[tech12]

Apparently the Giants are now against this arena going in at piers 30-32. So lame:

Everybody loves the Giants. They won the World Series twice. They built the beautiful ballpark that jump-started SoMa. And they attract more than 3 million fans a year.

They aren't just a baseball team. They are civic leaders.

Now they need to start acting like it.

When the team began to snipe at plans to put a basketball arena for the Warriors on the vacant, run-down Piers 30-32, we chalked it up to off-season crankiness. But now it is clear the Giants are actively discouraging the project.

That's not what they are saying, of course. Team spokeswoman Staci Slaughter says we've got the wrong idea.

"The Giants support the building of an arena for the Warriors in San Francisco," she said in a statement. "It is important, however, that the facility and site be thoroughly studied and planned so the project can function properly for the neighborhood and the city as a whole."

Their position is that is took them years to find the right location for the ballpark. Now the Warriors are rushing the process through. But in the 1990s, when the Giants' facility was on the drawing board, there were several sites to choose from. Now those have been filled with development. There simply aren't that many spots for an arena that might take up 5 acres or more.

Giants suggest Pier 50
Asked where they'd suggest, the Giants floated the idea of Pier 50, which is south of the ballpark, away from downtown, and off the busy Embarcadero corridor. Safely, in other words, away from AT&T, which would still be the center of the SoMa universe. (Oh, and if the Giants get their waterfront village built on parking lot A, basketball fans would be funneled right through their commercial village to go to a Pier 50 arena.)

It is hard to believe the Giants can raise some of these objections with a straight face. When they were planning what is now AT&T Park, all the familiar concerns were raised: a downtown facility would be a traffic nightmare, neighborhoods would be ruined, and the noise and congestion would be intolerable. The Giants battled through those perceptions, built a jewel of a ballpark, and won nearly everyone over.

But now that they are established in the neighborhood, the Giants have suddenly gone NIMBY, using the same congestion/traffic/public transit arguments....

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius...#ixzz2EUXxAg6h