BCNA gets details on cruise terminal special events

OFFICIAL BCNA NEWS

Submitted by Barbary Coast Neighborhood Association board member David Albert. Information was obtained from John Doll of the Port of San Francisco and John Oldefendt and Svenja Stroehla of Metro Shore Services.

David and Marcy Albert did some research into the types of events that will be scheduled for Pier 27 beginning this fall and learned that the majority of events will be corporate dinner or cocktail types: Christmas parties, award ceremonies and corporate galas, weddings, small trade shows, non-profit fund raisers, etc.

The contractor to the port who will manage the Cruise Terminal is Metro Shore Services, who have been managing Pier 35 all these years. They will work with Hartmann Studios and Impark.

Event customers will use their own catering and entertainment sources. The maximum number of attendees to an event is about 3,000, way less than the 9,000 that were able to attend America’s Cup concerts.

There will most likely be NO outdoor events due to a couple of things, (1) the space where AC built the stage and bleachers for their concerts is now all taken up for parking and dotted with streetlights and (2) because no event can be planned for the day before, day of and day after a cruise call, that means there simply isn’t time to set up and take down such a structure.

They could conceivable erect a small tent, but that would be in addition to the event space indoors. The estimates for 2014 indicate that the cruise calls will take up about 240 days, leaving only 125 potential event days.

There are two event spaces, one on the upper level (at the south end) with about 22,900 square feet of space and one on the lower area with about 18,600 square feet.

You can see the current cruise schedule including “Special Events” that are currently reserved on the SF Port website – Cruise Schedule.

We have asked the Port to expand the “Special Event” to include the type of event, but we were told that the first one, scheduled for October 4, will be a fund raiser by the SF Maritime Museum.

The Port and Metro are working on a “Good Neighbor Policy,” which we will receive when it is complete. We also suggested a neighborhood presentation might be in order.

All in all, we feel that the events will be mild in comparison to the America’s Cup events and that the Port and Metro will be responsive to neighborhood concerns. We plan to stay on top of it and will let you know as soon as the Good Neighbor Policy is available as well as a neighborhood meeting, if that happens.