Redevelop Cow Palace

The Cow Palace in Daly City CA is a rarely used and deteriorating facility in need of redevelopment. Tear it down and replace it with housing and retail - especially a grocery store. Let's put this property to better use!

[redevelopcowpalace]

The Bill to Ban Gun Shows is Back

State Senator Weiner and Assembly Member Ting have reintroduced their bill to ban gun shows from taking place at Cow Palace. The Cow Palace governing board banned gun shows last year under pressure of the past incarnation of the bill. But apparently the Cow Palace folks have been approached by gun lobbyists. Since the Cow Palace is a money losing operation, there’s fear their ban was only temporary and reactive...which it was.

Unfortunately the new version of the bill, which passed the senate already, does NOT include the proposed change in Cow Palace governance from Governor appointmented board to local governments of San Francisco and Daly City in order to facilitate redevelopment. It’s a shame that clause was removed as the Cow Palace board does nothing to help the local economy. The 65 acre facility is empty more than 200 days a year. Retail in that space , particularly a grocery store, is desperately needed and would have a far more positive impact on the community.

The SF Chronicle article is here:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Cow-Palace-gun-show-ban-passes-California-Senate-15008656.php

[redevelopcowpalace]

Desperation to Save Control Results in Gun Show Ban

The board of directors of the Cow Palace have voted - FINALLY - to ban gun shows from taking place on the state-owned Cow Palace property in Daly City CA. The community around southeast San Francisco, eastern Daly City, and Brisbane has been requesting the cessation of gun shows for years and the Board of the Cow Palace has ignored the community...until now.  So what has changed?  The Cow Palace Board is worried about losing control of their little domain and their money-for-nothing jobs.  As noted previously a bill currently in the California state legislature could dissolve the Board and put the Cow Palace under control of the local communities.  Senator Scott Wiener and Assemblyman Phil Ting have introduced state bill SB281, which would ban gun and ammunition sales at the Cow Palace and transfer control of the 68-acre property from a state-appointed board to a joint powers authority consisting of San Francisco, Daly City and San Mateo County. The agency would be charged with finding developers to build housing and stores on the Cow Palace’s land.  The Cow Palace Board of Directors finally realized they needed to listen to the community and do something about the gun shows before their control was taken away completely.  The ban was clearly passed to save their own jobs, not to protect the community. Let’s hope this is a case of too little, too late and SB281 passes anyway.  It is clear the Cow Palace leadership is only interested in themselves and not in the community they serve.

[redevelopcowpalace]

(via Growing concerns over storied Cow Palace being torn down under new bill)

The “growing concern” is from 1) the executive director of the Dickens Fair parent company, Red Barn Productions, a for-profit company. He makes his money by paying below Bay Area market value fees to rent the crumbling Cow Palace, so of course he’s going to be concerned. The other voice is from a member of the Cow Palace board of directors, who would be out of a well-paying money-for-nothing type job.

The place is derelict, empty 80% of the time, and a bad investment for the State of California.  Let’s redevelop the area for housing, retail, ad theater space and put a historical marker up to honor the past while we create much needed housing better use of the space for local residents.

[redevelopcowpalace]

Cow Palace is Rarely Used

A bill has been introduced in the California state legislature that would ban gun shows and eventually lead to the redevelopment of the Cow Palace in Daly City.  When the San Francisco Chronicle reported on this proposed legislation, a few readers commented on how important Cow Palace is for the hosting of events, like the rodeo or the dog show. The reality is that the Cow Palace is rarely used. It is a seriously under-utilized property and represents a waste of tax payer money.

Cow Palace was only booked for events during 93 days in 2018. That's 25% of the year.  Yes, I understand that some buffering around the events is needed for set up, take down and clean up.  But 75% of the time as empty “buffer” - that’s just crazy.

So how does the schedule of events look for 2019?  It looks worse. As of March 1 2019, there are only 37 days of activity booked for the rest of this year...which has about ~305 days remaining.  That means as of today Cow Palace is only booked about 12% of the time for the remainder of 2019.  Maybe January and February had a lot of activity?  Nope.  It was booked 5 days during the 59 days of 2019 up to now.  That’s less than 10% of utilization so far this year.  Check out the schedule for yourself here: https://www.cowpalace.com/events. You can almost see the tumbleweeds blowing across the empty calendar dates.

It may have been a vital locus of activity once upon a time but those days are past.

It breaks my heart every time I look out my window and see the empty parking lots surrounding Cow Palace.  We could be putting that space to much better use for the communities here in east Daly City, Brisbane, and San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley.  Let’s generate more revenue for our communities by redeveloping that property and putting it to good use!

[redevelopcowpalace]

SB-281 Cow Palace Joint Powers Authority

The bill proposed by Scott Wiener and Phil Ting that would ban gun shows and potentially lead to redevelopment of the Cow Palace property is available online here: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB281

Some highlights (quotations from the bill):

(1) Existing law provides that the 1-A District Agricultural Association governs the agricultural district that encompasses the County of San Mateo and the City and County of San Francisco.This bill would require, on or before January 1, 2020, the City and County of San Francisco, the City of Daly City, and the County of San Mateo to enter into a joint powers agreement to form the Cow Palace Joint Powers Authority for the purposes of managing, developing, or disposing of the real property known as the Cow Palace. This bill would transfer the real property known as the Cow Palace from the 1-A District Agricultural Association to the Cow Palace Joint Powers Authority, and would provide that the Cow Palace Joint Powers Authority is the successor in interest to any contact entered into by the 1-A District Agricultural Association on or before December 31, 2019. This bill would make findings and declarations that this transfer constitutes a public purpose. This bill would authorize the Cow Palace Joint Powers Authority to, among other things, enter into contracts or agreements for the development of the property for affordable and market-rate mixed-use housing and establish minimum local zoning standards, including but not limited to, standards for height, density, parking, and floor area ratio, that apply to a project on the property that are different from those adopted by any other affected local jurisdiction. By increasing the duties of local officials, this bill would establish a state-mandated local program.

(2) This bill would prohibit the sale of firearms and ammunition on any property owned, occupied, operated, or controlled by the 1-A District Agricultural Association, or by another state agency, for district or association purposes, and, on and after January 1, 2020, on the real property known as the Cow Palace, as specified.

Summary: the bill creates a new authority to manage Cow Palace which is a joint authority from San Francisco, Daly City and San Mateo County. Selling guns on the property would become illegal.  And the new authority has the ability to redevelop the property as appropriate with a particular priority for housing inventory. Come on California, let’s make this bill the law!

[redevelopcowpalace]

Bill would ban Cow Palace gun shows, could lead to arena’s demolition

Exciting news reported by the San Francisco Chronicle on February 14, 2019 in an article by Alexi Koseff. According to the article, state Senator Scott Wiener and Assemblyman Phil Ting, both representing San Francisco, introduced legislation that could lead to the end of all events at the Daly City arena and to the demolition of Cow Palace in order to make way for housing. Read the article online here: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Bill-would-ban-Cow-Palace-gun-shows-could-lead-13614916.php

The Cow Palace area is prime real estate that is ripe for redevelopment.