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Posted Jul 31, 2009, 1:22 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 527
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The UN is setting up shop on Parcel C with a global warming/cleantech center. That's a nice pickup!
Link
Quote:
S.F., U.N. partner on global warming center
Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, July 30, 2009
San Francisco's Hunters Point Shipyard - so toxic it's listed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a Superfund site - will be the future home of a U.N.-sponsored think tank to study solutions to global warming and other environmental crises plaguing the planet.
Due to open in 2012, the facility is envisioned by Mayor Gavin Newsom's administration as the centerpiece of a new green technology campus, akin to Mission Bay serving as a biotech hub.
The 80,000-square-foot United Nations Global Compact Center will include office space for academics and scientists, an incubator to foster green tech start-ups, and a conference center.
The center is expected to cost $20 million. Lennar Corp., the developer partnering with the city to rebuild large swaths of the shipyard and Candlestick Point, will donate the land and infrastructure. The city hopes the remainder of the funds will come from corporate sponsorship, state and federal grants and foundation money.
"Locating the U.N. Global Compact Center in San Francisco will reinforce our city's commitment to global justice and sustainability," Newsom said in a statement.
Michael Cohen, director of the Mayor's Office of Economic Development, said San Francisco is the perfect site for a green tech campus because the Bay Area is university-rich, heavily tech-driven and has a wealth of venture capitalists willing to invest in startups.
He said the one missing piece was a brand name anchor - like UC San Francisco at Mission Bay - and that the United Nations provides it in spades.
The announcement comes weeks after the Santa Clara City Council approved financing for a 49ers stadium - but Cohen said the U.N. center is not meant to be a big-name replacement if San Francisco dumps its plan to build a new stadium at the shipyard.
"The opportunity to establish the Hunters Point Shipyard as a major job generator and as a place where environmental problems can be addressed may be more important than a football stadium," Cohen said.
The partnership between San Francisco and the United Nations dates to June 26, 1945, when the U.N. Charter was signed at the city's War Memorial Veterans Building. Four years ago, mayors from around the world gathered at City Hall to sign the U.N. Global Compact, a set of 21 urban environmental accords. San Francisco and Milwaukee are the only two American cities that signed the compact.
ynergy needed
Gavin Power, deputy director of the U.N. Global Compact, said San Francisco's long track record of environmental awareness makes it the perfect spot for the United Nations' first center to study global warming.
"We hope it will be a vibrant laboratory bringing together leading academics, researchers, social entrepreneurs and others who will collaborate and work on solutions," Power said.
He said the United Nations is well positioned to take whatever technological innovations emerge from the center and spread them worldwide.
Dan Adler is the president of California Clean Energy Fund, a nonprofit venture capital fund that invests in early-stage clean energy technologies. He said the industry is so heavily regulated that innovation can sometimes be hampered, and having key players working in close proximity is critical.
"You have to have more players at the table to make the technology work - you have to have regulators, you have to have legislators, you have to have entrepreneurs, large-scale capital and the innovation community itself," Adler said.
ransforming bayview
The green tech campus will be built on Parcel C, which sits along the waterfront on the shipyard's eastern edge. The U.S. Navy is cleaning up the toxic shipyard and transferring the cleaned parcels to the city. The entire development project, including the U.N. center, must be approved by various city commissions and the Board of Supervisors.
Malik Looper, executive director of the Hunters Point nonprofit Literacy for Environmental Justice that works with neighborhood youth, said the U.N. center sounds like a fine idea, but he's more concerned that the land it's built on be thoroughly cleaned first. The Navy has said it will cap some parts of the land rather than fully excavate the toxics, which Looper said may be insufficient.
"The big issue in my mind is resolving the matter around what standards will be adhered to in terms of the cleanup, and until that matter is resolved, it's hard for me to be excited about a press release about a potential partnership," he said.
Cohen said the Navy will clean the land so it's safe to live and work there and city officials are satisfied with the process. The campus will help create jobs for Bayview-Hunters Point residents, he said, and local hiring requirements will be put in place.
However, Saul Bloom, executive director of Arc Ecology, an environmental nonprofit that helps communities close and clean up military bases, said the jobs can't go to neighborhood residents without the proper training.
"We can't lose sight of the fact we're trying to provide jobs for people who are in Bayview-Hunters Point, a substantial number of whom don't have that skill set and need to get there," he said.
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