Finally, news  of some movement on the resuscitation of Mervyns Heights, from the SocketSite.

That’s right, next week Target will officially request authorization to build a urbanified store at the corner of Geary and Masonic at the site of our defunct Mervyns, that brokedown palace.

Hurray!

Charlize Theron, if she ever gave consideration to the Godforsaken windswept hills of the Western Addition, would approve, I’m sure: 

Click to expand

Will this empty hulk be filled with stuff from Tar-ghey by Spring, 2012?

Look at all these Target boosters. There were some NIMBYs on hand at this community meeting last year, you know, to speak out, but they kept their big traps shut in the face of overwhelming support for the Target store:

One of the audience members at that time was “…surprised to see the crowd’s support of the project given that ‘all you hear in the media’ is that San Francisco is ‘anti-chain.‘”

X, sort of, marks the spot. To the northwest is the relatively new Masonic Trader Joes. See it?

Don’t count on the windmills though. (They’re what you call chimerical.)

Now, would Megan Fox chop up a NoPA NIMBY and stuff him in a desk if it would help speed this project along?

Hell yes!

Does San Francisco support its two new Target stores?

Via Laughing Squid

Hurray!

It’s happening, man. It’s finally happening…

As they said back when FaceBook was popular, back when FB was the New Thang:

“Yes! San Francisco Needs a Target!“

Until we get a store open in there, feel free to hang out on the roof and groove on the gigantic blue mervyn’s sign whilst taking in the views:

Click to expand

See you there!

The average wait for an emergency room visit at UCSF‘s Parnassus Heights campus is 4.5 hours for people with mild medical emergencies? Wow.

Wouldn’t it be nicer to pay $5 to check-in online and then wait at home rather than in the ER?

That’s what UCSF thinks.

Check it:

“UCSF patients with minor medical needs seeking treatment in the Emergency Department now can make an appointment to be seen – waiting at home rather in the hospital – via a new online check-in service called InQuickER.

UCSF Medical Center’s Emergency Department (ED) at Parnassus Heights is now offering InQuickER designed for patients with non-threatening minor medical needs.

UCSF patients can register online for a $4.99 fee and pick an open slot for an emergency room visit. The fee will be refunded if they’re not seen within 15 minutes.

In April, UCSF did a trial run with the online service, which 22 people used. UCSF Medical Center launched the system a few weeks ago.

“One thing we encountered during the trial was that a lot of patients were using it inappropriately,” said Jennifer Dearman, the Emergency Department’s patient care manager. “The online registration is screened by ED nurses and we have had to advise some patients to come directly to the ED. This service is for a fast-track kind of patient.”

“For example, a cancer patient on chemotherapy with a fever can have complicated issues and should be seen in the regular ED, so InQuickER is not appropriate for that person.”

Waiting at Home vs. Hospital

About 105 patients a day visit the emergency room at UCSF Medical Center on the Parnassus campus, Dearman said, and the average time between arrival and departure, for those not admitted to the hospital, is four-and-a-half hours.

That’s in keeping with the average wait in 2009 for ER patients throughout California: four hours and 34 minutes –  27 minutes longer than the U.S. average, according to a 2010 report by health care consulting firm Press Ganey.

Dearman said patient satisfaction was the main reason UCSF Medical Center adopted InQuickER. “It also helps us control the flow,” she said. “The general population doesn’t think the emergency room ever has slow times. But it does.”

UCSF is one of 55 health care facilities in 13 states partnering with InQuickER, said spokesman Chris Song. The service, based in Nashville, began in 2006 after its founder, Tyler Kiley, had to go to an emergency room and spent hours witnessing stasis and frustration.

“He just thought there had to be a better way,” Song said. “With our service, you still have to wait but you get to do it somewhere else. Like on your couch instead of being surrounded by other sick people.”

Song said InQuickerER provides patients with convenience, comfort and some level of control. And it allows emergency department staff to know who’s coming and what symptoms they have, so that they can better prepare.

“It can help reduce the burden of peak times and spread it out,” Song said. “It creates more efficiency and a better environment in the waiting room.”

So far, more than 10,000 people have used the service; 95 percent have been seen within the 15-minute window. In a triage situation, of course, even people who have registered will have to wait. When there are delays, users are notified through text messages and emails with updated projections on treatment times.

The service is available online at https://ucsfmedicalcenter.inquicker.com/. It is growing rapidly, Song said, which is not surprising: A study led by San Francisco General Hospital emergency physician Renee Hsia, MD, MSc, found that the number of hospital-based emergency departments in the United States is declining, despite an increase in the number of patients seeking emergency care.

The study by Hsia, an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine in the UCSF School of Medicine, was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in May. It reported that 27 percent of urban and suburban emergency rooms have closed in the last two decades.”

Hurray!

[Oh, SocketSite is, once again, all over this sitch.]

It’s happening, man. It’s finally happening!

Down at the Planning Department, they’re inking up the rubber “APPROVED” stamp for our new Target Store up at Geary and Masonic.

Here’s item 12 for tomorrow’s meeting:

Planning Commission Hearing

Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 12:00pm @ City Hall, Commission Chambers

2675 GEARY BOULEVARD - southeast corner at Masonic Avenue (aka the City Center); Lot 001 in Assessor’s Block 1094  -  Request for Conditional Use Authorization to allow a “formula retail use” (d.b.a. Target) and a use size up to 120,000 square feet pursuant to Sections 121.2, 121.6, 303(c), 303(i), 703.4 and 712.21 of the Planning Code, in the NC-3 (Moderate-Scale Neighborhood Commercial) District and the 40-X/80-D Height and Bulk Districts.“12. 2010.0623C  (M. WOODS)

Preliminary Recommendation: Approval with Conditions”

Click the link – it’s an 11MB pdf of all the latest plans, loaded with illustrations and whatnot.

Like this:

Click to expand

Isn’t it beautiful?

You’ve come a long way, baby!

Bon Courage, Tar-GHEY de Ville!

“PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The project sponsor proposes to convert vacant retail space (formerly “The Good Guys” and “Mervyns”)
in the City Center shopping mall to a general merchandise retail store (d.b.a. “Target”) offering clothing,
personal accessories, household goods, including home furnishings, electronics and groceries, which is a
“formula retail use” as defined in Planning Code Section 703.3. The proposed project, occupying the
former Mervyns and Good Guys stores, will consist of approximately 106,000 square feet of retail space,
with a potential to add an additional 14,000 square feet if vacant space becomes available within the
shopping center, for a project total of approximately 120,000 square feet. The proposal involves interior
remodeling work as well as exterior improvements including signage, which would require the creation
of a Special Sign District. (The Planning Code text amendment for the “City Center Special Sign District”
under Case No. 2011.0656T will be heard concurrently with the Conditional Use request.) The existing
City Center shopping center has approximately 601 off-street parking spaces and five loading spaces; no
additional parking or loading spaces are required or proposed. Pedestrian entrances to the project are
accessible from Geary Boulevard, Masonic Avenue and O’Farrell Street while vehicular accesses are
provided on Masonic Avenue and O’Farrell Street.”

Well, here it is, the 2200 block of Octavia Street betwixt Washington and Jackson in San Francisco’s tony Specific Whites District right near writer Danielle Steel’s large white mansion and just up the hill from our 3.5-star Yelp-rated German Consulate.*

See? It’s got a brick surface and it’s curvy, sort of:

There it is on the left. (How many of the cars you can see are owned by Ms. Steel? She used to have 26(!) residential parking permits, you know…)

Fake Lombard Street is a big FAIL, IMO.

Oh well.

Why is it here? Who built it? I know not.

*”Gee honey, do you think we should go to the consulate after getting those deportation notices?” “I don’t know, Cupcake. Let’s check Yelp first…” 

Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti wants to be The Next Mayor of Los Angeles, so he’s coming up to the 415 to try to raise some cash.

Lots and lots and lots of cash.

Here he is, the son of Gilbert Salvadore Iberri “Gil” Garcetti. (Junior sort of looks like the guy what sold me a giant Toyota one time. I’m srsly.)

Via Neon Tommy – click to expand

That was the windup, now here’s the pitch:

“Please join

Joe Green and Sujay Jaswa

In support of

Eric Garcetti

Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles

Monday

December 12, 2011

6:30-8:30 PM

[in]

San Francisco, CA

Suggested Donation $1,000″

Contact Stephanie Daily if you’re into this. Here’s her email at the gMail: dailysmith

I’ll wait in Los Angeles

I’ll wait in the pouring sun

Well it looks like the Upcoming Races Page at The Usual Suspects might need to get updated for District 9 because Uptown Almanac’s Kevin Montgomery declared himself a candidate for the Board of Supervisors on April 1, 2012:

KevMo 2012 from daniel jarvis on Vimeo.

Hahahaha, jk?

I think his pro-cell phone reception platform will prove popular…

See?

Click to expand

If you can call Bradford a street, as some do.

Anyway, this is a view of part of it.

See?

Aslan is on the move at Mervyn’s Heights:

Click to expand

And if that’s not enough for you, somebody hung a sign what says City Target (although it’s all bunched up so I couldn’t see it clearly.

So that’s it.

Did you know that Target likes opening new stores in October (in addition to, for some reason, April and July, I think)? It’s true.

All right, let’s travel down memory lane all the way to 2010, below.

CONGRATULATIONS. TARGET. WELCOME!

Enjoy:

[Oh, and BTW, those NOPNA NIMBIES were all crestfallen when they saw the reaction to Target's community meeting three years ago. Consider this Target a crushing defeat for the millionaire homeowners of the Western Addition NOPA.]

“Boy oh boy, at least a couple certified San Francisco NIMBYs had steam coming out of their ears after seeing the warm reception the Target Team got last night. Oh well.

SFist has the reaction, and Alan Wang of KGO-TV / ABC7 has the story, and, oh, here are bits from SF.StreetsBlog‘s hardworking Matt Baume, the Face Book, Dain Fitzgerald, Beth “target! target! target!” Spotswood, Bike NOPA, Zach Perkins, and Katie Worth. (Interestingly, SFGate, San Francisco’s Internet Newspaper, has nothing about Our Empty Mervyn’s today, just a bit on Target’s new Harlem joint in New Yawk.)

The upshot on yesterday’s event from the Twitter:

“Not a single NIMBY hysteric. Just very understandable concerns and questions. Wow SF, sometimes your reasonability surprises me!”

Well, the NIMBYs will just have to bide their time. They’ll have to put their thinking caps on to combat the likes of lovely Target-fanatic Charlize Theron and her loyal pet, Bullseye. Too bad C.T. wasn’t in town, maybe she could have dropped by and warmed up the nabe (51 F. and windy windy) yesterday evening. Or Heidi Klum, whomever.

And oh, here’s a bit from a rich yuppie* who lives in the the Western Addition (but doesn’t know it). Apparently, he was too busy taking photos with his expensive camera with its expensive image stabilized lens (to later process on his expensive Apple computer) to address the crowd. Oh well.

Now, on with the show:

Step right in for the Community Meeting:

Click to expand

Roam the halls, if you want:

Big, in’nt? About 100,000 square feet big:

But what’s this, “I Heart Target?” What kind of NIMBY meeting is this?

It’s not a NIMBY meeting at all, it’s a YIMBY affair, it’s like when can you move in, Target?

Mercy! Moving on…

Regional Development Manager John Dewes introduced himself to the crowd to kick things off. He said he was here in town “to talk and listen.”

Of course the 130 assembled San Franciscans (mas o menos, that was my nose count) had notes for Target’s straight-outta-Minneapolis Away Team, don’t you know. We had some ideas to express while noshing on straight-outta-the-SoMA-Costco biscotti and Brownie Bites.

But before all that, let’s look at some renderporn du Tar-GHEY:

That was the Geary frontage, here’s the Masonic si-iiiide:

What an improvement:

And what’s this, wind turbines on top? Yes:

The whole shebang will be in the Heart of the City, near the Masonic Trader Joes:

Here’s the close-up:

And just look at all the bus stops:

And here’s the pitch, from straight-out-of-Central-Casting architect Thom Lasley.

Target could open by early 2012, if all things go well. Generally, they open stores during the months of April, July and September, so there you go. This store would have less than 100,000 square feet of selling space, so it will be considerably smaller than a typical suburban Target, which offers you about 135,000 sq.ft. to peruse. Still, a Target is a Target so the product mix wouldn’t be too far off from what you’d expect.

Now comes Question and Answer Time.

1. Howard Epstein, Chair of San Francisco Republican(!) Party, asked about the number of employees at the store. The Masonic outlet would have about 250 employees, as would the proposed Target store down at Metreon in SoMA. Nobody could hazard a guess as to how much these stores would add to the tax base.

2. The Target Team will look into trip generation, the amount of increased activity in the area. They are well aware that they won’t be getting “traditional suburban guests.” Their customers will be younger and be more likely to bike or walk to and fro.

3. District 2 resident and political candidate and mom Kat Anderson asked about the hiring of seniors and students, the availability of a delivery service and whether T would participate in a bike share program. This garnered the replies you’d expect from fashionable Target Communications Manager Sarah Bakken. (Currently, Target does not deliver from stores anywhere in America.)

4. A University Terrace resident said her neighbors supported the proposal. Her daughter inquired about the availability of mac and cheese.

5. A resident from just across the street “loves” T but worries over parking.

6. Another local pushed for the use of renewable energy and local contractors when building time begins.

7. A pushy woman voiced concern over gender and age discrimination when hiring-time starts. Still, she thinks T would be “wonderful for the neighborhood.”

8. A Ewing Terrace resident worried about delivery times and hoped that they wouldn’t come at night. John Dewes said that there would be three to four truck deliveries per week. Then he responded to a question about a development timeline. We’re still way at the beginning now, a conditional use permit and approval from the Planning Department are a ways down the road. However, since the proposal would be just an “interior remodel,”  no CEQA-style environmental impact report should be required. Anyway, project approval could come by the end of 2010.

9. A woman fretted about the line of cars on Masonic due to the nearby Trader Joes and wondered if Target would consider the use of parking attendants to direct drivers. John Dewes “doesn’t see that kind of congestion” on the horizon for Target.

10 A Duboce Park resident polled the neighbors in his building – these are people he knows shop at Target owing to all the shopping bags he sees getting recycled. He said 19 out of 20 people he surveyed supported the Target store on Masonic. He feels sales tax revenue should go to San Francisco instead of Colma. He was surprised to see the crowd’s support of the project given that ”all you hear in the media” is that San Francisco is “anti-chain.”

11. A woman reminded us all that San Francisco is a “transit first city,” so she asked whether toilet paper come in something less than a 36 pack. The answer is that 12-packs would be available in light of special circumstances of San Francisco shoppers.

12. A younger fellow asked T to post hearing dates on a website so that pro-Target residents could “pack the hearings.” (Two known area NIMBYs reacted in disgust, kind of smirking at each other.)

13.  Another person worried about the increase in traffic exiting on O’Farrell and also about the closeness of Trader Joes. Thom Lasley assured all that the food sold at the two stores would complement each other. TJ’s would continue to have higher end stuff while T would focus on “staples.”

You get the idea. It went on and on.

Now, let’s hear from the pols. Hardworking Richmond District Supervisor Eric Mar et filia Jade took a bunch of notes but then had to leave for another appointment:

District 5 Supe Ross Mirkarimi came to express his concerns over traffic on Masonic, local hiring, and the Geary B.R.T.

He’s seen here with property-owning KLA Geary L.L.C. representative Adam Miller, Target Communcations Manager Sarah Bakken, and Tar-chitect Thom Lasley:

Speaking of pols, aforementioned District 2 candidate Kat Anderson was a fireball of energy, typing up a mess of notes on her MacBook and graciously forwarding them to me:

Here’s just part of her shorthand:

“Target started in 1962 but grew out of Dayton Hudson (1946 policy instituted to give 5% back to the communities of our stores, which is $3 million per week).  Within the Bay Area last year, community giving was almost $ 1 mill in SF and $3 mill in the Bay Area.   (ie, last week:  Arts and Wonder.  Nonprofits going back to 1991 inc. SF Aids Foundation, Asian Art, de Young, Take Charge of Education, support to 85 schools in SF; even tho’ we don’t have a store in SF, we know that many of our guests live in SF.”

Kat typified the crowd, supporting the proposal but also expressing concern about specific issues.

Now, who else was there - how about Bill Barnes, aide to District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto Pier, and Alex Tourk, Founder of Ground Floor Public Affairs?

The whole thing went on and on until after 8:00 PM.

(People, obviously Target’s going to do traffic studies, right? So why not give them a chance to do that, right? Obviously, there will be some sort of local-hiring program imposed by the City, the same way that was done with our Costco in the SoMA. I mean, that’s baked into the cake already, right? And people, Target won’t need to have Trader Joe’s-style parking attendants because Target will have ample parking, capiche? And if you Fix Masonic people want to take out a bunch of parking spaces on Masonic to put in proper bike lanes, well, be my guest and go for it. But it’s not Target’s job to take an expensive ride on your hobby horse, right? In the meantime, just pilot your bikes onto the needlessly-wide sidewalks of the hilly parts of Masonic, as I do, depending on conditions.)

So let’s see here, as Santa Barbara goes, so goes San Francisco? Probably not.

We’ll get our Targets, finally, eventually.

Expect More, Pay Less(TM), baby. Leave Us Begin living in the red.

Bon courage, Target. Excelsior.

*Ah, a response from a The Square person, who draws attention to this “news story” link. Fair enough. Be sure to let them know if you think their bit is biased - they’re looking for feedback. And they want to know from me if I think they’re “disconnected” from the community. I don’t know, based on their editorial (linked to above), sure, they’re disconnected from the people that showed up to the meeting, anyway.

All right let’s see here, I tell you I don’t know what “parts of the Western Addition” means, actually, the whole shebang betwixt Larkin in the Tenderloin and Divisidero out west is the Western Addition, right? Check your real estate papers filed with the City and County – they’ll say “WESTERN ADDITION,” srsly.

All right, what else, apparently, I’m going to need to ”research thoroughly” any comments I make online about The Square. All right, I’ll have to show my work then, uh, Canon 7D “premium” camera ownership + Canon 24-105mm IS + Apple PC + elitist attitude + strong NIMBY tendencies + poorly argued editorial + lives in the Western Addition but doesn’t know it + strongly attached to real estate industry microneighborhood marketing names = rich yuppie, somewhat disconnected from the regular people of the Western A. Is that a personal attack? I don’t know. A lot of people the world over would love to trade places, I’m sure.

Brand-new giant signs like this one never lie:

Click to expand

I’ll tell you, area NIMBYs got steamrolled on this one. It’s not that certain millionaire, property-owning ladies residing west of the Western Addition and south of North of NoPA are happy about this situation, but they didn’t get any traction due to massive community support, particularly from younger, non-millionaire mom-types, right?

And, I mean if you purchase your Great Estate next to a shuttered Mervyns with hundreds and hundreds of empty parking spaces, well, you gotta figure something’s going to replace it sooner or later.

So that’s it - Mervyn’s Heights is now Target Tor.

And NoPA (which actually isn’t north of the Golden Gate Park Panhandle, take a look at a map sometime) should now be called SoTA, South of Target.

All hail the second coming of City Target to the 415.

Well, you know, the rich, home-owning, millionaire NIMBY ladies of NOPNA (the number one homeowner’s association in the Western Addition) had steam coming out of their ears a few years back when they realized how hopeless their plan of keeping Tar-ghey from infecting their “NoPA” neighborhood was becoming.

Good times.

Oh well.

Mervyn’s Heights is now Target Tor and NoPA (North of the Panhandle) is now SoTA (South of Target). See?

Lots of produce here – a surprising amount.

And the amount of traffic is up, way up. Just like people said would happen. We’ll have to see how things shake out. I myself saw a fender bender on Masonic that prolly wouldn’t have occurred but for the Target Grand Opening yesterday.

Oh, and the traffic lights have been jiggered with, for better or worse. These days, peds at Masonic and Anza need to wait for a looong red light and then after that they need to wait for southbound traffic to turn left. In effect, the peds are going “last.” This kind of thing was considered unacceptable by the SFBC down at Masonic and Fell not too long ago. Mmmm…

Anyway, I can’t figure why some chain stores in SF are good and others are bad – I can’t find consistency in Planning is what Im saying,

But here it is.

Enjoy.

Expect more, pay less.

Well, this was the big rumor of May 2014:

Taylor Swift Rumored To Buy Historical Presidio Heights Mansion for $18M

But the Taylor Swift people said no way, Jose.

But hey, look what’s on the front door now, a weathered posting:

Here’s my stab at it:

MR HU XU AND I MISS XIA XU

OWN OUR PERMANENT RESIDENCE

3800 AND 3810 WASHINGTON STREET

IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

THIS PROPERTY IS NOT FOR SALE

MISS XIA XU

But here’s the For Sale sign that’s still there. (Note the smallish 3810 Washington next door on the left.)

And here’s the web site still offering the place for sale. Check it out – the floor plans make this place look amazing, with levels up and down into the earth

And here’s the current listing.

This certainly is a mystery…

Subterranean by design
I wonder what I would find
If I met you, let my eyes caress you
Until I meet the thought of Miss Princess Xu?

Let’s take a peek through the open door:

The part of this lecture that I overheard appeared to do a good job about hammering home the rule about RPD workers not driving* park vehicles on the grass.

Here’s your context, from last year:

“Woman killed by SF truck identified as outrage grows - Vivian Ho and Kurtis Alexander“

*There might be an exception if there’s also a spotter in the cab of the pickup, IDK.

Sometimes.

But dividing the cost of a security guard among 20-something families is prolly pretty expensive, so at other times there’s only an empty SUV posted as sentry.

Click to expand

And best of all, the place is Caucasians-only, sort of:

“In a small brochure, Object Lessons in Homebuilding, developers Baldwin and Howell promoted racial covenants as part of a set of deed covenants attached to a model planned gated suburb, Presidio Terrace. Deed covenants were used to ensure protection from the nuisances of uncontrolled growth following the 1906 earthquake and to create a community of “Caucasians” only in Presidio Terrace. Among such progressive urban design amenities as underground utilities, asphalt roads for automobiles, and private picturesque streets, racial covenants guaranteed racial homogeneity as an integral part of desirable suburban housing. Baldwin and Howell marketed Presidio Terrace lots by focusing comparatively on the settlement of Japanese immigrants in the Western Addition district of San Francisco as undesirable and blighted by racial pathologies.”

Here’s is all I know about the giant sundial:

“This sundial is located in Hilltop Park in the Bayview District of San Francisco. The steel gnomon is 78 feet long.”

Click to expand

Big, isn’t it?

Benton Avenue, Bernal Heights:

For one brief shining moment, some thought Taylor Swift would buy this long-empty fixer-upper up in Presidio Heights.

Then there was the art-thieving squatter – he’s imprisoned now, AFAIK.

And now this is how things looked last week:

I count five sk8tr boyz recording their tricks up there.

Look for the results on the YouTube.

Our poor, poor Koshland Mansion…

I see this dude all the time:

He rules the 94118

So there are four possible answer sets to these two questions, so you’ve got a 25% chance of success by simple guessing. Now if you know then answers, then you know the answers and you won’t be tricked and you’ll win. OTOH, if you use INTUITION (the Heart) or REASONING (the Mind), I don’t think you’re going to get both answers correct, and actually I think you’d be better off just flipping a coin to help with answering.

And when I say used to be higher, think 100 years ago or so. Or 200, it doesn’t matter.

Tamalpais – West Peak on the left, East Peak on the right:

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

All right, well 100 years ago was afore the time our U.S. Army plumb blew up / excavated the West Peak, as you can see by the unnatural flatness and the big radar dome golf ball up there.

But check it, the West Peak is still higher, even now, by the smallest of amounts, even though the East Peak totally looks higher from the south, which is how most people look at it.

So, I’ll agree that West Peak looks shorter and I knew the story about how it used to be higher than East Peak, but I am surprised to learn, after living here since the 1980’s, more or less, that West Peak is higher.

If you want to debate this, then be my guest. We’re only talking about a couple feet difference no matter what.

 TMYK…