Lucas Plan for Presidio Is Approved
Filmmaker George Lucas won the right Monday to build a large-scale commercial development in the Presidio, a storied former Army base turned national park and one of this city’s most coveted pieces of real estate.
After months of intensive lobbying, Lucasfilm’s Letterman Digital Arts Ltd. beat out a combined residential and office complex that would have included an Internet-based technology company. The winner will redevelop the site where the abandoned Letterman Military Hospital stands.
In making its announcement Monday, the Presidio Trust stressed that its selection will become final only after a lease is successfully negotiated with Lucasfilm and the necessary environmental impact statement is complete--sometime in September or October.
The Lucas organization “meets several of our goals,” said Jim Meadows, executive director of the Presidio Trust. “We are looking for a single user that would have outreach in the areas of scientific research and education and 21st century, cutting-edge technology.”
The Presidio--1,480 acres next to the Golden Gate Bridge--became one of the hottest pieces of commercial real estate in the country after the U.S. military handed it over to the National Park Service in 1994 and Congress deemed that it must become financially self-sustaining by 2013.
The national historic landmark--which has more than 200 years of military history and a wealth of historic buildings, archeological sites and stunning views of San Francisco Bay--has attracted the attention of hundreds of would-be developers.
Lucas wants to build a 900,000-square-foot, state-of-the art digital movie-making center on 23 acres where the abandoned 10-story, glass and concrete hospital now stands. The hospital will be razed.
He plans to bring together his special effects, sound and software subsidiary companies that now are scattered across the Marin County town of San Rafael. Lucas’ plan calls for 15 acres to be devoted to open space, including a great lawn with a lagoon, promenades and a public cafe.
Gordon Radley, president of Lucasfilm and Letterman Digital Arts, said he was gratified by the Presidio Trust’s decision, which he characterized as having nothing to do with his reclusive boss’ star power.
“This isn’t about ‘Star Wars’ at all,” Radley said. “This is about bringing people--artists, composers, computer scientists, designers, craftspeople--to help form a community . . . that will be as world renowned for its great ideas as it would be for the beauty of its setting.”
In May, the Presidio Trust narrowed the field of prospective developers to Lucasfilm and a joint venture between real estate giant Shorenstein Co. and developer Interland Corp. The Shorenstein/Interland partnership proposed building 459 homes and 500,000 square feet of offices and retail shops. The so-called Presidio Village design also called for a large amount of open space.
“After 10 months of pursuing a broadly public mixed-use program containing a library and museum . . . we are certainly disappointed that the trust has selected a different choice,” said Richard Reisman, vice president of Interland. “We wish them luck in completing their transaction and developing something truly excellent in the national park.”
The Presidio has a management structure unlike that of any other national park. The National Park Service controls only its beaches and other open spaces. The trust, run by a seven-member board appointed by President Clinton, is charged with renting out the park’s 6 million square feet of commercial, residential and warehouse space.
Trust officials have said they believe that the Letterman project will set the tone for leasing the rest of the Presidio. It will be the largest single site of new construction on the former base, where many of the buildings are historic and cannot be demolished.
The trust has said it expects to earn at least $5 million a year from leasing the Letterman site. The park’s annual operating costs are $36 million.
Conservationists, park advocates, environmentalists and some nearby homeowners have long feared that the Presidio may be too attractive for its own good.
They complain that the trust, pressured by a congressional threat to break up the Presidio and sell it to the highest bidder if it fails to pay its own way, is contemplating projects that will bring too many employees, residents and cars into the park.
“The trust is moving like a freight train through the public hearing process. It is moving too fast for there to be adequate environmental review,” said Brian Huse, director of the National Parks and Conservation Assn.’s Pacific Region, a national park watchdog organization.
Bill McDonnell, co-chairman of the activist group Neighborhood Assn. for Presidio Planning, acknowledged that the selection process was “accelerated,” but said that either of the alternatives “were positive steps forward.”
However, “transportation and traffic management issues still have to be worked out, as will how much of the site is actually going to be used by the development,” he said.
