San Francisco city officials and others offered the Planning Commission a plan to revive the city’s ailing downtown on Thursday, aiming to boost businesses, convert upper floors in high-rises into housing, and remake the neighborhood into an art, culture and nightlife destination.
It was unclear who would pay for the revitalization, and how much the whole project would cost.
The revitalization plan, named “the Future of Downtown” and spearheaded by the Planning Department and Office of Economic and Workforce Development, is an effort to build Mayor London Breed’s proposed Roadmap to Downtown San Francisco’s Future, which was released in February.
At the same time they presented revitalization, some officials suggested thqt the beleaguered downtown is already on the upswing. Jacob Bintliff, manager of the Economic Recovery Initiatives at OEWD, said demand for office space has increased 50 percent compared to the same time last year, and ridership on Muni is up about 17 percent a year since 2020. International travel has reached pre-pandemic levels, and hotel occupancy has almost caught up.
The city has not, however, managed to keep the downtown clean and safe — a key factor to having a vibrant downtown, Bintliff stressed. Despite the city’s “doom loop” reputation, Bintliff pointed to a decrease in the total homeless population of 50 percent, though it was unclear what he was referring to. The homeless population in San Francisco has dropped by about 3 percent from 2019 to 2022 according to the city’s performance scorecard.
Bintliff joined others from the Planning Department, the Urban Land Institute and the Advisory Services Panel to present Thursday’s update to the city’s plan, first unveiled in February.
Allison Albericci, a senior architect from the Planning Department, presented a map that sectioned the revitalization area into three geographic parts: A downtown gateway that extends from the Ferry Building through the Embarcadero Plaza to Market and New Montgomery streets; Union Square, which includes the square itself and the block around Powell Street BART Station; and Mid-Market, which includes the corridor from Powell Street BART Station to the Civic Center station.
Mid-Market, Albericci said, will have more art elements, such as murals, painted sidewalks, new street lighting and restored neon signs along Market Street, as well as regular art programs around Civic Center. The area will also see more pop-up businesses, alongside incubator and gallery spaces.
The Union Square area will continue to be a shopping and tourism destination, but also a residential neighborhood. Both Powell Street and Maiden Lane could witness a streetscape renovation: Public art will be installed, facades will be improved, housing will be built on upper floors, and rooftop entertainment will chime in.
The downtown gateway area — the entrance to the city along the waterfront — will include an abundance of reimagined public spaces, with more events in plazas like those near the Ferry Building, and activities for the alleyways and narrow streets deep in the Financial District, between skyscrapers.
Eric Tao, a veteran developer who serves as the co-chair of the Urban Land Institute panel, pointed out that the key is to create a variety of nodes to draw attention to a diversity of people.
Raquel Redondiez, who serves on San Francisco Community Equity Advisory Council, however, was the first one in the meeting to raise equity concerns.
“We hear about the importance of art and culture and the small businesses in the vision, and yet no one was talking about our community-based artists or art institutions to our small businesses,” Redondiez said. “It felt like we were just after-thoughts or flavoring to the plan.”
Redondiez argued that equity should be a constant in all the plans, including supporting locally owned community-based businesses and telling diverse stories through food, arts, and culture as well as affordable housing, and preparing minority students for careers in tech and artificial intelligence.
Public comments echoed Redondiez’s point.
“How do we make sure, if we get a building that we give a 50 percent office tax, and they are gonna be open to leasing their spaces to the BIPOC communities?” asked Majeid Crawford, executive director of the New Community Leadership Foundation.
“We can put as many community ambassadors out on the streets, but if there’s no pathways for people to rehabilitate and recover economically, they are not gonna be successful,” said Lucia Obregon, director of the San Francisco Latino Parity & Equity Coalition.
An artist herself, Obregon also raised the issue of livable wages for local artists. She said she wished all BIPOC artists would have the same opportunities as Tyler Florence, a white celebrity chef who opened two cafes in Union Square this week and was celebrated for doing so.
Rachael Tanner, president of the Planning Commission, acknowledged these concerns.
“We should use equity not as a strategy, but in every seed that’s planted,” Tanner said, pointing out that equity should be a constant in policy-making.
“How do we ensure we aren’t repeating past mistakes?” Commissioner Gabriella Ruiz added. “And our history of encouraging businesses to come into our community through tax breaks that we can argue exacerbated inequity, and then leaving when the going gets tough.”
Commissioner Derek Braun urged the city to support nonprofit organizations in the grand plan to revitalize downtown. “It’s time to strike while the iron’s hot, in terms of being able to create spaces for nonprofit organizations or acquire buildings for nonprofit organizations to support their efforts and missions,” Braun said.
Commissioner Theresa Imperial suggested a more detailed timeline to be created for the ambitious revitalization plan, saying that budgeting and measurements are vital to plans like this.
“I think we’ve got the blueprint for what we need to do,” Tanner said. “And now, the hard part is doing it, and doing it all together.”
The downtown revitalization plan should plug into and leverage the existing vision for all of Civic Center presented in the Civic Center Public Space Plan. Downtown should include Civic Center as a one bookend to (Mid) Market Street and the Ferry Building the other, like anchor stores in a mall.
I’m not sure which is more disconnected from reality, the prospect that boosters can push on a string and make things “vibrant,” or the notion that equity simply means catering to the nonprofiteers.
Residents’ interests are invisible in this picture, as usual.
Seeing as SF has actually catered to the profiteers for over a century, it’s worth a shot.