Warriors' S.F. arena plan shrinks again 3rd proposal won't keep Warriors' top critics at bay

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It's lower, slimmer and greener - and still facing a fight.

As opponents vow to put the Golden State Warriors' plans for an 18,000-seat waterfront arena in San Francisco on the ballot, the team has put its design on a diet.

The changes, which have been in the works for months, include lopping 15 feet off the edge of the roofline, increasing the amount of public open space and lowering the public plazas to create a gradual slope of greenery that the NBA team likens to a smaller version of Dolores Park on the water.

"We've slimmed down the arena to make room for enough public open space to fit three Union Squares," team spokesman Nathan Ballard said of the updated design, which is to be released publicly Tuesday.

Much of that open space comes in the form of plazas and grass-planted roofs covering a practice facility, 500-space parking garage and fire station. There is also a spiraling walkway around the arena's exterior that would lead to a lookout deck and pass a massive window to allow the public to look in and spectators to look out at the Bay Bridge.

The results are unlikely to mollify the project's fiercest critics, but the nips and tucks expand the open space to cover 60 percent of the proposed arena site at Piers 30-32, a pair of aging, city-owned piers cemented together decades ago to form a 13-acre concrete slab just south of the Bay Bridge.

Aerial view of the Golden State Warriors proposed arena and neighboring development across the Embarcadero. The team's redesign being released Tuesday includes trimming the perimeter height of the arena and lowering public plazas to make them more welcoming to pedestrians. less Aerial view of the Golden State Warriors proposed arena and neighboring development across the Embarcadero. The team's redesign being released Tuesday includes trimming the perimeter height of the arena and ... more Photo: Warriors/Snohetta/steelblue Photo: Warriors/Snohetta/steelblue Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Warriors' S.F. arena plan shrinks again 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

A little off the sides

Design 3.0, as the Warriors call it, trims back the height of the arena itself, originally planned for 135 feet. In a previous design tweak, the team had already lowered the roof to 125 feet. Now, it still would rise to 125 feet in the central portion but be shaved down to 110 feet around the perimeter to cut back on the height seen from street level.

Other changes, including a new plaza on the northwest corner of the site where the entrance to a parking garage had been in the previous version, also came in response to critiques from neighbors and agencies that will have to approve the project. The team is facing an aggressive timetable to obtain permits and complete construction in time for the 2017-18 NBA season, which starts in late October. Its lease at Oracle Arena in Oakland runs out in summer 2017.

Initially, the northwest corner of Piers 30-32, now home to burger joint Red's Java House, was going to be a crowded pinch point during the expected 200 events per year at the arena. Pedestrians coming from the Ferry Building, Embarcadero BART station or a nearby Muni stop would have been funneled up a 37-foot-high staircase as VIP cars crossed the sidewalk a few feet away to enter the parking garage.

Garage entrance moving

Now, in the third iteration of the Warriors' design - the previous tweaks were in May - the garage entrance has been moved mid-block, away from pedestrians. In its place is a plaza almost the size of Willie Mays Plaza, the popular pre-game gathering spot in front of the San Francisco Giants' nearby AT&T Park, backed by a restaurant with some outdoor seating.

Rather than a big staircase, spectators would amble up a gently sloping shop-lined path with a switchback or take a modified staircase. Red's, as planned, would be moved to the southwest corner of the site. Hard-surfaced terraces on the southern side have been replaced with sloping grass.

Uncovering the bay

Portions of the piers would also be carved out, reducing how much of the bay is covered. The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which regulates development along the bay, is expected to welcome that change. Its staff also had called for the heights of public spaces to be lowered to make them more accessible.

The roof over the practice facility, for example, was going to be 55 feet high, meaning the public space atop it was about five stories in the air. By using a more expensive roof support, the team brought the height down to 37 feet.

"Between the compressing and the carving and sort of shrinking of the arena ... we had a level of comfort that this project, from a design perspective, was going in the right direction," said Brad McCrea, director of regulatory affairs at the conservation commission, which is one of the agencies that must issue a permit for the project.

The commission's staff still has concerns about the number of vehicles using the parking garage. The Bay Conservation and Development Commission's influential design review board, as well as the full commission, which includes East Bay members reluctant to see the team leave Oakland, haven't reviewed the new design yet.

Focusing on critics

The design modifications are unlikely to sway the arena's most forceful critics, including former Mayor Art Agnos, who contends the Warriors' billionaire owners, Joe Lacob, a partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Peter Guber, an entertainment mogul and part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, are interlopers using basketball as a Trojan horse for a large real estate grab along the waterfront.

"It just sounds like window dressing," Agnos said of the design changes. "The bottom line is this is a mega real estate project."

Besides the arena, the $1 billion project includes two 105-foot hotel towers, a 175-foot condominium tower and about 120,000 square feet of retail space spread across Piers 30-32 and a 2.3-acre site across the Embarcadero now used as a parking lot. The new design makes no changes to the development planned on the parking lot, officially called Seawall Lot 330. Both sites are owned by the city.

Neighbors' complaints

Some neighbors, including retired City Administrator Rudy Nothenberg, oppose the project, saying it will block views, overstress the city's transit system, and worsen traffic and noise.

Lawrence Stokus, a retired mortgage broker who rents an apartment across from the proposed arena site, is a vocal critic of the plan and said the redesign changed little.

"Building structures and putting roof gardens on top is not open space," Stokus said. "My idea of open space is when you stand on the sidewalk, like at Marina Green, and there is nothing between you and the horizon other than the tops of your shoes. That's open space."