Supervisors advance Warriors event center items, approve transportation‑fund amendments and seek clarity on mitigation responsibility

SAN FRANCISCO — The Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee on Monday moved forward four linked actions tied to the Golden State Warriors’ proposed Mission Bay event center, advancing CEQA findings, an ordinance to create a Mission Bay Transportation Improvement Fund, delegation of authority to accept public improvements, and related easement vacations to the full board with recommendation for the Dec. 8 meeting.

The committee’s meeting centered on transportation mitigation and financing. Adam Vandewater of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development said the privately funded project would include an 18,000‑seat arena, roughly 580,000 gross square feet of office space and up to about 125,000 square feet of retail on Mission Bay blocks 29–32. Vandewater said the project includes about 950 on‑site parking stalls and rights to 132 additional stalls at 450 South Street.

"This ordinance is the last most critical piece of this puzzle," Rick Welch, president and chief operating officer of the Golden State Warriors, told the committee. "It's the means to ensure that there is ongoing funding for the transportation services that will be there for the entire neighborhood." Welch also noted the team’s outreach: "Since we pivoted to Mission Bay a year and a half ago, we've had over 60 community meetings."

What the fund would pay and who ultimately bears responsibility were the primary questions. City staff described a multi‑layered mitigation plan: SFMTA would buy four light‑rail vehicles (LRVs) to enable two‑car trains on the T Third line, install crossovers and platform improvements, add special‑event shuttles to regional hubs (Transbay, Ferry Building, Van Ness BRT), and deploy parking control officers and an on‑site transportation management center.

Vandewater said estimated one‑time capital costs for the transit work are just over $55.3 million (2014 dollars), while estimated project‑generated one‑time sources are about $25.4 million, leaving a financing gap of roughly $29.9 million. "That revenue shortfall ... will be financed through the sale of SFMTA revenue bonds or other financing source," the Budget Analyst (Mr. Rose) told the committee.

The Budget & Legislative Analyst recommended two changes to the ordinance: require the ordinance to specify that if the annual cap (90% of general‑fund tax revenues from the project) is insufficient to cover SFMTA's expenditures, then the Warriors must provide additional transportation services to comply with EIR mitigation measures; and show in the controller’s estimate separate line items for on‑site and off‑site revenues. "Any methodology to attribute off‑site hotel and gross receipts tax revenues to the Warriors Project is based on assumptions and not actual accounting of tax receipts," the BLA cautioned.

Ben Rosenfield, the city controller, said his office peer‑reviewed the economic reports and would refine estimates in future cycles, but that reasonable estimates of indirect revenues are possible. "We do think we can reasonably estimate these," Rosenfield said, while acknowledging they are projections that can be improved with event‑period surveys once the center opens.

UCSF, which had pressed traffic and hospital‑access concerns, told the committee it now supports the project after reaching agreements with the city and Warriors. "We do support an active Mission Bay environment ... and believe the measures you heard today will provide a level of traffic monitoring and management sufficient to ensure that people that need access to our hospital can get there," said Barbara French, vice chancellor at UCSF.

Public comment at the hearing was extensive and sharply divided. Supporters — including labor unions, neighborhood business groups and many Mission Bay residents — emphasized jobs, neighborhood revitalization and the transportation improvements the fund would pay for. "The revenue associated with the Warriors Arena gives us a great opportunity to take a step forward," said Esther Stearns, a Mission Bay resident.

Opponents argued the arena displaces the neighborhood’s intended biotechnology and health‑science development, raised concerns about emergency access during peak or overlapping events, and questioned the project's net contribution to the general fund. "When our son has a medical emergency, that is the only hospital he can go to in the city ... We are very concerned that arena traffic will prevent us from getting our son the care he needs," said Iggy Vans, a Mission Bay parent.

Tom Lippy of the Mission Bay Alliance said his group's lawyers had lodged written objections to the CEQA findings and argued the approvals were being rushed; he sought more time for review. "There has been a rush to judgment," Lippy said.

After public comment and staff replies, the committee adopted a series of technical amendments to all four items, accepted the Budget Analyst’s first recommendation (the language tying mitigation obligations to project sponsor responsibility when revenues fall short), and forwarded items 1–4 to the full Board of Supervisors for consideration on Dec. 8, 2015. The committee briefly rescinded and re‑acted on the item to allow City Attorney language explicitly recognizing the OCII resolution and the mitigation measures (M‑TR‑2B and M‑TR‑18) to be incorporated by reference; the final action was to send the amended items forward with recommendation.

Next steps: the four measures will be heard by the full Board of Supervisors on Dec. 8. The committee record and the MMRP include detailed mitigation measures and monitoring requirements; city staff repeatedly noted that the MMRP assigns specified mitigation performance measures to the project sponsor and that those conditions were imposed by prior approving bodies (OCII, SFMTA and Planning Commission).

Actions taken at the committee included motions to accept technical amendments, adopt the BLA’s first recommendation, adopt city attorney clarifying language regarding mitigation responsibilities, and forward items 1–4 as amended to the Dec. 8 full board meeting. The committee did not take a final adoption vote on the ordinances themselves; they were forwarded for board action.