โBayview Buzzโ is a recurring update on changes, tidbits and other news from the Bayview. Got news? Send us tips at tips@missionlocal.com.
Next week, the Ruth Williams Opera House will host a debate featuring six of the candidates vying for Gov. Gavin Newsomโs open seat, five months ahead of the primary election for California governor in June.
Very soon, campaign teams, reporters and TV news vans from across the state will descend on Bayviewโs quiet Third Street corridor, a potential boon for local mom-and-pop restaurants.ย
But itโs also a boon for the opera house. The Ruth Williams Opera House, a 137-year-old, relatively small Victorian theater retired its stage lights yers ago and has served instead as a neighborhood community center. But Theo Ellington, the interim executive director and candidate for District 10 supervisor, is bringing back its former glory.ย
Since Ellington took over the directorship of the opera house last year, itโs hosted a concert series of jazz and R&B performers, plays, dance performances, town halls and, now, a state-wide debate, televised by KTVU and Fox 2 News. The venue is named after a local playwright who fought to prevent it from being demolished in the 1950s.
The debate will be hosted by the Black Action Alliance, an Oakland-based group headed by Malcom Goodwin, a venture capitalist and tech advisor, which has previously held mayoral debates in Oakland.
โWeโre hoping that we will get the necessary eyes on not only the operahouse as an institution, but on the entire southeast side of San Francisco,โ Ellington told Mission Local.ย
Though Ellington says the opera house is a โperforming arts venue first,โ civic engagement, he says, is the great equalizer. He hopes it will bring not only the neighborhood, but the rest of the city, together โย and into the opera houseโs seats.ย
The Third Street Youth Center and Clinicโs renovation of a long-abandoned multi-story building at 3900 Third St. is nearly complete, and transitional aged youth will begin moving into their new homes on Feb. 27, according to the clinicโs director, Joi-Jackson Morgan.
On Tuesday afternoon, a mattress still inside its plastic bag was set against the wall by the hallway window, ahead of the upcoming move-in.ย
The building, a 113-year-old Victorian hotel, โrequired a full redevelopment to bring it up to todayโs standards,โ Morgan said. The renovation was originally scheduled to be completed last October, with move-ins beginning the next month, but it proved to be a bigger job than expected.
โWe essentially stripped it down and rebuilt it,โ said Morgan, adding that the clinic also installed safety crisis-response technology and quality of life improvements, including a new deck, contributing to the delay.
In an Instagram video giving a first look at the new building, the nonprofit’s director of housing, Kat Spiker, walks through the buildingโs newly renovated kitchen, proudly gesturing towards glinting tiled floors and newly installed countertops.
The housing program has caused a mixed reaction among local business owners and residents, while most have expressed support for the incoming young residents, some are concerned that the program would pose a threat to their sales.ย
Outdated staff buildings at the Southeast Treatment Plant at Phelps Street and Jerrold Avenue will be demolished this year. The demolition of the early 1950s-era facility was approved this month, and is part of a $3 billion dollar project to renovate the Southeast Treatment Plant, which staff said has become increasingly expensive to maintain. Construction on the new, modernized operations, maintenance and engineering buildings is scheduled to begin this fall.ย