Design Concerns Halt $165-Mil Museum Project

SAN FRANCISCO-San Francisco supervisors have ordered revisions for the new M. H. de Young Memorial Museum that will put the $165 million project on hold indefinitely. The project aims to replace the seismically unsound museum that was shut down earlier this year.

After several planning department meetings, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously ordered staffers to recalculate the visual impact of a distinctive tower that was mistakenly figured in at 144 feet tall instead of the intended 160 feet. Designers and planners also were told to re-examine how the modern design will impact the historic atmosphere of the surrounding Golden Gate Park Concourse.

City officials are not sure whether this will take weeks or months to straighten out. Both city officials and community leaders have expressed a strong interest in opening the educational museum as soon as possible.

Harry Parker of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco says that he is anxious to see the museum opened as soon as possible, as it is too valuable of a resource for students to keep closed any longer than the anticipated period, which is four years.

Planning staff members who were at the Board of Supervisors meeting say if significant impacts are found, alternatives would be proposed and the environmental report would undergo a public review.