INTRODUCING PROWLERCURTIS

Charmaine Curtis, former President of AF Evans Development Company, and David Prowler have formed a new partnership, ProwlerCurtis. We'll be developing great urban projects in the Bay Area, and helping other developers and landowners by providing comprehensive consulting services.

Between us we've created a wide range of places: homes, stores, schools, campuses, and cultural institutions. We've made places for our investors, for public agencies, and for other landowners and institutions. Big projects and little ones, in San Francisco and in the East Bay.

We're looking forward to having more news to tell you soon, but meanwhile, please check out our website — www.prowlercurtis.com.

GROUNDBREAKING CONCEPTS: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco State University, and San Francisco Fire Department plans revealed

Three of Prowler Inc's clients have recently unveiled conceptual plans. Two of the projects are cultural centers which will bring San Francisco's architectural profile up a notch – and create places to participate in cutting-edge culture. And the third is a not-so-humble fire house.

—SFMOMA Expansion design does a great job of bringing art to the street.

David's been working with SFMOMA and an all-star team of architects and consultants to bring San Francisco the largest museum of modern and contemporary art in the US. The Norwegian architects Snøhetta , along with local firm EHDD, have met enormous challenges: a tight site, marrying an existing building to new galleries, addressing the special needs of a 21st-century museum, and creating a work of art in its own right. And the design makes a lot of sense. Here's what George Calys, the Architecture and Design Critic for the San Francisco Examiner had to say:

"The building's massing and sculpting, its connection to streets, and its sensitivity to the original museum, point to an underlying devotion to the process of evolutionary design. It is, in fact, because this conceptual design is so clearly process driven, that it possesses the potential for success as a museum and the potential for brilliance as architecture."

Continue reading on Examiner.com - click here. Groundbreaking will be in mid- 2013.

—The Mashouf Performing Arts Center will help shift the cultural axis of the city toward the west as home to SF State's Creative Arts programs.

The new 242,000-square-foot building will be located at the corner of Font and Lake Merced Boulevards. It will contain teaching and performance spaces -- including a 1,200-seat theater, a 450-seat theater, a 350-seat recital hall and a 250-seat "black box" theater. Fundraising was jump started with a $10 million gift from Manny Mashouf and Neda Nobari - the largest gift in San Francisco State University's history.

David Prowler led the effort to obtain all local entitlement approvals, including actions by the Planning Department, PUC, DPW, Department of Real Estate, and two actions by the Board of Supervisors (see the article in the last Prowler News). The SF State alumni magazine reports that the first phase is expected to begin in 2012.

—An Elegant New Fire House for SOMA.

Local firm Leddy Maytum Stacy has met another set of challenges: designing a firehouse to replace the small, damaged, and poorly located one at Howard and 3rd. The new fire house will be on Folsom between 5th and 6th Streets, closer to the SOMA and North of Market Neighborhoods where most calls are. David has been working with this team as well, to assist in the transaction with the City and to ensure that the needs of the South of Market neighborhood are in the mix. An example: Emergency vehicles will be controlling stop lights on Folsom Street to give themselves a clear shot across intersections, reducing the need for sirens and horns. And Falmouth Alley, flanking the new fire house, will see new lighting and landscaping.

The fire house is designed to achieve LEED Silver status for energy efficiency. Groundbreaking is planned for early 2012.

CLIENT PROFILE: SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission owns a lot of land: with holdings including the watershed along Highway 280 in San Mateo County, quarries, stables, and the long rights-of-way necessary to bring us water and electricity from the the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in the high Sierras. They serve 2.5 million people with 260 million gallons of water a day. The SFPUC brought on David Prowler to lead the effort to move forward on a better use of Francisco Reservoir, on San Francisco's Russian Hill, which the San Francisco Chronicle recently called "some of the most valuable real estate in the City." You can read more about the project here.

Welcome to the latest Quiz. There won't be grades assigned - so enjoy!

1.  David Prowler and Mayor Ed Lee go how far back?

1. To the mid-1970s at the International Hotel in Chinatown
2. From the brief period in 1992–1994 when they were in the same barbershop quartet
3. Three generations
4. To the years when David was Special Assistant to the City's Chief Administrative Officer (1989–1996)

1. 11,007
2. 33,744
3. 60,000

1. "exhilarating, a stylish jewel that feels both old-fashioned and newfangled. …Although the location is stunning, it's the architecture that brings out the potential of the site. In ways both large and small, the designers created a building that frames the settings and enhances the mood."
2. "one of the Bay Area's most architecturally provocative landscapes."
3. "It's imaginative and utterly unexpected, provocative and urbane"

1. SFMOMA Expansion
2. S.F.S.U. Mashouf Performing Arts Center
3. AT&T Ballpark

   Click here for the answer.

DAVID PROWLER'S BLOG

Check out the blog: recent postings have covered the stage set architecture of San Francisco, the surprising City of Tomorrow, the architecture of Saul Steinberg, parking lot booths on Market Street, and fonts on 16th Street.

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