‘Just Like Broadway’: Tenderloin Sees $500,000 Investment to Revitalize Theater District
The Mid-Market Business Association & Foundation and Supervisor Bilal Mahmood on Thursday announced a $500,000 investment in a Market Street Arts & Theater District.
San Francisco’s downtown appears to be making a comeback, with the latest City Survey results showing that trips downtown for dining, shopping, and work all increased between 2023 and 2026. City officials and business leaders said they want to see this revitalization include the Tenderloin.
A joint press release from Mahmood’s office and the MMBA said the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation, Proper Hotel Group and Chris Larsen committed $500,000 in initial seed funding toward this revitalization effort.
Fernando Pujals, executive director of the Mid-Market Business Association, said that the pilot project will lean into the neighborhood’s “creative infrastructure and its history” as a theater and arts district.
“If you look back at the turn of the century, post earthquake and fire, some of the first buildings that were still standing or built, were theaters along Market Street,” Pujals said.
Pujals said that there are 15,000 live performance seats between the ACT’s Strand
Theater, the Golden Gate Theater, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, the Orpheum and the Warfield.
The district brings in a million visitors a year, Mahmood said, but the city is “squandering” the potential economic impact of these visits by not “fully investing in the theater arts district.”
The initial seed funding aims to change this, by turning vacant storefronts into cultural spaces or workshops, adding interactive lighting to streets, installing more street art and putting on more pop-up shows, according to the press release. It also said their goal is to create “a district that stays active before, between and after performances.”
Pujals said they’ve already started investing in some of this “connective tissue” through their busker program.
“We pay musicians to be on the street, so that it changes the vibe of the day,” said Pujals. “They report that it’s such a joyful experience, getting the smiles and the thank yous.”
Ripple Labs co-founder and billionaire Larsen has given significant donations to San Francisco politicians and the police department’s Real-Time Investigation Center. The Downtown Development Corporation also pledged nearly $25 million to revitalize downtown, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
But Mahmood said that this is the first time the Downtown Development Corporation is investing in something west of Powell Street, and that starting the pilot on the 900 block of Market Street allowed for a natural continuation of the city’s Powell Street revitalization efforts.
One of the goals of the pilot is to find ways to get new businesses into ground floor storefronts, which Pujals said has been a challenge — “costs are high.”
According to Pujals, many of the ground floor spaces have large floor plans, making them impractical for small businesses. Some spaces that have been empty for a while can come with additional expenses required to bring the building up to code, while other properties are “leveraged extensively” so landlords need to collect high rents.
Mahmood said that getting tenants into these spaces and investing in the arts will not only increase foot traffic but will also improve safety in the Tenderloin. “For us, it’s kind of two birds with one stone, the more foot traffic and activation you create, the less public safety elements and risks exist.”
According to Mahmood, this kind of investment has worked in other places like Boston, Denver and even in the city’s UN Civic Center Plaza.
“Five years ago, UN Plaza was also a hub for the open-air drug market,” Mahmood said. “Through coordinated public safety enforcement, combined with turning that into a skate park and then chess tables and an open gym, we’ve transformed UN Plaza.”
Market Street may not be getting a skate park, but Pujals said that there are already new stores on the way, including Mi Cocina, slated for a grand opening later this month.
This Saturday, Oct. 17, the city and its partners will be putting on the Market Street Arts &
Theater Festival.
Mahmood said the festival will demonstrate “what this quarter could look like if every theater was activated at the same time” with shows happening every day of the week — “Just like Broadway in New York.”