[peanut gallery]

^ Here's the article from the Examiner that goes along with that:

City hoping for easier Treasure Island buy
By Katie Worth
Examiner Staff Writer 11/10/08

SAN FRANCISCO – The City may get a better deal on Treasure Island under President-elect Barack Obama’s administration, the project’s leaders say.

For the last two years, The City has been embroiled in negotiations with the Navy on the purchase price of Treasure Island, a former military base that ceased operations in 1997. The City hopes to build 6,000 new homes, three hotels, a 400-slip marina, and a bevy of retail, restaurants and entertainment venues on the island, along with 300 acres of parks and open space. But the Navy and city negotiators have not been able to come to an agreement.

In summer, city negotiators offered to buy the island from the federal government for the price of cleaning it up — the equivalent of $40 million, upfront — plus 50 percent of future profits from the land. However, the Navy has not accepted that deal.

Developer Tom Sullivan of San Francisco firm Wilson Meany Sullivan said he’s hopeful the new administration may bring a change in some of the negotiators, and may bring the deal to a close sooner — and with better terms for The City.

San Francisco Economic Development Director Michael Cohen said he’s not sure the negotiating team will change, but perhaps their objectives may.

“I think there’s a reason to be optimistic that the Obama administration will understand, from an economic stimulus standpoint, how important it is to take these dormant military bases — of which there’s 35,000 acres in California — and put them back into economic productive use,” he said. “It hasn’t been necessarily clear that the current administration’s priorities around closed military bases have been local economic development.”

The City is finalizing the development plan for the island, and will be ready to move forward in about 12 months, Cohen said.

“We need to have a Navy deal done before then,” he said.

Perhaps a bit of wishful thinking on the city's part, but hopefully they're right. It would be nice to have this in position to start once the economics of development turn around.