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New York City’s famous grouch Fran Lebowitz had some particularly poignant words for San Francisco on Feb. 1 at the Sidney Goldstein Theater’s Urban Arts and Talks event.
“There’s no city as murdered as San Francisco,” she told the Inquirer’s Manny Yekutiel. “Killed by covid. Killed.”
She blamed tech companies for leaving the city, which she spent walking around downtown during her visit. But if Mayor London Brad is the doctor charged with bringing San Francisco back to life, she’s been sitting at the patient’s bedside waiting for a miracle for a long time. “Get back to work!” She says companies and their employees ignore her.
Finally, on Thursday, the mayor gave a broad outline of her medical plan in her annual State of the City address, and the ideas are worthy if delayed. Gone are the days when all City Hall — and all San Franciscans — can focus so intently on downtown because the fate of our city largely depends on its revitalization.
Before the pandemic, downtown provided 70% of the city’s jobs and most of its tax revenue. Considering the city supervisor estimates that there will be a $1.4 billion increase in spending over the next five years and a $1.2 billion budget gap if no action is taken, treating downtown is important. This is what funds the programs we hold dear – homeless services and drug rehab, affordable housing and street improvements, parks and schools.
Homelessness is one of San Francisco’s most pressing concerns.
Jessica Christian/The Chronicles 2022Lebowitz was right that downtown San Francisco was hit harder by the epidemic than any other North American city. Cell phone data shows that the downtown core is seeing 31 percent of recreational activity in 2019. Other California cities fare much better: San Diego sits at 99% of pre-pandemic levels, Sacramento at 75% and San Jose at 68%. . Lebowitz’s own New York City returned 74%.
The consequences of San Francisco’s foot-dragging are dire. BART, for example, has only recovered 40 percent and is at risk when federal pandemic funding runs out in early 2025. If ridership doesn’t rebound significantly, the agency could be forced to stop trains at 9 a.m. weekdays, eliminate weekend service, close some stations, add 60-minute wait times for trains and lay off employees, spokeswoman Alicia Trost told me.
Trost said San Francisco officials’ sense of urgency to restore downtown pales in comparison to efforts like “New York.” A 148-page plan from Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams and civic leaders was unveiled in December.
“We can’t survive without something significant happening in downtown San Francisco,” Trost said. “New York has an amazing plan, and I haven’t seen anything like it in the Bay Area.”
Brad said she relied on the business leaders who advise her, and at least one admitted they spent 2022 hoping the economic outlook would improve and workers would return to the office.
“There’s been a lot of denial in government and business that the city’s situation isn’t bad,” said Wade Rose, president of Advance SF, a business advocacy group. “That time has passed, and now it’s time to try to find a solution.
Brad shared the highlights of her “Road to Recovery” address Thursday, but her advisors shared more about what’s to come with me.
A group of business leaders — including representatives from Advance SF, the Chamber of Commerce, the Bay Area Council, SPR, the Hotel Council and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association — have been meeting with the mayor’s office since April to discuss a route to downtown Juice. With 49 ideas he’ll be showing off in public over the next few weeks, they’re confirmed in the oh-so-ideal image of San Francisco.
“There is no silver bullet,” Rose told me. “There is only silver and silver.”
And he means that downtown revitalization requires small ideas that hopefully come together and build on each other.
Among the 49 proposals is to allow builders to defer license fees until after their projects are built, rather than up front. In this way, they earn money by renting out or selling their properties.
They’re also focused on initiatives that boost restaurants and bars, such as pushing back a previously scrapped effort to institute a 4-hour closing time and encouraging the state to quickly issue more liquor licenses.
They are also looking to create a rotating downtown concert series on Friday nights where restaurants and bars can make more money. Another plan aims to revitalize the dismal Embarcadero Plaza with art and music.
Business leaders have also heard from bar and restaurant owners that they can’t get loans to open downtown, so they’re proposing new lease arrangements, such as paying a percentage of profits instead of monthly rent. They also offer a program to help pay for pub and restaurant construction.
Ned Segal, a former chief financial officer at Twitter, advised the mayor on how to revitalize downtown, gathering feedback from local CEOs. He said public safety is the No. 1 priority, followed by bus rapid transit, not repeated ballot measures to change the tax structure, but a greater estimate of city taxes and a happy state of thriving small businesses.
Segal is also pushing landlords to be more creative with leases, allowing two businesses to rent an office and split the week. If two companies each pay 60 percent of the standard lease, they save money and the owners get out early, he said.
“Safety, services and predictability are critical to creating a downtown where people want to invest and where people want to work,” Segal told me.
In a sign of who cares about San Francisco’s future, I saw Segal chat with Golden State Warriors president Brandon Schneider during the mayor’s speech. Twitter CEO Elon Musk was nowhere to be seen.
In her address, Braid acknowledged, “We know downtown San Francisco is not coming back. And that’s okay. Instead, she and the business leaders who advise her are refining their vision for downtown.
It’s no longer just a place to go to work – and maybe eat lunch, drinks, a sporting event or a show because you’re there. Instead, those will be the features that draw you to your downtown office because they’ll make your day more than just another eight-hour stint zooming around in your sweatpants.
Brad’s roadmap includes an attempt to fill 27% of the vacant office space by persuading companies to offer a $1 million annual rebate on their gross receipts tax for up to three years. Some businesses could face a two-year delay in the proposed two-year tax increase under the 2020 proposal.
She also touched on other important efforts: keeping streets clean and free of drug dealing and other crimes, making it easier to convert some vacant offices into housing, paving the way for small businesses to occupy open storefronts and creating an arts district downtown.
Here’s betting the Board of Supervisors will go along with many of her plans. Board President Aaron Peskin said he and the mayor “have a common agenda for downtown from a tax perspective,” but rightly pointed out that turning many of her ideas into reality will require more accountability and swift action from the mayor’s department. Heads.
He says, for example, that one of the reasons it’s so hard to build anything is because the Department of Building Control is so slow to issue permits—a problem that has the power to eradicate species. They also pointed out San Francisco Public Works’ slowness in issuing permits and maps for some construction projects.
“After five years of fixing the bureaucracy, the mayor has done nothing to address these bureaucratic delays,” Peskin said.
Breed spokesman Jeff Cretan said the facilitation effort is working to help small businesses open more quickly, build affordable housing and hire workers. The mayor said he’s asking for other people’s ideas — and said the inspectors should step in. Peskin, on the other hand, has enacted legislation to begin the process of converting office space into residential housing.
After Beard’s speech at Dogpatch, I went back downtown and found a sign of life. Located at the intersection of Howard and Beale Streets, the former temporary bus terminal is being built nearby by the new Tranbay Transit Center.
Now, it’s home to an outdoor cinema, beer garden, soccer fields, food trucks, picnic tables and pickleball courts. Even at noon on Thursday, the picker’s fields were crowded. (Here’s the solution! Salesforce Tower complete with pickleball courts.)
In the end, the 3.3 hectares of land will be even better: 1,000 new housing units, including 600 affordable houses in the middle of a public park. Andrew Robinson, executive director of the East Cut Community Benefit District, which helps run the intersection, said it’s part of a “new downtown model for San Francisco, but also globally” — a place for people to work, live and play.
I’m talking about that vision of downtown San Francisco coming back to life. So did Yekutiel, who tried to defend his city after Lebowitz’s dire assessment.
“Let’s get out of my town,” she said, repeating the phrase. “We will save her.”
Contact Heather Knight: hknight@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @hknightsf
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