San Francisco is actively working to rejuvenate the downtown area, aiming to restore its vibrancy

if you've been to downtown San Francisco lately it isn't exactly dead but it might feel like it needs a Lifeline the city has thrown out a lot of ideas to bring back that big city feeling one of those efforts is a new food Hall that opened today it's called Salu Hall it's located right next to IKEA on Market Street it's going to house 11 food Concepts in all including a cooking school bars and event and entertainment space mayor London breed is hoping that the different flavors and offerings will attract people from everywhere and while there are openings like that to celebrate office space vacancies are at an all-time high in the City commercial real estate firm CB says that 36% of San Francisco's office space is sitting empty that's due in large part to post-pandemic the the postp pandemic rise of remote work experts say the city has a lot of potential to bounce back this year and one small downtown business tells our Kelsey Thor that can't happen soon enough SJ Mediterranean has been here at the corner of Pine and Beldon in the financial district since 2018 manager Nancy madal says when they first snagged this location they were ecstatic this is was store number four so it was pretty busy Nancy says they would have lines out the door during the weekday lunch rush but then of course the pandemic hit it's definitely not the same as before more Nancy says even all these years later since the peak of Co the crowds just aren't coming back out of the five days we might have two good days s isn't alone so many businesses continue to struggle especially those downtown the trend towards work from home has gutted many high-rises in the area taking away a huge chunk of these restaurants clientele that is why mayor breed and several other city of officials are pushing the state to pass laws that will make it easier to turn those vacant spaces into housing or other mixed use venues president and CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce Rodney Fong says he's fully on board with the mayor's Vision I think Co taught us not to necessarily put all of our eggs in one basket and uh San Francisco has a luxury of being able to try to diversify itself which I think the mayor by going to Sacramento is trying to do to uh expedite and create incentives four people to take chance and be creative in this great downtown back at s Nancy told me she too likes the idea of getting more people back into downtown she just hopes those people will visit her restaurant as much as those did before improving either housing or more work offices around the area will improve our business a lot San Francisco voters just approved a ballot measure that the mayor says will help the downtown recovery still ahead we talk live with a representative from the housing Action Coalition about how they think it could make a real difference plus popup businesses spurring traffic foot traffic in San Francisco the incentive program helping them test the waters in [Music] [Music] downtown San Francisco is still waiting to see if prop c will live up to its promise of revitalizing the city's downtown the ballot measure supported by mayor London breed W approval from voters in March now prop C waves the city's estate estate transfer tax or properties that are converted from commercial to residential use supporters say that this will help convert more empty office space buildings into housing opponents doubt that it's going to be effective now joining me now is Jake price from the housing Action Coalition thank you so much for joining me today one of the advocates for prop C let me get your take on why this was the right move for San Francisco right now yeah I think we've seen in the post-pandemic era that flexible work is here to stay and we're not going to be a 9 to-5 office environment in downtown and propy was an acknowledgement that we need to be a more mixed use vibrant uh area of the city so basically if I'm hearing you correctly you're basically saying that some of the changes that were accelerated by the pandemic the fact that we do we can work from virtually anywhere depending on the nature of our job that it's almost wishful thinking to think that those are just going to reverse themselves and people are going to come back in the same number or with the same frequency into downtown as they did before the pandemic yeah I I think that that's about right we we know that flexible work and remote work is a is very popular particularly within the Bay Area and we're not able to rely on office commuters coming in from all over the region in the way we want were so explain to me the mechanism how does propy work how does it accelerate then the changes that we need to make to the downtown so that we can bring some of the people and that energy and the revenue back to that area yeah so prop C waves the transfer tax for projects that are converting from uh Office Buildings to housing the transfer tax as folks might recall was passed in 2020 I believe um and it imposes about a 65% tax on Residential Properties so it was very cost prohibitive for any office building to be converted and this is just waving one of those uh Financial factors okay so it just passed so we don't have a ton of data about how this is going to work but if you were to project out two three five years would you see a lot of these places that are maybe sitting empty and idle now you think will have been converted into housing is that the hope I think that's the hope but I don't think we're under any illusion that props is going to turn every vacant office building into housing it's still very expensive and and costly and time consuming um but if it converts three to five to 10 Office Buildings into housing that's a big boom we only have 315 residents living in downtown full-time so just a few projects really brings a lot of foot traffic and vibrancy into the neighborhood I'm going to go ahead and say the word that I imagine that you and mayor breed and people in City all hate but I'm just going to go and put it on the table which is Doom spiral so I kind of what that sort of indicates is you lose some of the people from the offices the trickle down effect of that is you lose some of the restaurants and some of the other entertainment venues because of that and you get into this spiral where there is less and less reason then for people to visit the area yeah do you think that that is an actual phenomena and if so how do you reverse it well I think uh reports of the Doom Loop or the Doom spiral might be a little overblown at this point I think we're seeing downtown coming back uh already but part of the acknowledgement has to be that what we what downtown looked like in 2018 is not what it can look like going forward we have to reimagine down down and part of that is making it more of a neighborhood it's not going to be 9 to-5 office um and with 100% office capacity um we need to make it a neighborhood so to answer your question about the Doom spiral or the Doom loop it's a real thing that we have to be concerned of and in all of the above approach is what's needed to address it part of that narrative part of that story is the loss of retail we have seen a lot of retail kind of abandon the downtown core yeah and I think adding housing and adding residents into downtown helps with that more foot traffic that can no longer be relied upon from office workers can be replaced with residents full-time residents who are here not just 9 to-5 but all day you know I think when we hear the fact that 35 or 36% or more of the offices are empty basically one out of every three it's a staggering number yeah now this measure in the short term robs the city of some Revenue but I'm guessing that you believe that if we make this conversion if we bring people back down if we add to the Vitality of downtown that it begins to even out or even exceed what we're currently getting I would agree with that and I would say it only robs the city of Revenue if there was going to be conversions in the first place and with this tax as it stood before propy we weren't going to see that all right thank you so much for your time today it's a fascinating issue and I think obviously the future of this city and many others is still being written in this post-pandemic era thanks for having me thank you so much that's Jake price with the housing Action Coalition still ahead success sto stories as San Francisco Works to recover post pandemic why some businesses say now is the right time to get in and remember you can watch us anytime anywhere on our streaming service CBS News P today we've looked at the challenges in downtown San Francisco as the city tries to get more businesses and people to come here and now we turn to what is working and who's making it happen and mavik joins me with that part of the story and yeah we'll start with mayor London breed's vacant to vibrant program it launched late last year with the goal of helping small businesses move into empty storefront spaces as popup locations and this year many of those business owners are renewing leases at those spaces one of them Devil's teeth Baking Company it was already established in the Sunset and outer Richmond and the owner took a shot at a downtown location as one of the initial 17 popups in vacant div vibrant businesses each got three months of free rent to fill vacant spaces downtown I think that the Doom Loop has definitely been blown way out of proportion we were stunned at the amount of traffic that we've had Simon berrang is the executive director of SF New Deal which is helping spearhead the popup program he says they're just a piece of the puzzle it's not a silver bullet it's not the one solution but I think it is a contribution in this crisis of downtown needing to to recover there's also an opportunity for uh small businesses from San Francisco neighborhoods for artists for cultural organizations to come downtown and participate in a way that they couldn't have uh before the pandemic another business diving into downtown San Francisco boy Che Bagels the established Shop with a loyal following plans to have three new locations in San Francisco by the end of June including one on market and Battery the precidio heights location is already open boy cheek's founder says the city's falling lease prices have created the perfect opportunity to position for the years ahead and what she sees as the inevitable San Francisco rebound I'm bullish on downtown I am I'm investing in Downtown Boy Che Bagels has gone from being a single store to becoming a Bay Area Institution in just four years it has locations in Berkeley Palo Alto Santa Clara Larkspur and now San Francisco Devin thank you Ann s had another bright spot for downtown San Francisco it's bringing more tourists back to the city and what will keep them from coming here from all over the world as San Francisco fills some empty storefronts and vacant spaces there's also another bright spot to talk about tourists are coming back to the city and spending their money here the San Francisco travel Association says the city attracted a record-breaking 23.1 million visitors in 2023 and from 2022 to 2023 there was an 82% increase in hotel night bookings that's thanks to big events at mcone center like the Apec conference visitors spending $8.8 billion in San Francisco the manager of coetta restaurant on the Embarcadero says the influx of tourists has played a pivotal role in their success and recovery from the pandemic much more food traffic on the embarc corridor and especially in Spring season and summer we can see that it's happening thankfully yeah it's coming back H in our business our industry uh when we don't have the food traffic or reservations is it's it's it's boring we need we need this Lively environment at every single time since the moment we open until the moment we close at night so yes we are really really really excited and very hopeful that it will ramp up one key driver behind the surge in tourism is San Francisco's convention calendar in 2023 muscone Center hosted 34 events and with events like dreamforce and the Apex sumach bringing people in from around the world another effort to Spur economic growth in San is San Francisco mayor London breed's upcoming trip to China her office says that she hopes to expand tourism grow diplomatic and cultural ties between China and San Francisco the mayor also plans to meet with shanghai's mayor to promote San Francisco's 45-year sister city relationship with the city she takes off on Saturday now before that a popular Night Market series is returning to San Francisco's Chinatown after a similar event attracted massive crowds to the neighborhood last year organizers decided to bring it back on a monthly basis starting at 5:30 tomorrow evening local Merchants will set up Booth running up and down Grand Street selling food and we want to thank you so much for joining us for our in-depth look at the efforts to revitalize downtown San Francisco and we invite you to share your thoughts on social media using the hashtag kpix CBS Evening News is next on kpix local news continues on a streaming service CBS News Bay Area

Channel: KPIX | CBS NEWS BAY AREA

Views: 12,526

Keywords:

Id: vn8iwA3Hg9k

Length: 14min 32sec (872 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 12 2024