San Francisco Mayor London Breed has started things off on the right foot at the Vacant to Vibrant “Grand Opening” press conference by stopping in the Whack Donuts! and York Street Cafe pop-up space, chatting with owners Vandor Hill and Anand Upender and sampling their offerings.
“This is exactly what we need in our downtown area,” Breed said.
The press conference, held last Friday at Four Embarcadero Center, was part of Vacant to Vibrant’s official opening week for its first group of pop-ups — 17 total — in San Francisco’s downtown.
In addition to the Whack Donuts! and York Street Cafe pop-up in Suite 4507, the Embarcadero Center, owned by BXP, is the site of three other pop-ups: Rosalind Bakery, Teranga Foods and Devil’s Teeth Baking Company, which is sharing a space with Green Apple Books.
“Today is about the small businesses, the artists and cultural groups that are setting up shop in previously vacant storefronts downtown … It’s also about the partners that made this happen — property owners like BXP and Pembroke who’ve been willing to offer free rent to help bring the pop-ups to life,” said Simon Bertrang, executive director of SF New Deal, the nonprofit backing the Vacant to Vibrant program.
“Today is about the small businesses, the artists and cultural groups that are setting up shop in previously vacant storefronts downtown … ” Simon Bertrang, SF New Deal
Friday’s news conference brought together those involved in Vacant to Vibrant, including Breed, SF New Deal, the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development and other stakeholders, as well as some of the Vacant to Vibrant pop-up “activators,” both in the crowd and in their nearby pop-up shops.
Speakers at the conference honed in on the idea that downtown can continue to change for the better by addressing challenges head-on and through the concerted effort of city leaders, businesses and residents.
Breed said, “When, earlier this year, I put out my economic recovery plan for downtown, everybody was thinking, ‘What are we going to do, and how are we going to deal with downtown?’ I took a lot of time to visit with businesses to talk to people who work downtown to understand what the challenges are and what the opportunities are.”
‘How do we make this happen?’
From those conversations, she discovered that people wanted the area to offer more food options, a more diverse array of businesses in general and, simply put, more opportunities for entertainment.
She noted, “[W]e have to make sure as a city that we make it a lot easier. We have seen layers after layers of bureaucracy that have made small businesses like the ones that are opening in downtown today so difficult to do. Our motto is, ‘How do we get to yes? How do we clear bureaucracy? How do we make this happen for the people of San Francisco? How do we make fun happen [and have] joy and excitement again?”
According to Breed and echoed by other speakers at the news conference, “getting to yes” involves working together — creating partnerships among nonprofits, the private sector and the city — and results in program launches like Vacant to Vibrant.
“I am so happy and excited about what this is going to do to continue to revitalize this amazing downtown,” she shared.
Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin, who represents the downtown area, commented that Vacant to Vibrant is an opportunity to re-envision downtown as a neighborhood people want to visit.
Peskin said, “Somebody said to me, ‘What’s your plan for downtown?’ And I said, ‘We want downtown to be like our neighborhoods — to be like North Beach, which is popping; to be like Chinatown, which is popping. We’ve got to bring some of that life and that vitality here.’ And this is exactly what Vacant to Vibrant is doing.”
“Our motto is, ‘How do we get to yes? How do we clear bureaucracy? How do we make this happen for the people of San Francisco? How do we make fun happen [and have] joy and excitement again?” Mayor London Breed
Vacant to Vibrant’s first round of participants will get three months in their spaces, with the possibility of extending their stay; the second and third groups will be selected and given locations in 2024. So far, the program has received some 1,000 applications, with many Bay Area organizations, businesses and artists in the Bay Area interested in taking part in it.
Many of the first cohort of activators held opening events on Thursday and Friday, including a free pastry-themed drag show at Devil’s Teeth, with the unified aim to get folks downtown and into their shops, giving them a taste, literally or figuratively, of what’s to come.
As Bertrang said, “Vacant to Vibrant offers a glimpse of the future of San Francisco, and it’s written by San Franciscans themselves … I encourage everyone to come downtown to visit these pop-ups for the next three months, both to be a part of providing a much needed infusion of culture and economic vibrancy to our downtown [and] to be part of the conversation about what the future of downtown is.”
For a map of the pop-up locations, people can visit https://www.vibrantsf.org/map.