for change if necessary.

Commissioner LeBlanc suggested notifying the Commission when it was time to go before the Planning Department so they could lend their support.

Monica Melkesian said the market was in the process of preparing their environmental evaluation and anticipate it will be published in the next month or two. After the completion of the environmental evaluation process there will be a move forward to finalize the project approvals. This is a long term plan of 10 to 15 years and it is envisioned that the first phase of construction will be occurring in 2012.

Commissioner Chung thanked Michael Janis for the tour of the market and asked what the budget was for the project.

Monica Melkesian said they were in the preliminary stages of development of the project and were currently working to identify various financing vehicles to fund the project development. When the project is fully built out this will be an investment into the community of about 90 to 100 million dollars.

Commissioner LeBlanc reported that during the tour she learned that although the market is on city property their funding is raised by private funding so it will not affect the city budget. Commissioner LeBlanc suggested they talk to people in the hospitality industry since San Francisco is the home of many restaurants. Mr. Janis thanked the Commission and invited the other Commissioners to tour the market.

Toye Moses, Executive Director, thanked Mr. Janis for providing healthy food at the SECFC Health Fairs and had a question regarding the market’s ability to provide jobs to the community and reduce the unemployment rate that plagues the 94124 area.

Mr. Janis said approximately 650 people work at the market through the private businesses. About 250 people are San Franciscans and within that group over half are people from the Mission, Bay View, and Visitation Valley. Mr. Janis said there are opportunities to increase employment. However, the challenge at hand is that the businesses are fairly small and the size of their Training and HR departments are minimal compared to a large national retailer that has that infrastructure. The market is working with the City to identify partners that can work with the market to increase the number of people hired from the community.

Director Moses commented regarding the produce being sold on San Bruno Avenue and Mission Street. He asked if the market could do something to help the Commission promote small businesses on Third Street.

Mr. Janis said several months ago Jacob Moody was here for SEFA (Southeast Food Access Working Group), an organization co-chaired by Mr. Janis and Mr. Moody, whose priority it is to increase fresh foods into the retail base here in the Bay View. It is frustrating to those at the market to have so much produce right here in the community, however at a retail level the access is limited.

SEFA is working on three or four different initiatives that range from working with FoodsCo with their existing store, as well as looking at the opportunities to enlarge that store. SEFA has been supportive of Fresh and Easy coming in, which will be opening up this year. The other piece of the puzzle that SEFA has focused on is SuperSave. There is a tremendous opportunity with SuperSave given that they have been in the community for many years. It has a very strong infrastructure and there is a tremendous opportunity for that store to be repositioned for a significant amount of retail outlet for produce.

The other area is that we do have many merchants that shop in the market today that have stores in the Mission or other neighborhoods in San Francisco that are doing very well focusing on produce. Working with the City through the Office of Economic and Workforce Development we can make sure those retailers are aware of opportunities here in Bay View. We absolutely do see part of our role is to try to increase the amount of access to fresh and healthy foods here in the Bay View.

Commissioner Kennedy said the process of getting anything built in San Francisco is horrendous, however she is delighted that they will be looking at hiring individuals from the community. She asked if they were strictly wholesale.

Mr. Janis said the vast majority of their business is business to business, however they do have consumers come down and buy for events, or church groups and as long as people know it is a wholesale environment they are more than welcome.