SAN FRANCISCO — The Port of San Francisco and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are planning on raising the iconic, historic Ferry Building by as much as seven feet.

The daring plan is an attempt to combat the impacts of sea level rise and extreme weather, both triggered by the climate change, and our warming planet.

How the SF Ferry Building will be raised

“We’re already seeing flooding on the Embarcadero. We know that the Bay is rising; we know that it will continue to rise”, explained Port of San Francisco Director Elaine Forbes.

Earlier this year, according to the United Nation-backed International Panel of Climate Change or IPCC for short, the planet is rapidly approaching a catastrophic threshold of heating. NOAA is tracking the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, as well as the rising ocean waters.

“Humanity is on thin ice, and that ice is melting fast,” said Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres in a recent address.

Port of San Francisco officials have held a series of public meetings with stakeholders along the 7.5 miles of bay coastline under the Port’s control. One neighborhood includes the Ferry Building.

The feedback was clear: those who work and/or live along the Embarcadero waterfront want to see the landmark Ferry Building remain on site and functioning. Currently, it is home to six ferry piers, used by millions of commuters and tourists each year. The Ferry Building also houses 44 different shops and restaurants as well as a world-famous Farmer’s Market.

And less known, it’s 2nd and 3rd floors have 190,000 square feet of offices and meeting spaces.

Port Engineer and member of the Water Resilience Team Steve Reel joined Juliette Goodrich in the CBS News Bay Area Virtual Set and in an exclusive report, demonstrated on how the Port and the U.S. Corps of Engineers are planning on raising the huge landmark.

The project will break ground in about a decade. The U.S. Corps will pick up 65% of the cost.

San Francisco’s Prop A — which was passed by 82.7% of voters in 2018 — authorized $425 million general obligation bonds that will partially fund the Waterfront Resilience Program. That includes funding improvements for earthquake safety of the three-mile long Embarcadero Seawall, near-term flood protection improvements, and planning for other long-term resilience.  

More from CBS News

Juliette Goodrich

Emmy award winning reporter and Bay Area native Juliette Goodrich joined KPIX 5 in 1997 and has performed a variety of anchoring and reporting assignments during her time with the station. She is currently the weekend nighttime anchor.

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Two California-based trucking associations continue to oppose plans to build a major league ballpark for the Oakland Athletics in the Port of Oakland at the Howard Terminal.

Major League Baseball recently turned up the heat and authorized the team to begin talks with other cities about a possible move once the lease for the current stadium, the RingCentral Coliseum, expires in 2024.

The truck associations said they had no objection to the American League Club building a new park – the Coliseum is the MLB’s fifth oldest stadium – but opposed it on the port area.

Yadon

“When you talk about being in the heart of an active port, there are productivity, efficiency and safety concerns,” Shawn Yadon, president of the California Trucking Association, told TT. “I think people who depend on the port for their business have concerns.”

The Port of Oakland is the eighth largest cargo port in the country. In April, 217,993 20-foot equivalent containers were processed there, an increase of 34.3% compared to the same month last year. And it’s an important part of the west coast supply chain. For agriculture, it is especially important for farmers in California and the Midwest who ship millions of pounds of raw materials and frozen meat to Asian countries.

The Howard Terminal has not been used for cargo operations in nearly a decade because it is considered too small for large container ships. However, it is used for mooring ships, parking trucks and containers, as well as operating depots, training longshore workers, and other logistics services.

The privately funded stadium is only part of the Howard Terminal plan known as the Oakland Waterfront Ballpark District Project. The $ 12 billion redevelopment includes not only the ballpark, but also office, retail, hotel space, quality and affordable apartments, and an indoor events venue. A gondola takes baseball fans to a rapid transit station in the Bay Area in the city’s waterfront entertainment district.

The A are reportedly meeting with officials from other cities about relocation. Among them are Portland, Ore. And Las Vegas, where the NFL Raiders moved from Oakland last year.

However, Oakland City Council has written to MLB executives, advising that plans for a stadium at the Howard Terminal are moving forward.

Several city council members, including the vice mayor and president, said the city was determined to negotiate in good faith for a strong future for the A in Oakland and would take up claims that the city was unwilling to have a new stadium on Howard Terminal to negotiate. The city council also said it would consider a non-binding agreement with the team to move the stadium issue forward at its July 20 meeting.

Sheep

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, backing the Howard Terminal’s plan, said in a statement the day MLB authorized the team to begin moving discussions, “The only viable way to get the A’s roots in Oakland is a baseball stadium on the water, ”she said.

Port officials insist they did not take a position on the stadium issue because there is nothing to discuss until the council makes a decision.

“There is no action before the Port Authority Board so there is nothing to be said,” said Marilyn Sandifur, Port of Oakland spokeswoman. “Now the city has closed the comment period for the public and they are reviewing the comments on the environmental review process.”

Leading truckers said the better alternative would be to build a new ballpark near the RingCentral Coliseum on the site of the now-disused Oracle Arena, the former home of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, who moved late in the 2019-20 season new Chase Center in downtown San Francisco.

“If you look at a major seaport or industrial site as soon as it creates tourist or residential attraction in those areas, that will be the beginning of the end of those industrial sites,” Weston LaBar, president of the Harbor Trucking Association, told TT. “The Port of Oakland is too important to sacrifice for a ballpark when they have a perfectly developed location to be in. The Port of Oakland is the lifeblood of California’s agricultural export industry. “

Sports stadiums advisor Marc Ganis has worked on two dozen stadium plans and said that time is running out for Oakland to build a new stadium somewhere as the 56-year-old RingCentral Coliseum is out of date and the possibility of moving is now real .

“Oakland should be promoted because they’ve already lost two teams, the Raiders and Warriors,” said Ganis. “The A’s will be reluctant to pack their bags if they can’t make an agreement on the port location.”

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