good afternoon, everyone. this meeting will come to order. welcome to the may 13th, 2020 fourth regular meeting of the land use and transportation committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. i'm supervisor myrna melgar, chair of the committee. joined by board of supervisors president aaron peskin and vice chair dean preston, the committee clerk today is john carroll. and i would also like to acknowledge corwin cooley, who is our staff person for sfgovtv today. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? yes. thank you, madam chair. please ensure that you've silenced your cell phones and other electronic devices you may have brought with you into the chamber today. if you have any documents to include as part of any of today's files on the

agenda, you should submit them to me, and you may do so by bringing them forward to the rail. public comment will be taken on each item on today's agenda. when your item of interest comes up in public comment is called, please line up to speak along your right hand side of the room. alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing in either of the following two ways. first, you may email your written public comment to me. the land use and transportation committee clerk. my email address is j own period. c a r r o l l at sf gov. org or you may send your written comments via us postal service to our office in city hall. the address is one doctor carlton b goodlett place, room 244, san francisco, california 94102. if you submit public comments in writing, i will forward your comment to the members of this panel and i will also include your comments as part of the official file on which you are commenting. and finally, madam chair, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda of may 21st, 2024 unless otherwise stated. thank you so much, mr. carroll, will you please call item number one? agenda item number one is a resolution approving an authorizing an easement agreement and quitclaim between

the city and midtown lands, llc. fixing and perfecting the location in terms of an easement reserved in a 1957 subdivision instrument for vehicular and pedestrian access and subsurface utilities within a city parcel located in the twin peaks neighborhood. adopting findings of consistency with the general plan and the priority policies and planning code section 11.1 affirming the planning department's secret determination and authorizing the director of property to enter into amendments or modifications to the easement agreement that do not materially increase the obligations or liabilities of the city and are necessary to effectuate the purposes of the easement agreement and the resolution. thank you so much, mr. carroll, before i bring up director real estate and rico penick, i just wanted to give a quick refresher on this item for my colleagues. this item is pertains to, two parcels in district seven, right under sutro tower, the board of supervisors conditionally approved the decision of public works to approve a tentative map for a two lot subdivision for

this parcel. and in doing the research for this hearing, we discovered that there was never an approved roadway easement to the parcel. so we requested the project sponsor to work with rec and parks department in that commission to provide proof of an approval for the roadway easement, in addition to determining whether the utilities easements would be, we also requested the neighbors entitled notice to the tentative map approval to be notified when all these conditions were met. so the easement agreement is now before us today, and i will turn it over to director penick from the real estate department. welcome. thank you for being here. good afternoon, chair mcgarr, supervisor preston, president. peskin. supervisor. mandelman. enrico penick, director of real estate, chairman uyghur. you put the nail right on the head, this is a technical amendment to clean up an easement. and the midtown

terrace section in. i'm here before you, seeking your positive recommendation for approving a resolution that would approve and authorize the, easement agreement and quitclaim between the city and midtown lands, llc. by way of background, the rec and park department has jurisdiction over approximately 19 acres spanning four acres, commonly known as the greenbelt in the midtown terrace section of twin peaks in 1957, a portion of the greenbelt was deeded to the city. however, the prior owner reserved a blanket easement over approximately 6970ft!s. the 1957 deed contemplated that a more precise location of the easement would be identified at a future date, that date has now come. just to orient you as to location, you can see on the screen in the upper left hand

section is mount sutro, open space reserve, sorta in the center and towards the bottom is sutro tower. the red dot on the map represents the intersection of la avanzado and delbrook, and the small gray dot just to the right of the red dot is generally the area of the easement in question. more blow up view shows you the midtown lands parcel, and you see the proposed easement, in blue, and you can see la avanzado street just to the top of the photograph. the proposed easement would reduce the current easement down to 2500fts from its original size of 6970ft!s. it allows for service improvements such as gravel, to facilitate a pedestrian and vehicle access to the greenbelt

allows for subsurface utilities to run along the easement area to support a future residential development. the approval of the residential development is not before you. today, it requires midtown lands or any future property owner to assume the stewardship over the and preserve the easement. lastly, i'd like to mention on july 20th, 2023, the rec and park commission adopted resolution number 23 07004, by a vote of 4 to 0, recommending this board's approval of the easement, that concludes my presentation. i stand ready to answer any questions you may have. okay okay, i don't see any questions or comments from my colleagues, so let's go to public comment on this item, please. thank you, madam chair. land use and transportation will now hear public comment on agenda item one related to this grant of non-exclusive easement. do we

have any public comment on agenda item number one? madam chair, it appears we have no speakers. okay. with that, public comment is now closed. and, colleagues, i'd like to make a motion that we send this item out of committee with a positive recommendation on the motion offered by chair melgar, that this resolution be recommended to the board of supervisors, vice chair preston preston, i member peskin i. peskin i chair melgar, i. melgar i madam chair, there are three eyes. thank you. that motion passes, let's go to item number two, please. agenda item number two is an ordinance designating a portion of the sidewalk on 24th street between sanchez and vicksburg streets, adjoining the noe valley farmers market. as the site of a future commemorative plaque in honor of peter gable granting the public works director authority to approve the installation of a commemorative plaque at said location. following the director's review of all permit application materials and the approval of the plaque design by the design review committee of

the arts commission, waving permit and inspection fees under the public works code for the installation of the plaque directing further acts in furtherance of the ordinance as contained within the ordinance text, and affirming the planning department's secret determination, okay. thank you, mr. clerk. we are joined by district eight supervisor rafael mandelman. welcome, supervisor mandelman. the floor is yours. thank you, chair melgar, and colleagues, for allowing me to join the land use committee today to present this commemorative plaque ordinance to honor peter gable, a community leader, activist, lawyer, writer, educator, a friend, peter was often described as the social conscience of noe valley. he was a former president of new college of california, a nontraditional educational institution that worked to tie education to the social idealism of the 60s. he was a professor at new college's public interest law school for more than three

decades, teaching students how to use legal activism to bring of social change. he was a founder of the critical legal studies movement in reformist legal theory and scholarship. he was editor at large of the progressive jewish magazine tikkun from its founding in the 80s, and wrote countless pieces for the magazine, usually focus focusing on connecting law to politics, culture, and social change, and peter played a significant role in co-found the much beloved noe valley farmers market and was instrumental in developing the vision for the noe valley town square, along with his life partner lisa jakes, who is here today. hi, lisa, peter supported local workers in filing and winning an unfair labor practices claim against well with the national labor relations board against the nutraceutical corporation for closing stores and dismissing workers attempting to unionize, as it was in this context that peter and his

neighbors dreamed up the farmers market to provide dismissed workers employment opportunities, their former supervisor, and former us assistant secretary of housing and urban development roberta achtenberg, who was a friend, neighbor and trusted colleague of peter's, sent the following statement peter was peter believed in the spiritually binding quality of people coming into connection with one another in pursuit of fairness, equality, sustainable practice and improvement of the human condition. as a teacher, scholar and activist, peter gabel was without peer. he believed in the transformative power of community building and practiced every day. what he so persuasively preached. his critical role in helping conceive of our beloved town square and its joyous, thriving life sustaining farmers market is a living manifestation of that belief. he worked in community to help bring it about, and he nurtured it with his welcoming presence weekly. for many, many years, our neighbors know how much we owe peter when it comes to the sense of belonging. we enjoy every day. as noe valley residents, it

is only fitting and appropriate that the plaque commemorating commemorating his commitment to us should be installed as a permanent welcome to all the proposed ordinance will designate a portion of the sidewalk on 24th street between sanchez and vicksburg streets, adjoining the noe valley farmers market, as the site of a future commemorative plaque in honor of peter. fittingly the commemorative plaque will be placed exactly in the spot where he would stand and greet fellow community members to the farmers market. i want to thank the noe valley farmers market, leslie crawford, who is here, and of course, lisa, for their partnership and insistence and collaboration on this ordinance. i also want to thank president peskin for your co-sponsorship and adam tom, in my office for all of his work figuring this out. and i would respectfully ask colleagues for your support. okay, thank you, supervisor peter, i don't see any comments or questions from my colleagues,

so let's go to public comment on this item, please. if you have public comment on agenda item number two related to the commemorative plaque for peter gabel at near the noe valley farmers market, please come forward to the lectern. at this time. either is fine. please begin. hi, i'm leslie crawford, probably whatever i'm going to say is going to be redundant, but i'll say it anyway, for two decades, i had the privilege of working alongside peter gabel, his visionary leadership was instrumental in the creation of the noe valley farmers market, a vibrant center that brought our community together. this market, in turn, paved the way for the creation of the noe valley town square. peter's ability to effect such transformative, often seemingly insurmountable change is testament to his exceptional character. we learned from peter, you can make

the world better, that you can have unbridled hope and not be embarrassed to have a conviction that will change the world and our community. he brought significant and lasting change to noe valley and to the city with grace, grace, patience, empathy and calm leadership. the goal in installing the sidewalk plaque is not only to honor such a remarkable person, but to remind others that all of us can do as peter did and create such change. it's so important we recognize and celebrate people like peter gabel, who have enriched our city by honoring their transformative contributions. we not only pay tribute to their life changing acts, but also inspire others to step forward and make a difference in their communities. this will be a beautiful plaque. i'll read you the quote we've chosen for it. this is peter's quote. we together hold the key to each other's liberation. and once we find the social and political path to spread this

collective awareness sufficiently across social space, then the loving world to which we aspire will begin to be born. thank you. thank you for sharing your comments. do we have anyone else who has public comment on agenda item number two? madam chair, thank you so much. public comment on this item is now closed. president peskin, since you're a co-sponsor, would you like to make a motion, yes. so moved. okay. on the motion offered by member peskin that the ordinance be recommended to the board of supervisors, vice chair preston preston, i member peskin i. peskin i chair melgar i. melgar i madam chair, there are three eyes. thank you. that motion passes. congratulations supervisor. okay mr. clerk, let's go to item number three, please, agenda item number three is a hearing on the future of union square. the plan to attract a diversity of uses to

the area and the impact of macy's closure on retail workers, security guards and other workers in the area. okay, we are now joined by the sponsor of this hearing, supervisor for district 11, ahsha safaí. welcome. the floor is yours. thank you, madam chair, okay, colleagues, thank you. today, appreciate all the attendees and departments that have prepared for the work that we want to talk about this, abo union square, macy's in particular, but definitely the future and of union square, how it will impact the city, i think of union square as one of the three crown jewels of san francisco, definitely something that sets san francisco apart from many cities around the world. is this shopping area? i know from the work that we've done over the last number of years that it prior to covid, it represented 40% of our retail sales. non-alcohol and beverage,

extremely, extremely important part of our city and what it means and how the future of our city and the strength of our city's economy is so when macy's announced in in late february that it was closing its flagship flagship store in union square, it definitely felt like a gut punch to san francisco. we've known union square was struggling post-pandemic, but i think union square in many ways is synonymous with with macy's. and macy's has been such a integral part of union square, an anchor institution. people define them almost one and the same, but we know that retailers that target middle class consumers, working families, have been pulling back worldwide from their physical store presence around. and as this trend of online shopping has pulled, many people to continue to do online shopping even after

the pandemic, whether it was h&m, uniqlo or the gap, retailers realized they didn't necessarily need to have brick and mortar in union square to be successful, able to reach their customers, even as you see some other areas around the bay area have these institutions still present in their shopping centers, they've been incentivized to reduce rental costs, cut employees. and overhead, and we've seen an exodus of certain type of retailer leaving union square. and waiting to see whether it's unclear whether they will come back. although i know we have many, many dedicated people to reimagining and reshaping, union square. and i know for sure union square will always be and continue to be an important and integral part of san francisco, i spent 2 or 3 days a week down there, and i can tell you the activity that i see today is

very different than what i saw, even just a few, months ago. we're also going to hear today from the united food and commercial workers local five, and how the uncertainty of macy's, macy's has impacted their workers. their vision and ideas for a future of union square and, and the downtown and the loss of other retail work and the impact that it's had on our workforce, and also good union paying jobs outside of ufc, but other jobs we have reached out to and spoken to local two, the hotel and restaurant workers. we've spoken to a local 87, the janitors union as well. we were just at local 39 operating engineers apprenticeship on site. they're also very present in union square area and we've spoken to their leadership. so this also impacts good union, middle class jobs, the controller's data reflects the change in vacancy in that area. i think we're

going to hear from our economist, ted egan, but essentially, i think union square is in a is in a period of reflection and transition. i think that's really where we are today, but now is the time to make some bold changes away from just the retail model that might not be coming back completely, as we've always known it, and think about union square as more of a destination model centered around activities, entertainment, restaurants, bars, and possibly, as a legislation that we put forward last week. universities in the downtown. this is a historic opportunity for property values in the downtown and union square area, and maybe even a university in that area, but basically and also activities that draw families and visitors alike. we need to move faster to get to the future of union square that's bustling and active with a variety of businesses, and not just the older model of just retail and not just what we're seeing in

somewhat of a small trend, not just expensive retail that's out of reach to almost everyday san franciscans because those that can be a piece of it and that can be a draw for tourism, but we need to make sure that we also are thinking about everyday san franciscans across the board. so i want to thank my co-sponsor, president peskin, supervisor chan, and all the city staff that put work into preparing this, presentation today. i also want to thank the union square alliance and marissa rodriguez for joining us and participating united food and commercial workers, had jim arab will also be presenting and thank you for your participation. i know our planning department, office of economic and workforce development. so the run of show, madam chair, we're going to do is we're going to hear first from our, director of office of economic and workforce development, sarah phillips. and then we'll go to the current

state of union square with our city's economist, ted egan, the i will go back to sarah dennis phillips about an update on macy's, we'll talk about some union square initiatives, and that will be jacob bintliff and rachel tanner. and then we'll have some closing remarks from our director, again, and then we'll hand it over to the united food and commercial workers. and the impact on workers, jim irby and tony vargas from local five, we also have an attendance and available for questions, as i said, the ceo of the union square alliance, marissa rodriguez, matt green from dbi, department deputy director for inspections, christine gersbach from dbi government affairs, carl nicita from sfpd government affairs. and lieutenant dean hall, my guy, he and i had a he and i hadn't had a near incident

the other day, not he and i, but he intervened. he he intervened. and i want to just say i want to put a big plug into having a foot beat officers and officers present in union square. in the 24 years i've lived in san francisco, almost half of my life, i've never had an individual lock on me and follow me for a few blocks and if it weren't for lieutenant hall and the other officer that were there to de-escalate the situation, it could have turned bad. it was right near the cable car turnaround. there were tourists there with video cameras, and it could have gotten out of control. but because the officers were there and were present, they made an immediate intervention, and i knew they were there, which made a difference because i had to walk about a block and a half before i got to that so that i wouldn't have an incident with an individual that was having a moment. so i want to really, really appreciate and thank lieutenant hall and the other officer that were there for

being present and being active and being proactive and de-escalating the situation, which is what our officers are trained to do. so i really appreciate that. and so thank you for being here, lieutenant hall. so with that, madam chair, if it's okay with you, unless anyone has any other statements, i don't know if my co-sponsor, president peskin, has to say anything, but if we can call up, director sarah dennis phillips, that would be good. that's okay. okay, great. good afternoon. morning. good afternoon. afternoon, afternoon. chair. gallagher, vice chair, preston and supervisors, safaí peskin. thanks so much for having us here today. i'm just here to kick it off and provide a little context and, super safaí, at the risk of sounding redundant, you covered a lot of what we're going to tee off with. so thank you very much, i will note we're also joined by you covered, everyone who's here, i think, except for one addition, we have lauren acevedo. she's our employee and engagement manager,

in our workforce team at pd, who's here with us as well. can she raise her hand? okay great. she's not sitting with the team, so i didn't know. we're not going to call her up right at the get go. but she's here for questions, so we can kind of. yeah. so union square, as you're all aware and you covered is a centerpiece of san francisco's image really, and it's critical to all of our downtown recovery work. pre-pandemic, almost 50% of visitors to san francisco hit up union square while they were here visiting, we've got one third of the city's hotel rooms located here, so it's a big center for our, visitor economy as well. and it's our historic destination shopping district with some three point 5,000,000ft!s of retail space, there, which traditionally has accounted for over 10% of the city's sales tax. i think we're at 8% right now, although mr. egan will cover those details as we go, however, as supervisor

safaí mentioned, destination shopping has really changed, and destination shopping downtown, has really seen the worst of it, nationally, the pandemic freed up wider adoption of online shopping, of delivery and even of contactless payments. it really changed the way a lot of people shopped, including adding new behaviors to the way they traditionally shopped, and so and there also was a real shift that we've seen, to value. so cost consciousness, discount shopping. there's been a real shift in that area too. and i think, as you noted supervisor, you can draw a pretty strong link between some of the changes that we've seen, in union square specifically, and that mid-market value conscious area of shopping, and i and that's a real important thing to look at. macy's in particular is a good example of that, with the macy's

corporate structure deciding to put 150 stores nationwide up for sale, union square being one of the casualties there. tourism also has been in flux, right, nationally and particularly in san francisco, and we are still recovering, in our tourism industry downtown, and citywide. and we think we probably have two, three, four years to go, and there are a couple of big factors to that. our conference calendar, this year, is not good. and it will be recovering over the next couple of years. so that's that's one hit. and international tourism is still building back up, particularly as we look to asia and china who have historically been, real centers of visitor, international travel to san francisco and to union square. so you covered our agenda, so let's talk a little bit, and maybe i'll just give one more introduction about the current

state of union square, we are obviously struggling with a very high vacancy rate, especially on powell street and especially in the westfield center, the, the emporium, san francisco center at the at the base of union square, it's not all loss. some of it is churn, as you noted, there are some trends to highlight that are worth noting as we as we worry about the vacancies that exist, the luxury brands that exist, in union square have been doubling down and we've seen growth in that industry. and, you know, rolex, yves saint laurent, bulgari, chanel, all have opened new stores there, some of these, like banana republic, are existing stores shifting into new spaces. and like our office tenants, in some cases smaller spaces. but it is still showing reinvestment from that high luxury sector into union square, co-working and event spaces has been another bright spot and convene in the former macy's

men's building is one example of that. and then the hayes workshop at ikea is another example of that as well, rooftop dining and drinks made, and the starlite room have made a big bang and some national headlines for their opening food and beverage, much like the sally hall food hall, where food is going collectively for lunch tomorrow and, jollibee, which is opening soon, have been an examples to all three of those that, you know, the event spaces, the dining and the food and beverage spaces are examples of, i think what the supervisor noted, the experience economy, which is really critical to bringing people back in person to places like union square. i will note that fnb food and beverage, as we collectively call it, is one of the hardest to grow. it's one thing to build out existing fab spaces into new investments, but in terms of adding to that sector, tenant

improvements for spaces that are not built out for fab are incredibly costly. providing venting and the other actual physical and dbi requirements that you need for fab are also really hard. so just want to note, while that's an area of focus, it's also probably one of our biggest areas of challenge, the emporium has been an interesting, movement. while it obviously is in great flux, we've had six new leases signed at the emporium since march, including three san francisco small businesses. they've been great, the emporium is now managed by jll, a local, management company. they're working directly with our office of small business, and we're actually finding that they are able to undercut a lot of our neighborhood retail in terms of the rents that they are offering. if they are taking rent at all above percentage rent. so they're working really hard to get that tenanted. we hear more leases beyond the six that are signed are pending, in union square as well. can you

reiterate that? what say that again about the leases that undercut you speaking really fast. go ahead. sorry. yeah. well, one of the trends that we've noticed, which i think has been interesting, is that, ground floor retail and retail overall, obviously there are lots of spaces. so to compete for tenants and the small businesses who are opening, we're seeing some folks, including the emporium, be very aggressive. and so they're, you know, either charging low per square rents or in some cases setting a percent sales target with a tenant and then only charging rent above that sales target hit. so they're really seeing success, and i think that's why we've seen a lot of interest from our local small businesses in the emporium. got it. and hence some of the announcements for lease like leased come and go. that's right, that's right, union square as well. 32 new businesses. anecdotally, we new businesses, it's worth noting, are tough to track precisely,

but we pay attention. there's been 32 that have opened or signed leases since fall 22, happy to give you all of those names, but i think they hit some of the buckets that we've talked about in trends in san francisco , and we are seeing positive, albeit slower than the trajectory we'd like to see growth in terms of tourism and foot traffic in the area, muni ridership specifically to the union square stop is up. it's increased by 58% on weekdays and 54% on weekends during the 2023 holiday season, as opposed to the previous year. tourist travel continues to recover. last year, international travel at sfo exceeded 2019 levels for the first time, and domestic travel almost reached parity. we were at 97% of normal, and hotel occupancy is reaching back up towards 2019 levels, but we obviously still have places to

go, so with that, i think to delve into some of the numbers behind those general trends that i just noted, i'd like to invite up ted egan, our city economist. thank you. director dennis phillips, and good afternoon, supervisors. i'm ted egan from the controller's office. i have a few slides to share with you today about, some of the data points around union square at the moment and over the past. brief while i'll look at, sales tax trends over the past year, both in union square and across the city. for context, we have some long term data on retail vacancy trends, both in union square and in other large shopping centers, along the peninsula. we'll look at hotel occupancy and rate trends. and it was mentioned most of those hotel rooms are in or near, union square. and we'll also

look from the job side at recovery in retail employment for different, industries within retail, this is a look at the most recent sales tax data we have going back from the beginning of 22 to the end of 2023. there's always a bit of a lag in our sales tax data. and one of the things i would say is that the way that union square is sort of defined for our sales tax reporting purposes probably leaves out a lot of what others might describe. there's nothing south of market street, for example, in here. so it's leaving out westfield. it's leaving out san francisco center and other businesses there along market street, however, what it's really showing is that union square is, is, moving in the same direction as the city, which is a slight softening of sales tax over the couple year period. union square, because of the holiday business, tends to have a spike in the fourth quarter. but you'll notice the

fourth quarter spike of last year is below the spike of 22. and in fact, each quarter, in 23 was lower than in in 22. and that's true of the citywide total as well. that mainly has to do with the fact that overall, the city's economy has slowed because of the tech layoffs and the overall slow levels of the recovery demand driving is an important thing to consider in union square and obviously both tourism and office attendance are major drivers of demand for union square and both have been soft and softer in the past year or so. this is that retail vacancy rate that i mentioned. this data comes from covid. and i would say there's a little bit of controversy with the exactness of this, but i think the trend here is clear. union square is the blue line on top that is now reportedly at about 19.5% vacancy, when you say there's what do you mean? i mean that different people will express skepticism about this specific

number, some people will say it's significantly higher and that costar is missing things. i would say that this is this is considering the macy's building, which i know you'll talk about later as being 100% occupied. that's a major piece of the union square real estate. and so when that becomes vacant, that will affect this number. so there may be a bit of a lag in this number, but i think the trends in comparison, the long term trends, to daly city, san bruno, millbrae and san mateo, where there are major regional malls in terms of vacancy levels, union square was essentially competitive with them until 2019. and then obviously it became much worse in the pandemic. the vacancy rates are elevated in most other places, but but union square is significantly more elevated. and i think that that may have to do with the fact that the tourism and the office and the, you know, leisure tourism in san

francisco have all been severely hit, whereas the ones that are depending more on the residents have been somewhat stronger. i would say this is a look at hotel occupancy and daily rates compared to 2019. so the top dashed red line is the average occupancy rate in 2019, which is about 80. in the blue line is where we are on any given month, and this is really fairly recent data until may of this month, until this may, the upshot is we're rarely approaching 80% occupancy for our hotels. and right now we're about 60, it changes from one week to another because of conventions where you could have a spike in occupancy. but generally, hotels have been quite slow to recover. and the rates which are the darker red dotted line shows the average rate, most most weeks the average rates that hotels are getting are also significantly

below the 2019 levels. over yes. go ahead. but before you go, because i'm i'm looking at this this only begins basically this is a year. yeah. this is the last year of data. right. and i understand you give the hard line of what it was. the average occupancy in 2019. so you said we rarely ever get to 80. you mean in the past year, in the past year. but what was the trends prior to that, it frankly wasn't much better. there hasn't there is recovery when the hotels were reopening in 2021 and 2022, there hasn't been much recovery in the past. i would say two years, and this is, you know, obviously we are now out of the pandemic and this is just the new normal for the hotel industry in the city. what's being shown in the stats. but but to your point about conventions, this is a harder year for conventions than, it is true that it's a harder year conventions. i would say that this is a four week moving average. and what you'll see

when a convention is that one week you could see a big spike. i mean, for example, in the in early 2024, i forget what convention that was. it might have been jp morgan. that convention was enough to make the whole four week average spike up for rates, and sometimes conventions will have that effect. but when the convention goes away, you're left with your sort of baseline demand, and it's just not there at this point. but just to just want to underscore, prior to the pandemic, we had a we had a pretty strong period of close to 80% occupancy. is that why we use that? is that why you're using that? that is our baseline year. and we had very strong you know, $320 a night average daily rates. and the average numbers now are less than that. i really just kind of include this chart to see. is there some trend showing in which either occupancy or rates are getting back to the pre-pandemic levels, and we're not seeing it now. and i think, again, some of the cyclical issues in the economy related to tech, which is obviously a big driver of business, tourism, and

conventions not recovering yet, is part of behind that as well as just, you know, the other challenges of, of the industry in the high interest rate environment, let me close on a look at retail employment. so retail among the sectors of the cities economy is one of the slower recovering sectors. in jobs terms, whereas overall employment. and here we're looking at the san francisco metro division, which includes san mateo county. that's the finest grain we can get for recent jobs data. we're pretty close to recovered or beyond it for overall employment, but we're only 82% of 2019 levels for retail, within retail, there's a mix. grocery stores have recovered, food and beverage retailers are doing fine, but very tourism related products like clothing, clothing, accessories, shoes stores, jewelry stores. their employment is still only 64% of the levels of five years ago. so

that is a major shift in employment in that sector and just a sign of the weakness in our tourism related retail, not just in san francisco, but across the region. i'm happy to take any questions or you can save them later, but those are my slides. okay, thanks. i don't know if any any colleagues have any questions, particularly right now we can come have them come back up after unless they have any. now looks like. no. okay, good. oh, it looks like you might. i actually did have a question, but for miss dennis phillips because, in your presentation, you talked about how growing a new sort of sector for food retail is, is more difficult. so i'm wondering if that's the why. is that the option? i mean, why can't we since it's, you know, it seems like our business plan for this area just is not working now. so, things are different. people shop different. somebody brings you a little box of whatever your heart desires to your door,

so why would you go up to the eighth floor of nordstrom now? so why not consider more temporary or pop ups or, or, you know, street food or food trucks or any number of things that wouldn't require that upfront investment that you talk about is so costly just to see if something else would work. yeah. and one of the things we'll talk about through our presentation is our plan, including some asks, you'll see in this year's budget to do exactly those kinds of things. yeah, you've got it exactly right. great. and i think just to clarify my point on fab being difficult is just the structural impacts of changing a space over the long term. but you're absolutely right. the short term offsets offer at least a window to kind of cover those while we get there, so i, you know, i just wanted to return to talk a little about macy's. i think that, the macy's announcement that came in late february was a blow to all of san francisco in a big way, as noted, it was part

of a corporate restructuring plan that would close one third of their stores nationwide. and, and it was not a specific san francisco decision, but it does reflect the pressures that in-store retail is facing nationwide. and it has some really big implications for san francisco specifically, so a couple of things just to level set on that one. anyone who's watching i know everyone in this room is aware of macy's remains open. it will be open at least through the end of the year, and we hope much longer than that, and, you know, not only are they open our folks shopping there on a daily basis, they are committed to the to supporting san francisco, including the macy's tree in union square park again in the 2024 holiday season. so, those are all important things to remember that they're here and they're here for the holidays is, there are, you know, one of the things that we're tracking and one of the first things that occurred to us was the, the union retail workers that are there, they're also employed through the end of

the year, they are mostly supported by the union food and commercial workers local five, who's here today? i know, when we learned of the macy's closure, our workforce team actually reached out to ufc to immediately just to make sure they were aware, of the services that we provide to laid off employees. these are not laid off employees yet, but it was good to have that meeting early. that was followed up by a meeting which i was not able to join. but with the mayor's chief of staff and with our workforce team and ufc to ensure that we're committed to being transparent and sharing information as we get it moving forward, there are about 400 employees we understand at the macy's store, there are a couple of options for those moving forward. you know, one, first and foremost, hopefully those jobs will continue, if they don't or if there is concern about this sector overall, our workforce team offers all sorts

of workforce training, including two other to kind of upskill and transition to other hospitality jobs f and b bartending entertainment services. and again, lori can talk a little bit about that. and then we have our rapid response program that will be in place if and when any layoffs are are actually conducted, in terms of the city's efforts with macy's, you know, we've we reached out to macy's via a letter as soon as we had the news, we were able to follow that up with a meeting between the mayor and the ceo of macy's to continue to confirm our desires. and we've both met with and continue to be in contact with the brokers that macy's has hired for the union square site, i think the most important follow up for that is that we continue to impress upon macy's and would like to impress upon everyone here that we hope and think the macy's store can continue to be retained on that site, that hopefully, you know, that corporate wide decision can

have a more local look, and we'll continue to work for that, macy's really represents the kind of retail presence market segment and labor opportunity that we really want to retain here in the city, also having significant retail presence on union square in that space, particularly on the lower, half of that building, is really critical for the health of union square, the mayor conveyed to the macy's her willingness to work with them on strategies and incentives and even concessions that can help deliver those kinds of ongoing active retail presence, macy's or otherwise. so, we're here, we're hopeful to work with them. and we'll hope that will continue, so with that, i'm going to turn it over to jacob bintliff, who's our manager of economic recovery initiatives, to get into some of the details of what we have done to date, to try to stimulate activity and what we're going. supervisor peskin i'm sorry. supervisor safaí, is it okay if i ask some questions? yeah. what i what i was hoping to do is go through the runner show, and then if you can come back

because there's a whole series of questions. unless there was something specifically about just one particular thing that she said, it would be better if we can. i have questions about macy's specifically, but we can talk. we can? yeah, let's let's wait for that till the end. the whole presentation. thank you. okay. thank you. supervisors jacob bintliff with office of economic and workforce development. just to round out our conversation today, just to go through some of the initiatives that the city has been undertaking over the last couple of years. these fall into three categories i'm going to talk about today and they all correspond to what we've heard from business owners and brokers and stakeholders in the area and what we continue to hear clean, clean and safe programing and public realm activation. as you mentioned, supervisor. and then also the regulatory side, what are we doing in terms of zoning and permitting? so first, in terms of ensuring there's a clean and safe environment in union square for all of our visitors, residents, workers, there's been a lot of work to date, sfpd has has undertaken a lot of efforts. and as you mentioned, we are joined by lieutenant hall here as well.

today. they have a mobile command unit that's parked right there on the north side of union square. there's been an increase in patrols in the area. we do have a fixed lieutenant who's here with us now also for the union square area, which makes a big difference, there's also been the safe shopper initiative the last couple holiday seasons where we increased that presence. also bringing in community ambassadors and park and rec rangers and other security personnel to just really make sure that during the holiday shopping season, which as you saw from ted egan's presentation, is when we get that real spike in shopping in union square, that there's an extra level of attention in terms of safety for shoppers and for workers at those establishments. there's also been an effort, a very organized retail theft campaign, effort, which is supported by $17 million grant from the state that the city received successfully last year. that's been sfpd targeted retail theft operations. it's also been at the district attorney's office, where we have now a full time assistant district attorney and dedicated district attorney investigator to prosecute retail

theft crimes. we had a retail theft blitz during the holiday season this last year that arrested more than 300 individuals at over 40 locations, and we're in the process now, also supported by the state grant of installing over 400 automated license plate readers throughout the city. that will also help with that issue, rec park and sfmta have also worked to enhance security at the main parking garages serving union square, which are the union square garage and the o'farrell garage. so we have an increased roving staff presence at those garages. new secure rolling doors, other improvements to limit overnight access, security cameras, technology for secure credit card transactions and lighting upgrades there, as well. finally, i just want to touch on the downtown, welcome, ambassador program that is operated by a grant with sf travel and the transportation improvement district. through that program has been in place since 2022 to deploy trained hospitality ambassadors throughout the downtown area, including in union square, to

guide and support visitors to help them with any issues they're having in terms of wayfinding, needing an escort, just trying to find their way around and feel welcome. we've had a lot of positive responses through surveys for that work as well. that's all on top of the regular efforts around cleaning and safety by the ambassadors of the union square alliance, our business improvement district, who has been a critical partner in all this work as well. and i do just want to mention a couple of positive trends on the safety front that we did have the lowest overall crime rate reported in the past ten years, except for the beginning of covid last year. that included a 48% drop in retail theft and car break ins and per the police department, those numbers are tracking for central station as well. so we see that trend is also playing out in union square. but we know that we have a lot more work to do. and to your point, supervisor safaí, it's as much the perception as the reality as well. one one negative experience by your to yourself or someone you know is enough to make you think twice about coming to the area. so we remain focused on these efforts

with respect to programing and the public realm, we've put a lot of focus here. you know, as we all keep discussing, the issue is primarily foot traffic. we just don't have the same foot traffic in this area or downtown overall. so with respect to programing, pd has issued more than $1.5 million in grants since 2022 for activations and programing in the union square area, those include the winter walk, holiday festival this year that drew 76,000 people, over the holidays, over ten days. that's an outdoor street closure on stockton street. there was a really nice pop up by sunset mercantile as well, in the currently vacant ground floor of the former macy's men's building that accompanied that. we had american tulip day in march that drew 30,000 people on a single day from all over the region, and san francisco, and that's part of the broader union square in bloom event series that's going on. there was just a lovely concert and a fashion show for mother's day there as well, and that's ongoing. and of course, all of that has been run and organized by our partners in

union square alliance, who are here today as well. and that's really critical for bringing people into the area, whether to shop, to hang out, to have a good experience, to go and get dinner and see how things are going. something upcoming is the sf live concert series, which we just announced a couple of weeks ago. so that's going to be throughout the city. it's, bringing outdoor free concerts for the public that are curated by local venues and event producers. those will begin coming to union square starting in june. we're going to have earl thomas, a blues and soul singer, on june 13th, we'll have a biscuits and blues, which is reopening after several years of being closed in the area due to some a flood and some renovations. there. they will be curating concerts in july and august, and those will continue on through october. in union square. with respect to public realm, obviously, that supports foot traffic. it supports those activations we're talking about. it supports a positive experience, pd has also worked to issue grants to help support kind of lighter touch improvements in halladay square and union square park, like new

tables and chairs and lighting and landscaping upgrades there. we're also working with funding from the union square open space fund for stage improvements at the union square plaza, as well, last year, last year's budget committed $4 million to the powell street improvement project, which was 2 million of an enhancement through pd, as well as $2 million at sfmta for powell street. the first three blocks from market up to geary, the goal there is to refresh and enhance the pedestrian experience on powell. the union square alliance has engaged a nationally renowned design firm, field operations, who did the high line in new york and tunnel tops park here. locally as well as local partner sitelab, who did the landing at leidesdorf as well as other projects. and they are. we're hoping to see concept designs coming out for them very soon. and a similar vein on maiden lane. the planning department is leading an effort now with the alliance and other stakeholders to come up with a public realm plan there to support retailers and restaurants with an enhanced pedestrian experience. using some funds from that same open

union square open space fund. and we're hoping to have some near-term improvement ideas developed in august of this year to round out the city initiatives we're going to discuss today. i'm going to hand it over to rachel tanner with the planning department to talk a little bit about some of the zoning and permitting. wait, before you go, can you go back to the previous slide because you went through really quickly? yeah, just just to highlight, we're going to come back to the powell street improvement. have some questions about that. but not right now. we just keep going. great okay i'll hand it over to rachel. thank you. chair powell, vice chair preston, president peskin and supervisor, it's good to be with you this afternoon and talking a little bit about some of the regulatory incentives that have been created to help union square and other parts of downtown. so in 2023, mayor breed and president peskin's legislation, which really ensures downtown has flexible zoning to really support this 24 over seven mixed use neighborhood that we're trying to maybe create or cultivate more of in downtown. and the policy in that

legislation really aimed to do a couple of things. first was to really help to diversify the uses downtown. second, to make it easier to convert commercial buildings to housing. and thirdly, to simplify the planning and entitlement process so folks can have more surety that they'll get through quickly and efficiently and can get their projects underway in addition to the changes that were brought about by that legislation, there are other legislation and other regulatory changes that occurred. so the lower the lower inclusionary housing fee was also adopted. impact fee waiver and deferral program was also adopted, and just now, in march 2024, the transfer tax waiver was voted and passed by the voters. so we're hoping that these initiatives, and perhaps more in the future, can really help to jumpstart the economy. many of them have sunsets, so that really it's not an ongoing thing, but really trying to incentivize folks to take action early and now and make investments now and then, just to highlight that flexible zoning legislation that we just talked about on the last slide, this map shows the c three zones

and kind of the areas where we really were aiming to make changes. so for context, our c three zoning is generally very, very permissive and very flexible. it includes most of market street, union square and the financial district. and it really allows for a range of uses including housing, institutional uses, arts and culture, office and retail. so part of the change in the legislation that was passed was to really expand, allowing uses like senior housing, residential care facilities, outdoor entertainment, animal hospitals, trade schools, again, trying to make the zoning more flexible, tell more types of uses downtown. now for the union square, which is that c3r area that you can see highlighted there on the map. the zoning changes there were to expand the types of uses allowed on the second floor and above. so previously retail uses had to be located on floors two through five. but now office housing institutions and other commercial and arts uses are allowed on those upper floors of those buildings. and then a few

other changes. i just want to highlight in the c three, including union square, flexible workspace is now permitted, which means an office combined with a retail or entertainment use is permitted on the ground floor. pop up activations are allowed as a temporary use, and then limits on accessory storage were removed. if that storage is in conjunction with the same and in the same building as the primary use. so i think some of mr. bintliff slides really highlighted how folks are taking advantage of those changes to really host different activities and events. i want to talk next about the commercial to residential adaptive reuse program. that's probably been one of the more popular topics is, why don't we turn the office buildings into residential? that would be a great way to get more people downtown. and we certainly agree. and the program that was adopted to really help to facilitate commercial to residential adaptive reuse aims to really help folks by providing waivers from certain standards, such as lot coverage, open space exposure, bike parking, dwelling unit mix and other planning code requirements in order to more easily

facilitate the construction of housing and projects, can add additional volume and also take advantage of other planning code waivers to take advantage of the program. applications have to be filed by december 31st, 2028 and again be in the c three or c some of the c two zoning districts. so again, really trying to get folks to take action now before december 2028 to really make sure that we're getting that investment in a timely manner. and we've already received two applications under this program for 988 market and 785 market. and both of those projects, excuse me. both of those projects have already been received and those permits have been approved by the planning department, those are the war field building. and then also 785 market, the war field has 45 units of housing and 785 market, a mix of office and housing, including 124 housing units. so we do hope that those projects go forward and are good examples of the program and the legislation getting used. then i'll hand it back to sarah dennis phillips for a closing

remarks. supervisors just to wrap it up. and so we can get to questions, particularly with everybody that we have behind us, obviously there's some positive signs, but there's a whole lot of work to do. i think one of the things that you've seen through the presentations of the work we've done to date is that we are both, there it's kind of a tale of two strategies here where we need to recognize union square as critical to the city's future. and what do we want it to be for the long term, at the same time, we need to recognize the urgency of where we are now and today and include some short term strategies, really, to get activation and visitors to the area. and so we're looking at both of those to figure out how best to bolster what we've already walked you through. we've been engaging with stakeholders, property owners, building managers, retail brokers, business owners, the union square alliance, obviously labor to understand what the key issues and priorities are that the city should be most focused on, so what have we heard and

what are the areas that we're looking forward to add to the strategy? we've already seen, first activations and programing getting things happening in the public realm, which the city is actually in control over. right, over, over the next year or two years. and that could be as simple as making sure we've got programing every day in union square park, like we have at salesforce, park up there, which unfortunately is elevated and not everyone knows. so making sure there's things whether it's a band or a yoga class or a pop up market, there's something happening every day, or food trucks and light touch, bringing in the other temporary activations that we've seen in other parts of the city and introducing them here. and i think some of the mayor's recent efforts, towards, night markets and festivals and waiving fees there will go a long way towards bolstering those strategies, in addition to activations and programing vacancies, is another key area that people want to see us focusing on, and part of focusing on vacancies is

focusing on, safety and also the perception of safety so that, in investors, retail companies who are looking at investing in these ground floors feel comfortable over the long term, and that it is a positive investment, they will have the foot traffic and sales they need to survive over the long term, third, we've heard a lot of recommendations for customer and visitor incentives, what do we get for people to come down here in addition to programing? are there incentives like free parking or other types of things that would draw people here over the short term? we've we've heard a lot of that, and then fourth, which you've heard a lot of, really amping up the public realm efforts that are already underway, we were really grateful at wd to get $4 million focused towards powell street, a significant amount of that was for the streetscape realm and public realm improvements. but if the bond passes in november, that now includes additional funding for the public realm. we can really make sure that long term streets like powell street

are a place that people want to be, over the long term. so, we're we're working to package up a set of incentives that will hopefully carry us over next year's budget and allow us to do some more short term and long term activities. and we look forward to talking to all of you about that through the budget process, and then with that, we're joined by our colleagues at the police department at dbi and other agencies for questions . thank you. thank you. we're going to call up now, ufc w local five, jim irby and tony vargas. well, i think we'll have some updates of us for us as well. good afternoon. my name is tony vargas. i am currently the union rep for the macy's union square location, i myself came out of macy's, and that's where i met my lovely wife. we currently have about 330, union

members that work with us. and of those members, 61% have been there ten years or more. so they've definitely built a career working in retail, sorry, 66% have been ten years or more. 61% of our members live in san francisco itself, having macy's closed down will be a huge, loss , supervisor, you said earlier it is the shopping mecca of the west coast. people come to union square to shop. whether it's macy's, saks fifth avenue, the i . magnin when that was opened, or neiman marcus, they travel to union square for the shopping area, i'll turn it over to jim. thanks, tony, so again, thank you. supervisor safaí. supervisor gallagher. supervisor peskin and supervisor preston for being here. this. i think this is a really important discussion. you know, i want to

sort of take a step back for just two seconds. just think about as we as we speak about reimagining union square, which is like an anchor of the city, you know, if we go back just 15 years ago, there were 2000 workers at that macy's. if you know the macy's main building and macy's men's building, out of those 2000 workers, many of them lived in the city of san francisco, grew up in the city of san francisco, then had an opportunity to join the union that got a good union paying job to keep them in the city of san francisco. so as we think about reimagining the future, we also have to think about the workers, right? the people that are going to be filling these jobs and whatever union square looks like, we understand we're not you know, we understand that the world of retail is changing, but retail is still going to be an anchor of whatever we do to reimagine downtown. and so i think there's a lot of different ways to think about, as we provide incentives for customers, as we provide incentives for businesses, we need to provide incentives for workers. right. you know, we need to provide the incentive or give incentives to businesses

who will be creating, you know, good paying union jobs, you know, we've had a long, interesting history with with macy's and a supervisor. peskin has been involved in many of those interesting histories with, with with macy's, we believe, san francisco provides a lot of prestige to any retailer coming down. you see those luxury brand retailers that are down, down in union square, you know, whatever way macy's and other anchor tenants reform their their presence here, they're not leaving. right. and i think we have to understand how do we provide for opportunities for workers to continue to retain a voice at work, to continue to retain good jobs, and to continue to be an active part of this community? we can't have creating new jobs and incentivizing new businesses to go to union square. and then all of the workers have to drive across the bridge or take bart in, or come from the peninsula to come up to union square and one of the ways we do that is to ensure that these jobs pay enough for people to live here

in the city. and i think there's a lot of different ways to think about this. i would just leave you with two points, as as the future of retail becomes experiential retail, experiential retail also means that workers should have the right type of training. the right type of training to, to create those experiences for folks to understand what they are buying, how how they have that experience, excuse me, that experience. and so there are ways to think about partnerships. we've talked to the mayor's office of this. i know we've talked to both supervisor peskin and supervisor safaí about this around, you know, we raised millions of dollars a year in high high road training partnership grants. that might be something to think about as a partnership between, you know, businesses in union square, the union in the, in the, in the city to maybe create, create a retail workers training center, something that, you know, imbues these workers with vision and purpose of what they're doing so they can actually live, work and play here in the city. the union wants to partner with those folks. and we just thank you for this conversation. happy to

answer more questions. before you sit down, jim, we're going to get into all the questions. but i just wanted to i mean, you gave a lot of good information really quickly, but i think that's pretty phenomenal, 66% of the employees have been there ten years or more, and 61% are san francisco residents, and it's 330 today. but just 15 years ago, it was 2000. 2000. yeah. so can you talk a little bit more about that? what happened in that time? what happened in that process? well, you know, i think that was just at macy's. that was just at macy's. right? tony that was, san francisco, the, union square as well as the stonestown location got it. so, yeah, you know, i think it was, you think about the, the way that we've spoken a little bit about how retail has transformed, you know , it has been going through this dramatic shift. it was just

accelerated under covid when consumer behavior changed. but even before then, the shift was happening in macy's owned those two buildings. they sold one building. they owned the other building. you imagine the value of that building, the value of that building and being able to consolidate services into one building and sell that other property, you know, these are businesses, they're looking at assets. and i think that was a part of it, you know, we had prior to covid around, 1400 workers and that went down to the 350. so as covid really accelerated the shrinking of the workforce, there were, you know, and i also think there's just been a lot of issues with retail. i mean, we saw the graph provided earlier by the city's economist. you know, retail has really taken a hit in this city. you know, we represent workers not only at macy's but at walgreens, at cvs, at grocery stores. i mean, the city has all of our members have been impacted by the changes that are happening in the city and the struggles that retail and frontline workers are facing. so, you know, in a lot of those workers are people that lived in the city. and now, you know,

what type of jobs are we creating for people to continue to stay in the city is a big question. thank you for that, i think i think we're going to get into general questions before public comment. i know that we have, marissa rodriguez here from the union square alliance originally. i think we were going to have you present during public comment, but did you want to come up and say a few words now, before we get into the main, public comment? good afternoon, supervisors to our chair, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. i can't stress and thank you enough for calling this hearing. i think it's super important for a number of reasons. you've heard most of them so far. where to begin? the fact is, union square is the heart of our city. all roads lead to union square. it's infrastructure that's already set up, built up. we don't have to reinvent the wheel, it is not like we can

just relocate our convention center west of twin peaks. that would be a problem. we have the infrastructure there. we have 12,000 hotel rooms in just union square alone. but i think what we don't think about is the fact that just a block away are another 10,000 hotel rooms more, really representing what i would say is two thirds of our fleet of hotel rooms, when you think about it that way, and you heard from our union reps, this is these are service jobs. this is where san franciscans come to work. i come to work. a number of people in this room come to work. the gentleman sitting in the back there, he comes to work, this is a place that is also just steeped in our identity, our culture. it's a heritage site. it is, the gateway to our city. and. right now, that gateway needs a facelift. and it needs a pr campaign like you wouldn't believe. i think it's extremely important to recognize the

impact that. this. i even hate to say it, but the loop. right. the thing we don't want to ever talk about. but san franciscans won't come downtown unless they're working there. and even when they're working there, they're afraid to. so i want to underscore the issue of safety. i'm not speaking about just clean, but safety. and you can't pass go without clean and safe. that's number one. you want to talk about why these businesses are leaving. we can play pretend or we can have a conversation about the fact that they're leaving because they don't feel safe. they feel like there are challenges in our downtown. they feel like they can't operate a safe business, there are challenges that are happening in our stores and they're causing our stores to disinvest in our downtown, and we can have a conversation to also, you know, seeing macy's get smaller and smaller. we are a world class city. world class cities deserve flagship stores. i believe strongly that union square can play host to every flagship in

america. there is no reason why we wouldn't. we always have, i know that these businesses are interested in the district. they're waiting to see what changes, and i think we have to be very careful because we cannot say or take for granted the thought that luxury is here to stay as well. and that's right now holding us up. tourists are holding us up because our bay area residents and our locals won't come downtown. ask anyone. they would rather drive to marin. what? since when do we do that? we do that now. that's insane. we drive down the peninsula an hour away when we can just come downtown. we do sight things like parking. we cite things like safety. we're worried our bags are going to get stolen. we're worried something crazy is going to happen while we're in the store, thanks to our police department. thanks to our city. thank you to sfpd, the mayor wd we are turning this around and, that perception. but man, let me tell you, if we have a good day and we can talk about tulip day

or mother's day or some incredible activation that's taking place in the square, the reporters are just there to tell that story. maybe once, if we're lucky. if a business closes, every reporter is going to write that story and they're going to write it seven different ways, because that's just what they do to kick our city when it's down, we can turn this around. i believe safety is important. i am really, really excited about this go bond because powell street needs a facelift and we start when we turn things around for our community and for our city. it starts with food and beverage. it starts with artists. they come in, they revitalize. that gives a people a reason to come down. thank goodness for chocolate. thank goodness for starlight lounge. i'm excited for what's happening at the saint francis hotel. we're having this restaurant and bar boom in union square. we want to see more of that because that's going to bring people back to say, wait a minute, this is clean and safe. this is kind of nice. wow. but until we can

do that and really put our money where our mouth is, people have to see those changes, hear about it, then we're going to start to get these businesses back. they want to be here. we have a built in audience tourist, all of them. they're here. but right now they're telling stories about a vacant powell street going up and down, not seeing anyone, wondering where all the locals are. it is really, really sad and i think we can turn this around. i'm excited to turn it around. there are ways we can do it, unfortunately, the great gift and we are so grateful to our supervisor, our president of the board, peskin, for all the support for powell street and helping us get that $4 million for powell. but that's not going to get us very far. we know that our bond can bring us there. we have incredible designs from world renowned design firms like sitelab that have done a lot of local work here, and field operations that bring us the high line and tunnel tops. wow let's bring back union square. it is the gateway of our city. it is our heritage. it is where we come to celebrate life's greatest moments. we cannot just, you know, let it go. that would be criminal. thank you.

well, good to hear directly from you, no, i mean it specifically because. because it's one thing for me to say the issues of safety, it's something that i have, you know, personally been invested in since august of 2020, ufc came, sat on our organized retail crime working group. i chaired that with the chief sheriff, the district attorney, naacp, union square alliance, our community benefits districts, and, you know, the issue of retail theft and that and that imagery has had a tremendous impact. and what you're saying, marissa, is absolutely true. i've heard it over and over and over again from people that even live in the city. i'll be out on, at, you know, on the west side, it's like, oh, i don't go back down to union square anymore. i go to stonestown or i'll go to the peninsula and i tell them my office is there, i'm there

three, four days a week. i'm there and it's different. it is absolutely different. we're starting to turn the corner, but unfortunately we didn't turn the corner quick enough. and that imagery and those experiences, you know, impacted people's perception. so clean and safe is a super big issue. you know when they walk down powell and they see 20 people standing outside the swatch store, not able to get in because that's their strategy. people are like, i don't know if i want to go there. i don't want to wait in line outside. why am i doing that? you know? and so it is an issue that it's not the focus of why we call this hearing today. but you're you're right to talk about it, and it's fair to talk about it because we have to address it head on, i do want to call back up, because we've referenced this streetscape improvement, and i walked that again 3 or 4 times a day. what's going on with that? director phillips or jacob? where where's

where's the money? what happened to it? is it in the planning process? because there's been reports and again, this is not a gotcha. but this is what's been out there that some of the money got shifted over into, into two of the restaurants in union square. and so people want to know, are there improvements coming to powell and where is it and what's happening. yeah, absolutely. thank you. supervisor and let me just share kind of the update on the streetscape project, which cd is managing right now in partnership with mta, which has the other half of that budget. so far we have put about 400,000 of the 4 million for the streetscape project under contract for exactly that. for the planning and concept design phase, that is the funding that's going into that field. operations and site lab work, and we're hoping to see the conceptual design coming up within a matter of weeks. hopefully after that, there's some more funding there that will get us through the design development for that. and then once we know what the scope is, then it will be time to figure

out what the plan is going to be for actually moving forward with construction. so it is it is moving ahead pretty quickly, and we're hoping to have those conceptual designs coming up. so we funded that last budget cycle. it's been a year. yeah. we had that under contract in september actually. and that work has been underway since january when the firms were selected. and they're doing very quick work of having conceptual design ready to go in june. so that's now i thought it was $6 million. it was only $4 million. i'll i'll let sara speak. i thought it was $6 million for powell street improvements. no no, there was $6.3 million in funding overall to help transform downtown. so that's more broadly about downtown town. of that, there was 3.8 million specifically allocated for powell street improvements and for business attraction and support along powell street. so 3.8 so that entire 3.8 is going to powell street. no. so we'll clarify that a little bit about that. yep. so jacob just wanted to update you on what is happening for powell street. and

that is $2 million. that helps support the design and the work that got us to where we are today, the you know, there was another $1.8 million that was allocated at the time, and this was prior to my joining. i think the idea was that it would be used to install, revise and jump start up to ten new tenancies in storefronts along powell street, so what you know, just a little reality about that. 1.8 million will not jump start ten storefronts, particularly the kind of storefronts that we have on powell street, what? basically retail build out costs cost anywhere from $200 a square foot all the way up to $2,000 a square foot if you're talking luxury. but definitely even in mid market, we're looking between 200 and $500 a square foot to build out, a new storefront out, and we're talking about sizable ones on powell street, f and b, just for

comparison, because i think that's pretty helpful, too. that ranges from $800 a square foot all the way up to $1,200 a square foot if you need venting. so pretty costly stuff, that that doesn't fit within, powell street. so we were looking at creative ways that weren't just building out tenant improvements , that would attract and support local retailers, one of the things that we looked at was what were the kind of activations that we could fund with that pot that would bring people downtown. and so some of that funding was spent towards activating the kiosk in union square with the miller and lusk pop ups that we saw starting in apac and lasting through january this year, with one of them undergoing construction now, we also, and i think jacob went through the additional activations we supercharged in partnership with the alliance, we supercharge winter walk this year to get more visitors downtown, union square in bloom was previously an outside funded

event, our partners, our corporate partners who had funded that pulled out this year. so that was funded by seed funding as well. and then in concert and we spoke with this, with supervisor peskin's office with the alliance, we looked to see if rather than jump starting an individual storefront with the with funding that we had remaining, we could do some kind of a collective market hall and really find a way to get local businesses in one of those larger spaces on powell street. i'm sorry. i'm again, that's great that you talked to president peskin, but we all voted on 3.8 million for power. i'm still so. and clarify. it sounds like $2 million still to powell street. eight has gotten smaller and smaller. no, no, i want to i feel like you're not hearing me. supervisor. $2 million. there was 3.8 million. $2 million? yes, 2.8 for powell. yes for streetscape and for vacancies. okay. 2 million of

that towards the streetscape got it has continued to be allocated of the 1.8 million for filling vacancies that got shifted, that got shifted. and that's what i'm walking you three right now. yes. got it i just i want to be clear. yeah. because this is the first i'm hearing. i mean, i heard a little bit of, you know, getting shifted to union square. i just want to understand how much is actually. and i think what i'm walking you through, we still have some funding available, roughly about half $1 million after funding those other activations that we walk through, we were hopeful that with that half $1 million we could fund a market hall on powell street. we received no applications to our rfp where we tried to solicit that market hall. so we still have that funding available. we would like to shift it to some of our priorities that we're going to talk to you about in this

current year process. got it. moving so i just want to be clear. so 3.8 for powell. now is 2.5 for powell. no so i'm going to i heard you say 2 million for powell 1.8 for storefronts. we had to shift storefronts. we have half a million left over for storefronts for a food hall. we haven't gotten any rfps. so that to me is 2.5 million for powell. is that not right? i don't think i understand how you're bucketing, but it is. there is $2 million spent towards powell. okay and then you said there was another 1.8 for storefront on powell. but that's not going to get utilized because you haven't been able. and as i noted, we shifted some of that funding towards activations. the miller and lux pop ups, the expanded winter walk and union square in bloom, and then there is still about half $1 million remaining. so that's 2.5 million for powell, right? sounds right. what am i

missing? sorry the two plus a half a million. if you shifted the half a million from trying to activate to the powell public realm improvements, two plus a half a million. two and a half is what he's trying to say. okay. right. okay. so we got that. and the other 1.3 went for union square and bloom. some other stuff. and then the restaurants. so and it looks like the design contract when september or january, you guys got things going and now pretty soon we're going to actually see what improvements they're going to be. okay. all right. i mean, i can tell you again, just the cable car turnaround. i don't need to say this to everybody. everyone knows this in this room. but i think the reason you all chose powell street is because that is the gate. like, that's the gateway to union square. and when you walk that and i am three, four times a week, it literally is all

boarded up. other than the swatch and the walgreens and maybe 1 or 2 other little places. so i get why you did it, and i understand why it's so important. so that's why i'm asking these questions. i'm not trying to catch you in a lie. i'm not trying to get you to contradict yourself. i just want to know how much is left and how much energy and focus is going to be put into union square, because it's in need of, like i would say, tomorrow. right? i mean, but i guess you can't make it happen like that fast. so and that's why supervisor, if i can add one thing, i think one of the things that we're looking forward to having a conversation with the board about as moving forward is the, you know, the differences between what the city is best able to support and fund in terms of activations, job, street activity and safety and the ideas of actually putting funding towards an individual retail owner. and i get it. that's fine. i mean, i mean, just to add on to what?

supervisor. supervisor melgar. melgar was saying, i mean, there are some things you can do in advance of getting a full design on powell street that will get things going anyway. all right. let's i think we belabored that point quite a bit, i just want to ask, ted egan, if you can just come back up for a minute because i didn't i didn't really hear this articulated, but maybe you did really quickly. what was the do you have the information on the pre-pandemic sales revenue for non food and beverage for union square? pre pandemic and then what it is now i do know that union square has had a weaker sales tax recovery from the pandemic than the city as a whole. beyond that i don't have the exact numbers at the tip of my fingers. maybe you can just look, if you can look into that, that would be helpful. i certainly could. i mean, i understand it's gone down, but your presentation was was on point. i, i think there's a lot

of different things we can talk about. i'm going to hand it over . i know, present, supervisor melgar has some things to talk about. i would say experiencing the public realm improvements that you did in union square last year around christmas time, shutting down right next to macy's and neiman marcus in that area had a tremendous impact. i bumped into quite a few people that were not from san francisco that were from the area, that i just happen to know, and they specifically came into town during the winter holidays, for that, they enjoyed it. they brought their family, they brought their kids. i think that things that we can do, i know that the tulip festival is one. it brings an attraction. but things that you can think about that target families, i think, are also going to have a significant impact because those stories spread when people are bringing their, you know, families, extended families. it

has an impact on the conversations. and i think the winter wonderland and shutting down the union square, you know, the street in front of the, the store, i mean, it was thousands and thousands as you showed there, thousands of shoppers. i think the weekend concerts are one thing. they definitely attract a certain crowd. but as much as we're trying to do more street closures that are done in a kind of thoughtful way, coupled with the temporary free parking, i think that definitely has a significant, significant impact. so i don't know what, our plans are for that. i know that for lunar new year, this past this, this year, we did two hours first two hours free and then the rest after that. people paid and it had a significant impact on drawing clientele and customer base back to the area, so just wanted to add those points. but, supervisor melgar, i know you have some questions and comments, so i'll hand it

back to you. i have more things, but i don't want to keep going right now. okay thank you. supervisor, so i, i worked at i. magnin all through college, and, you know, on a retail salary, i was able to pay my tuition at san francisco state and feed myself and pay rent, which is mathematically not possible today, but, you know, for this immigrant girl, it was like my entry into the middle class. you know, as someone who didn't grow up speaking english, it was like a really good gig, and i spent, you know, many years of my life there at union square and so it's really important to me that the workers at macy's can keep that sort of living wage that they have. and i'm wondering how we can do that in the age of amazon. so, you know, macy's gave up the men's store, what, eight years ago already now. right. mr. araby, it's been it's been about eight years since

they gave up the men's store. so we've seen this change in retail patterns for quite a while now. and what i'm interested in is really what's the plan. so, you know, whether it's like 2 million, 2.5 million. i mean, it's like we're doing what we can right now. i'm not, you know, as fixated on those details. it's like, what's the plan? what are we going to do when, supervisor safaí and i actually, i don't know if you remember supervisor, a couple of years ago, we walked from chinatown and took bart out, right after we had come back from the pandemic and union square was beautiful. it was well lit, you know, it was clean . it was safe. it was just completely deserted. there was like nobody there on the street. and, you know, in what is like, again, what is the plan? how do we bring people back? and i don't think it's like one target group. i don't think it's just families. i think it's everybody. and it may not necessarily be the same people who are coming to union square when i. magnin was open or before the pandemic, it may be

that what we're trying to recreate, you know, needs to evolve into what will be the union square of tomorrow, in, you know, slightly different mix of things. i remember in the 90s when i was there, the great thing about union square was that there was luxury retail. we definitely have the hermes store and all, and i. magnin and saks fifth avenue, but we also had britax and we had the blondie's pizza, and we had all of these things that attracted like a wide range of people who came. and it was a place to be. so what is it going to be tomorrow? you know, when they closed, union square during the holidays, i texted marissa because i was so excited. i was like, this is great. it feels so alive. there were so many people on the street, right? and so how do we make that a regular occurrence and how do we make maximize our public investment to allow the private sector to, you know, thrive by inventing

new things, by being creative, by, you know, sort of allowing, you know, what, what will become to, to grow and so i'm interested again in the plan, what's the plan and how what's the timeline, how will we make that happen? and how do we make room for private investment to, you know, i mean, i think there's nothing more essentially san franciscan than that, like reinventing ourselves, you know, after earthquakes, after pandemics, after aids. so after so many things, we've been able to just pivot and then somebody comes up with a great idea. and how do we make room for that? i think it's a great point. so, in terms of the plan and we should probably conclude our presentations with this kind of thing summed up in a slide. right. because we ran through the, i don't know, probably 35 different things, smaller things that add up to the bigger things, the plan number one is to create a really great environment, that we create. the

city is in charge of the public realm. how do we make our streets great? how do we make sure the spaces are safe, and how do we make them places that people want to be? and so examples that we've run through that are already underway are the powell street improvements, the maiden lane improvements, the improvements that rec park is making to union square right now, both in terms of the kiosk and a stage. so we can support those. so number one, make it a really great public environment for investment to be number two, activate that environment. yes. that is concerts. yes. that is activations like the yoga classes we talked about. yes. that is big things like winter walk in union square and bloom where we invite people for big activities, and it's also things like pop ups. so even using retail as an activation that people come to, even if it's not long term. and i think what we've seen as a pilot over the last year is that our vacant to vibrant pop up, which has not been in union square, it's been

in the financial district to date, acted as an activation in and of itself. people went to a cohort of new pop up businesses knowing they were only going to be there for 3 to 6 months. now, most of them are going to be there longer because it's been a successful program, but just the idea of pop ups brought people. so number one, create a great environment. number two, activate and program the heck out of it. and number three is invite investment. and i think this is the more challenging part. and this is one of the things we're continually talking about with our partner at the union square alliance and all of the stakeholders there is. how active do we get in inviting that investment? right, i think food traditionally has operated in a space where we will actively invite investment through small businesses with whether it's pop ups like vacant environment or storefront vacancy grants, where we've provided up to $50,000 to a small business to locate in a space, business training and other things to pop prop up our small businesses. and that has

been really successful in other parts of the city. it is a harder model to adapt to the really big retail footprints that we have, particularly on powell street. and so that's one of the active conversations, is do we, as a city want to get where we're providing that kind of investment at a much larger scale to bigger businesses who, you know, may or may not need the kind of financial support that our small business sector does? okay. i do have a question for you, because part of your presentation on you talked about, you know, the reputational issues, and miss rodriguez talked about that as well. what is the role of sf travel in all of this and how do we sort of get the word out about you know, all the things that we're doing to make it, you know, safer and, and then, so, so a couple weeks ago, i went to all of the magnetic fields concerts, like, every night. you'll see what how nerdy we are. but we got out and it was

like, really well attended. both act and, you know, like all those, you know, venues were full. we got at about 10:00, and, you know, like the streets were being washed off and it seemed like the folks who were washing the streets were genuinely, like, confused that there were like people there. and they were like, so i'm wondering like, what is, first of all, the relationship with the folks who are there already and trying to get their collaboration and ideas for how to activate, how to, you know, and then and then how are we going to go about this, like pr campaign and reputational issues to address them and to make it known that you're proactively doing all the things that you just stated? yeah, i think it's a really great point. so, on sf travel. precisely, we continue to build that relationship, particularly under their new leadership, which stepped in this year, you know, and it spans not just sf travel, but

the hotel council and other people who who are part of our visitorship. i think it's probably worth hearing, you know, here this body hearing from sf travel itself. i think their feeling is that there may have been some missteps in terms of marketing and selling the city, to date. and they recently announced a coalition with the it all starts here campaign, which was another group of business efforts trying to highlight actually, the city's successes and the city's trajectory in terms of innovation. and so they are just now launching a partnership, i think, to pivot sf travel's marketing of the city. so it's more towards the city's successes on a on a global and international level. i would say we as a city need to expand our work with sf travel too, so that we're making the local winds more, more, more heard, more felt and seen. and there's a third component to that. in addition to sf travel, one of the things that i think you'll see in our and hopefully our act

moving forward, and one of the things we'd like to use some of the funding that we have available, as the supervisor was asking, still through those powell street funds, is looking at a tenant marketing campaign. how do we market to retail tenants specifically, how do we use the experts that we have in some of our brokerage communities locally who know how to really do a campaign that will appeal to people who will be filling those vacancies? and so that's another thing we'd like to approach in terms of marketing as well. okay. thank you. oh. go ahead, supervisor preston. i'll ask after you. thank you. supervisor safaí. and thank you for calling the hearing. and thanks to everyone for their for their work here. i do have, i guess, some questions and comments here. i first of all, i'm, i'm, i was looking forward to more of a visionary plan to some of the questions that chair melgar was asking.

like, i don't think that i think there are elements of a plan. and when you talk about activations and some some of these things that i think we can all agree are positive things. but what i, have seen over the last year or so is, is an idea that i think doesn't grapple with the real demand shifts and the real changes in retail, and instead offers a series of, sort of tax breaks, deregulation, things like free parking, like all all these things that are in these slides, which alone aren't going to do it. and the concern is that they're, you know, they come, they come at a pretty significant cost, so, so i'm, you know, i'm still unsure what the longer term plan is. if we don't succeed in bringing if entities like macy's are not downtown, what that vision of what union square looks like and

how and how it evolves and some of the ways that that i think chair melgar was, was getting at, couple other things i just want to note and then a question , i'm curious and maybe this is for mr. through the chair to for mr. egan there's been a lot of discussion about the sort of pr and the perceptions versus some of the, the realities and i think it's a really big issue. i just want to like i appreciate the comments on that. i think that that i think for everyone in city governments, especially on certain things, when you tackle an issue on a particular block or area, if it if it doesn't get covered that way. and i think that's what some, some folks have mentioned, it's almost like, sometimes the data, the facts don't really comport with, you know, the, the coverage. and, but i'm curious if you have this is such a big

issue and has now been for several years really through the pandemic to now. have you, have you tried to track the, the media coverage and the statements from political leaders in this city and the actual impacts on business? because i feel like it's the missing. you know, there are ways to track that, right? businesses do it all the time when they're doing marketing campaigns, and they track the impact of those campaigns. and i feel like as a city, if we're if we're serious here about what i've seen as a real shift from essentially, opportunistically, political leaders, especially just trashing this city to now a reality that if we aren't recognizing progress and celebrating it, we're going to continue to see decline. i just i worry a little that we haven't

necessarily looked at and tried to actually document the impacts. and i think it's a cautionary thing for all of, all of the of us in leadership, especially when we're beyond an election year this year where it seems like everyone wants to talk about the positives. but beyond that, like i was really i'm just alarmed, sort of by where we were from 2020 to 2022, in the way, in which leaders in this city trashed the city publicly, whether on cnn or, you know, press conferences. and i'm curious if we if we've documented that at all, like when we put out when the mayor puts out a statement talking about how the city is just was destroyed. and so, like, do we see in the months that follow that changes to how many people are coming to the city? have we documented any of that? and i'm not trying to say just the mayor. i mean, it's like this is a major problem was a major issue in leadership. and i'm

curious if we tracked that at all, speaking for myself, supervisor, i haven't tracked that. i have heard from many people that one of the biggest challenges san francisco has is the sort of global media perception of the city has changed a lot, and i wouldn't want to speculate as to where that comes from. but i do think it's not san francisco media. i think that it is national media and global media, and it's just they're playing on a level that we haven't played on and there's sort of those statements. i think were uncontested, and, and so all of that is really hard for me to quantify as a, as a, as a city economist. but i think if you talk to people in the private sector, particularly doing destination marketing or retail marketing or trying to attract tenants to these places, it's the first thing they hear because it's the first thing. they're potential investors from outside the city or potential businesses relocating here. so i

do think it has a major impact. it is very hard to quantify it. can we track it, though? i mean, it feels like i understand we're tracking data of what's actually happening on the on the ground. it does feel like we're we're missing tracking how some of these initiatives are actually impacting, like seeing some of these graphs around trends, right, where there's actually been a more concerted effort between travel industry, between the mayor's office board of actually dealing in the realm of facts, not kind of fear mongering and right, like, and there have been concerted efforts to do that. right. we could be as a city studying that or at least tracking that. and looking at like, what are the various big announcements? what is the narrative that the city is putting out? right? and how and how that tracks with different changes? i just feel like if we're not doing that, like if the last few years shows anything, it's that the actual

data and experience on the ground has, has, is far less of a driver than how it is covered on the impacts on, on certainly on downtown. yeah, that issue of tracking, i don't know if he wants to speak to the issue of how they're tracking their their own initiatives in that media. it's yeah, it isn't something that we've tried to do, but it is perhaps something we could look into. yeah. okay. i mean, i'd be interested to hear what kind of models there are to do that because as i said, if we if we don't learn the lessons the last few years, i, i fear what, what folks will be saying in the next round. we can do all we want in terms of fiddling with this tax or, you know, activating a storefront. but at the end of the day, if regardless of what gains are made, we know what we know, this sort of national anti-city, you know, kind of right wing fact free media, we know they'll spin it a certain way. but that's really that that wasn't what caused the damage to our city. i mean, just to really recognize

what what caused the what caused the damage was seeing the acceptance and embrace of a lot of those narratives by mainstream media here and more mainstream, politicians and leaders here. i mean, that's what happened. and then once you do that, then it becomes then that's how you get your cnn articles, your politico articles , your the things that actually influence people who would otherwise be coming to san francisco. so i just, you know, i won't belabor it except to say that that i've just been through a number of these hearings and it feels like everyone is on the same page that the perception matters so much, and we never actually try to document it. what the various things that influence perception, how we can chart those with the other data points we've got. and i look to you to maybe figure out how to do that. i'm not saying i know how, but it's got to be it's got to be part of the conversation.

okay thank you. and then and then just the last thing i want to say is, is, on some of these initiatives, i, i do want to note that that this i realize the focus of the hearing is and will continue to be on union square. obviously some of these things do have impacts, you know, to other neighborhoods. so i just want i, i think we need to be looking at some of these policies and also thinking like just for the folks i represent who are all dealing with potential increases to their parking meters, the idea that we would have free parking in union square so that the luxury shoppers would now have free parking instead of riding muni. i haven't heard anyone mention muni, right? so we want to get people from all over san francisco to, to union square and do it in a transit friendly way, right there, there there are other ways we can do it. and i bring this up because i think it is, with many of the initiatives you're talking about, i will just say

representing neighborhoods that are not part of this area. we struggle to get the kinds of investments and attention that we're talking about. so vacant environments, a great example that's mentioned that we have asked for months and months and months to add to the mayor's office to expand that program to the tenderloin, for example. nothing. and there's a recent expansion of the program. we have an outstanding request to find out if it covers the tenderloin now, if not, why not? i don't want to. you know, i understand we're here to talk about union square, but when we're talking about these initiatives, i think it's also important to recognize that there there's demand for many of these similar programs in a lot of our neighborhood. and, and we should be looking at those expenses. i don't know if you want to answer about vacant a vibrant. some of it is in this area depending how you define the union square area. i think

you got a few blocks of the tenderloin in there, but but i would like to know on that program if there's a response on whether that's going to cover the tenderloin neighborhood. supervisor, i'm happy to continue to speak about this. i think as we informed you in your office, the way retail works in the tenderloin is not a great match with the vacant to vibrant program. and we talked about other opportunities, like our storefront vacancy grants that we'd be better, than just a free six months at supporting kind of the long term tenancy. so look forward to continuing to discuss that with you. okay, i yeah, i won't belabor it except to say that there's some real, some real equity issues with the how the investments are playing out in union square. and i will, as i looked at the slides, for example, a similar with the mobile command center, which has, you know, it's great to see a slide of how that's been sitting by union square. i will

say, as the representative of the tenderloin, when i have, you know, yet another shooting at golden gate and leavenworth and the same block where local two and local 87 are, and tnc is, and i asked for the mobile command center to be down there. i mean, we've got a limited number of these. so i actually i appreciate the advocacy and i and you know, were i if, if my role were in union square alliance or others i get it right. like you want certain resources and investments in the neighborhood. i just want to say that that and i guess what i'm just trying to raise here in the context of this hearing is, is there are there are competing priorities, citywide, i think that mobile command vehicle is a great example of, you know, it is a slap in the face to people in the tenderloin when after a shooting, we can't get that van to be parked on that block because we need it parked in front of the apple store, right? like that. that's a statement. and i mean, you know, so it's

not to say we shouldn't have it down at the apple store, but i'm, i just want to emphasize that that and maybe bring some perspective that i know on behalf of my constituents can make some of these discussions frustrating. and again, it would be different if we had a longer term vision and plan that we were building toward. but what i'm worried about is we're throwing these kind of resources at the neighborhood without that kind of longer term plan. and if the driver here is the changing demand and the fact that people can go to amazon, we're throwing a lot of resources here that may or may not have an impact. so i'll leave it at that. thank you. thank you. supervisor preston, just just two points and i'm going to hand it over to supervisor peskin. i know i saw him on the thing, but i just wanted to underscore a couple of things before i hand it over there, i know, because we had this information given to us before. union square represents 40. this was pre-pandemic, but

40% of our retail sales in the city prior, you know, non food and beverage. so the struggle is and the juggle is how do we enhance and create an area of the city. that is a job generator and a tax generator and a tourism generator. and that was the conversation about the parking was more about people coming in from out of town that can't take bart and other public transportation. how do we entice them like we did in lunar new year? of course, we want to encourage and promote everyone taking public transportation into the downtown. i do i never drive my car into the downtown. and i know, i know, everyone here mainly doesn't. how do we juggle that? but i think that's an important piece of the conversation. going back to the miller and lux. and again, this is what my emphasis was on working families is have you bought a pastry there? i'm just like i was blown away. i can't afford that. and so, i mean,

that's it's expensive. so how do we create more to supervisor melgar's point, how do we create more? you know, listen, there's people that can go and they'll buy that all day long. but how do we have more options for working people and how do we continue to juggle that in that environment? the only other thing i wanted to push back a little bit on was the 1.8 million for the storefronts. and again, we talked about pop ups. there are there are a few smaller retail spaces on union, on powell, the lid stores is boarded up. there's one across the street. there was a shoe store. i mean, there's some smaller spaces that we could aggressively get some pop up businesses into, or whether it's retail or food and beverage, we could do it in a pop up fashion. and i think that's that's what i voted for last year. that's why i supported the money going into that area. that's why i asked quite a bit about it. listen i

think having two retail spaces on union square, that are food and beverage is an important thing. i don't disagree with that at all. i think that's an important thing. i just don't want to do it at the expense of all those boarded up stores, along along powell. and i agree with my colleagues. i think having a larger vision for union square. what is the larger overall vision that encourages a different design? yes. retail might not be coming back in the same way. supervisor press and i, i don't disagree with that. but what is the larger vision to make a different space and ensure that we protect one of the crown jewels of san francisco? so, president peskin. chair melgar. oh, sorry. usually never mind, thank you for calling this hearing supervisor safaí, this has been a vexing issue, actually, before the

pandemic, as the changing nature of retail was already upon us, as evidenced as mr. irby said, by the closure of macy's, macy's men's by, the multi-story retail having long gone away, as a matter of fact, director hillis predecessor, john ram, and i, worked together to pass legislation, where in the fear at the time and the alliance was involved in this was that we were going to foreclose retail opportunities in and around union square, as there were proposals for over a dozen conversions of retail to office use, and just a handful of years later, we changed that legislation, last year, in conjunction with the mayor, legislation that was earlier,

discussed, and i appreciate the efforts that we are undertaking in the wake of the pandemic for activation and union square and religiously attend tulip day and, vacant to vibrant openings, and i understand that some level of city investment in, bhangra and beats the other night, some level of city investment, is necessary for downtown and union square recovery. and i'm willing to spend even in tight fiscal environments, some amount of money and have been supportive of that. and i think part of what you just heard, and i'm saying this to the executive branch, is that there is and i completely understand it, in a limited sum game, frustration from, my colleagues who are not seeing who are seeing invest both on the capital side relative to powell street, which

is indeed the gateway to union square. and our destination retail business district for decades and decades. as well as a disproportionate investment in public safety and law enforcement. but i think that relative to the upcoming budget and the discussion that we're about to have, particularly as it relates to powell street, is my colleagues are going to need to see a plan. and this is also, i think, true for the bond discussion that we are having before more capital dollars are invested. so, i mean, i am used to saying to a department here is some amount of money to get the working drawings so that we know that fixing the roof is $1 million, because we just spent $100,000 on working drawings. but if we don't have a very concrete, finite plan is going to be very hard for the

supervisor who represents union square to convince my colleagues in an environment of scarcity, both on the pay as you go capital side, as well as the formulation of our next general obligation bond to convince them. so i think our collective imperative is to have we've got to move away from the throw of the spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks to a plan that is rational, and even if it's something that we can't fund in one year that we can phase over time, i think we need to see what that is. i think we need to see drawings. we need to see proposals. we need to have gone through a design charrette. but the notion of putting in $2 million, which is a down payment on not too much, and a few, you know, a couple more few million dollars in a bond doesn't seem satisfying, doesn't seem like it's meeting an end game. and i'm willing to think large, but i think we have to have more buy in and more transparency between

the executive. and it can't just be erynn's using his political weight with his colleagues to get more money that we're not seeing results for because that game only lasts so long. and i'll overstay my welcome with my ten colleagues. thank you. thank you, chair, i would i would second that. and that's why i was kind of emphasizing the $4 million, because i kind of pushed back a little bit originally, and we went back and forth in the budget committee as a budget committee member, but talk to the union square alliance, talk to a whole host of folks they really bought into the plan. they wanted to see that gateway happen. and never disagreed that that wasn't a priority, and that it couldn't be something that could be super impactful, it just feels like we need to double down and do something very, very concise s so that when we do get into these budget conversations in

the next two weeks, like we're able to really say, this is what we're intending to do. i mean, and you have some good examples of success. i mean, i think that the shutting down the street on, you know, in front of the, in union square, you know, what i'm talking about in front of the neiman. what stockton ref. stockton. yeah. i was thinking of the stores. i wasn't thinking of the street, but definitely shutting down that for the winter wonderland was had was super, super impactful and, you know, some of the other festivals that you've talked about, but it doesn't seem like a cohesive plan. and it would be good to have very specifics and then do everything you can. i mean, we shouldn't be reallocating resources to other areas, even though it's in the same vicinity. it's not for the same intent or purpose. and that that's a good time to come back to us and have a deeper conversation, say what you said we tried to do an rfp. this didn't work. we're trying to think about a concept. this does

not working. we want to adjust, because, i think that will have more of an impact. i definitely, i definitely think that if food and beverage is something that creates a destination experience, which it does, is it's something that's very missing, right? in the union square area. i know that the west and saint francis is going through a major remodel right now, i know that the cheesecake factory is still there and it's still a line out the door, but once you get past that, there's not as much. and i understand that there's not, it's expensive. it's an expensive investment. but i think it's something that we need to think more deeply about because people will come for that experience. i mean, i've seen it out, you know, some of the steakhouses that are not physically in union square but on the periphery, people come from all over the bay area for those and other restaurants. and i think they create a destination experience

as well, something that we know that people will travel for. besides just plain retail, so just wanted to kind of put that out there. but i do like the idea of what's, supervisor melgar said in terms of, you know, maybe there are a few times that we're doing food trucks, maybe there are, that coupled with some of the, the, music opportunities you have, because, again, that's going to draw a different crowd of people, but it definitely creates more foot traffic and activity. i'm sure these are all things that you've thought that you've thought about, but you did emphasize that food and beverage was something that was a steeper climb. maybe there's some ways that we can create some incentives. there even if it's not, something that we would see almost immediately, but it's something that will generate that creativity and buzz. so so, i don't think we've even done public comment yet, have we? sorry. a lot of lot of talk about i think we got a lot

of planning nerds here. so everyone's super excited about it. so if it's okay with you, chair, we can open up for public comment. if you have public comment on agenda item number three, this hearing related to the future of union square, please come forward to the lectern at this time. and if you're waiting for your opportunity to speak, you may line up to speak along that western wall of the room. do we have any takers? it appears, madam chair, that we have no speakers. okay. public comment on this item is now closed, thank you, supervisor. safaí. would you like to, file this or continue it to the call of the chair so that we can refer back to this item? i think it will. actually, i was thinking originally that maybe we would file it, but i actually think it would probably be better to continue it, if that's okay with you. sure. maybe we can have some updates on some of the things that we've talked about. give us an idea. i think it's important to see what level of investment in all the different

areas we're talking about. and then actually, for the larger vision that we've asked for here today, i think that would be a good opportunity to come back in and have that conversation. i think everyone wants a more a quicker result. and sometimes it's harder for those things to happen, definitely. i think union square remains a destination for residents and visitors alike. we have to change the perception. we have work to do there to change the perception, and i think as many and all of us as we can continue to be involved in that, i think it's going to continue to be an opportunity. i like the idea from ufc here today talking about a job hub, a training hub. there's definitely space for that that we can work with. those that are in the service sector, retail, hospitality, janitors and nightlife. so that's something that we should continue the conversation again. we reached out to the other locals that are involved and happy to follow up with you on

that, i also think that, you know, if there's an opportunity for a public university in the downtown, we've created that legislation. i think there's potentially an opportunity for there to be a building purchased and go through the process with the city for an rfp. i think that would be a an amazing impact and could have tremendous, addition to the idea of a destination location, and then, you know, seeing that larger vision for, for union square, we know that particular type of retail is not coming back, but i think there's a new vision for retail in that. so i definitely would think that having a continuous to the call of the chair, madam chair, we can work with you at the appropriate time to bring this conversation back and see what pwd and others have to add, and see if what kind of progress has been made. so thank you for scheduling this today and working this. and i know how busy this committee is. great.

so i would like to make a motion that we continue this to the call of the chair on the motion offered by the chair, that this hearing be continued to the call of the chair. vice chair preston preston, i member peskin i. peskin i chair. melgar i. melgar i madam chair. there are three eyes motion passes, do we have any other things on our agenda? there's no further business. okay, we are adjourned. >> [music] in the town inside

here i'm young. he was putting art, music and drinking together upon today have a nonpretentious pretentious spitz that the community can enjoy each other and the time off we get in this world. [music] >> spends energy elevating artists and credit a safe place. a place to have a community. >> it is i great neighborhood the art district because we have the contemp refer museum of sf. yerba buena for the arts all of the operators and businesses here we get together and xhoukt and support each other this is a very cool neighborhood to be a part of. [music] paint on canvas is primary low when we do. this is guilty pleasures an all female artist show.

it is going to be great. fun we have interactive elements. >> we love having this gem. you know people come in and discover it and get to feel at home. this is like home san francisco >> never be afraid it anybodying on our door. [laughter]. if the hours are post and you had want to seat art we are here 9 o'clock to 5 o'clock most days. [music] >> you are watching

san francisco rising with chris manners. today's special guest, carolyn mante. >> hi, i'm chris manners and you are watching san francisco the stow about restaffing rebuilding and reimaging the city. the guest is carolyn manteto talk about the organization is helping to preserve the city cultural heritage and architecture. welcome to the show. >> thank you for having me e. >> good to have you here. >> can we talk bat the history of your organization and the mission. >> sure, thank you. san francisco heritage started 51 years ago and the main mission is to preserve and enhance the architectural and cultural identity of san francisco. when it started out the focus was really on the buildings, historic landmark listings and really concentrated on downtown area with all the

development happening. our organization was raising a reg red flag with historic landmarks in danger and victorian mansions so a hallmark of our organization is moving these victorian mansions in the way of development to inwestern addition neighborhood and other areas to get out of the way of development and preserve them. our organization was around before there was the historic preservation commission of the city so we were at the forefront drawings attention to historic preservation, landmarking and over the last 51 years we have seen how there are more then just buildsings in safeguarding the city cultural resources, there is also small businesses and the different neighborhood icons that make a neighborhood special, so our outreach has really-it is really come full circle in a way because it moved downtown into

the neighborhoods and now with the covid epidemic it is really going back to downtown again looking at how we can play a role in the economic recovery and revitalization of downtown san francisco. >> that's great. so, now i understand your organization is also responsible for maintaining a couple properties. could you tell us a little about those? >> yes, our non profit was gifted in 1973, the historic (inaudible) house. it is now a historic house museum but this was a family since 1886 built this victorian mansion in the same family year after year and one of the last resident of the family when she passed way gifted the mansion to san francisco heritage so since then we have been running this historic house and the home of our office. in 2018,

one of the long time members nor aa lasten gifting a building on the e h-as hate polk became a commercial corridor after the earthquake, the owner at the time, he raised the house and put 6 store front underneath in order to take advantage of the commerce so we are in charge of the house on the corner and it has been a wonderful way to get new numbers, new audiences interested in the work of our organization. during the pandemic, we have been using it as a artson residents and partnering with different bay area artists as well as cultural institutions, cultural districts and then one of the storefronts we converted into a pop up galleries so gives a opportunity to raise

awareness of the importance of the art and cultural resources in san francisco. >> that's fantastic. so, now, let's talk about legacy business. what does the designation mean? how does somebody get add today the legacy business registry and what benefits does being named a legacy business? >> i love this program. it was started by san francisco heritage and adopt ed by the city and run by the office of small business but the program looks what are the businesses really contributing to san francisco and the neighborhood. when we started the first focus was bars and restaurants but over the years it exb panded to include other businesses so these are places that contribute to the character of a neighborhood, so sam's grill downtown, the amazingarian press in the

presidio. book stores like city lights oergreen apple recently named. this year we had a lot of attention on the legacy business program. we put out a contest to the public of what you think should be the next legacy business and one of the businesses that was recommended was the club deluxe, jazz club on the corner, and 2 or 3 days after we launched the contest, the owners announced they would have to close. the rent was driven up, they couldn't afford it, coming out of the pandemic so we worked at speed to get that application submitted with them and that status convinced their landlord to negotiate with them a lower rent and this way they have been able to stay, there was a lot of social media support around this, so when you become a legacy business, not only do you get marketing and business support from the office of small business, but you also eligible for grants and we work

closely with the legacy businesses as we do our work for san francisco heritage. >> that's great. so, apart from architecture and buildings, you also work with cultural districts, and the castro theater strikes me as a place that is both. a beautiful building and cultural hub and center. what has been happening with the recent acquisition by new owners; >> it is leased to another planet entertainment and been in contact with planet entertainment by the castro theater is historic land mark building. it is recognized as a very important architectural monument. one thing-one of the main activist organizations of the preservation of the theater we work together with

supervisor mandelman on a interior landmark historic landmark designation for interior, but what happened over the is summer and people learned is there is a lot of concern not just by san franciscans but people all over the world, movie directors, stars who are very concerned about the risk to the lgbtq and film programming at the castro theater. another planet hosted community stakeholder in august, and it was so moving to see the number of people who took the microphone-everyone had two minutes to say their testimony of what castro theater meant to them and those testimonys showed this building is contributing not just as a

architectural monument but plays a role in the lgbtq community that is irrelaceuble able. >> it is beautiful theater. >> it is. my involvement in the theater raised awareness to not only the castro theater to be emblematic of the lgbtq culture and history but also there are many other sites in the city that also contribute to the identity. that is why so many people come to san francisco as a place of freedom and diversity so in my previous work i worked at the world heritage center, so when i joined san francisco heritage i was thinking why isn't san francisco a world heritage city? for the architecture alone it could be inscribed. golden gate bridge to name a few but the city is so unique in the architecture, the

mansioned and historic landmarks so hoping to start a conversation on that with city stakeholders this year. >> that is great. let's talk about your relationship with other agencies. you mentioned economic and office of work force development and planning commission. how do you unt integrate to them? >> these relationships are essential. we are working with office of small business for the legacy business program and the planning department is really one of our most crucial relationships. we meet quarterly with them and we really see how we can support not only historic land mark listings and historical cultural context statements, strategy for culture districts and city survey among many other activities that really are of concern to both of us. for the office of workforce development, i attended a etmooing recently that

the chamber of commerce organized with them on the downtown revitalization and a key goal in that meeting and in the downtown revitalization is to make sure that the city historic culture resources play a key #r0e8 in the economic recovery and revitalization especially after the pandemic. the office of workforce development has the city build program which is admirable program where youth are trained in construction techniques for rebuilding and especially with the new housing legislation, and we really want to see how can that workforce be expanded to include training in historic preservation. we have so many victorian homes, historic buildings and other places that really need a skilled labor force to make sure that they are preserved and that they help keep the special identify of the city. we really value these relationships, we meet

quarterly with the various organizations and we are really grateful for grants of the arts we receive and other supports so definitely that is a key relationship for san francisco heritage. >> the city build is great. i like that a lot. thank you so much for the time you have given today. appreciate you coming on the show. >> thank you so much raising awareness about san francisco heritage. we hope the people watching will join us in the mission to help keep san francisco special. thank you. >> that's it for this episode. we'll be back shortly. i'm chris manners, thanks

[♪♪♪] >> i really believe that art should be available to people for free, and it should be part of our world, you shouldn't just be something in museums, and i love that the people can just go there and it is there for everyone. [♪♪♪]

>> i would say i am a multidimensional artist. i came out of painting, but have also really enjoyed tactile properties of artwork and tile work. i always have an interest in public art. i really believe that art should be available to people for free, and it should be part of our world. you shouldn't just be something in museums. i love that people can just go there, and it is there for everyone. public art is art with a job to do. it is a place where the architecture meets the public. where the artist takes the meaning of the site, and gives a voice to its. we commission culture, murals, mosaics, black pieces, cut to

mental, different types of material. it is not just downtown, or the big sculptures you see, we are in the neighborhood. those are some of the most beloved kinds of projects that really give our libraries and recreation centers a sense of uniqueness, and being specific to that neighborhood. colette test on a number of those projects for its. one of my favorites is the oceanview library, as well as several parks, and the steps. >> mosaics are created with tile that is either broken or cut in some way, and rearranged to make a pattern. you need to use a tool, nippers,

as they are called, to actually shape the tiles of it so you can get them to fit incorrectly. i glued them to mash, and then they are taken, now usually installed by someone who is not to me, and they put cement on the wall, and they pick up the mash with the tiles attached to it, and they stick it to the wall, and then they groped it afterwards. [♪♪♪] >> we had never really seen artwork done on a stairway of the kinds that we were thinking of because our idea was very just barely pictorial, and to have a picture broken up like that, we were not sure if it would visually work. so we just took paper that size and drew what our idea was, and cut it into strips, and took it down there and taped it to the steps, and stepped back and looked around, and walked up and

down and figured out how it would really work visually. [♪♪♪] >> my theme was chinese heights because i find them very beautiful. and also because mosaic is such a heavy, dens, static medium, and i always like to try and incorporate movement into its, and i work with the theme of water a lot, with wind, with clouds, just because i like movements and lightness, so i liked the contrast of making kites out of very heavy, hard material. so one side is a dragon kite, and then there are several different kites in the sky with the clouds, and a little girl

below flying it. [♪♪♪] >> there are pieces that are particularly meaningful to me. during the time that we were working on it, my son was a disaffected, unhappy high school student. there was a day where i was on the way to take them to school, and he was looking glum, as usual, and so halfway to school, i turned around and said, how about if i tell the school you are sick and you come make tiles with us, so there is a tile that he made to. it is a little bird. the relationship with a work of art is something that develops over time, and if you have memories connected with a place from when you are a child, and you come back and you see it again with the eyes of an adult, it is a different thing, and is

just part of what makes the city an exciting place. [♪♪♪]television. >> (music). >> my name is vet at a original artist based in san francisco. >> i love it i love it i've never seen something else and we see how the people see which is happening and what is going on. kind of cool i wanted to be part of that.

>> i saw it 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes you yeah. >> so we have you - yeah. i started going when i was young but not the type of kid would get food but this is something i really have been progressing on a talent from like other artists. >> this is amazing. >> this is so good yeah, it is so good like the artists. >> i love it. >> what a great project. >> part of the part for have i grants. >> yeah. i love it. >> i serve in for 2 two years now and i really am fortunate to

live in a place for art. >> an effort creating places it serve san francisco soul and that makes them want to see this place; right? with the experience of art in san jose experience in from the get-go sometimes our environmentalist has created tests but we have an opportunity for that and have artists in the storefront part of project you can walk in and experience and hoping we'll be there for a long time. >> this is the first farther easy way of going to spaces i didn't know how it is really cool it would be and we're forced to be in the moment when we're test and creating

something really cool. >> makes us feel good. >> as far (unintelligible) done all temporary and took them down i like the temporary aspect base (unintelligible) (microphone distorted) not permanent can enjoy it. >>

>> good afternoon. this is commissioner beltran, i'll running the meeting today because the chair of the visual arts committee, suzy ferras is feeling under weather, even though she's present. welcome to the visual arts committee wednesday may 15, 2024. i'm calling the meeting to order. creg, if you can call the roll, please. [roll call] >> could you speak into the microphone?