The Future of Downtown San Francisco

Downtown San Francisco has suffered a major economic hit due to a confluence of events, including, but not limited to, the COVID-19 pandemic, the downturn of brick-and-mortar retail, and a historic rise in office vacancies. Downtown faces serious challenges in returning to the economic vitality it once provided the city and region at large. Though the findings show that San Francisco is not unique in its struggles toward post-pandemic recovery, its highly homogenous use of space and negative media narratives about the city pose additional barriers to recovery. This situation creates an opportunity to reinvent Downtown for the realities of the post-pandemic world.

This project aimed to provide San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors a vision for a “Reimagined Downtown” backed with concrete and practical policy recommendations to guide implementation. The team’s vision is of an inclusive, mixed-use Downtown that reflects the city's culturally avant-garde nature and is economically, racially, and ethnically diverse – a downtown for all San Franciscans. Through a broad range of interviews and field surveys with stakeholders throughout the city, data analysis, and desk and field research, the team assessed Downtown’s changes from 2019 to the present day, and outlined a multi-pronged approach to addressing some of its top challenges. Their methodology stands out from existing proposals by including stakeholders historically disenfranchised in conversations about Downtown, synthesizing existing initiatives with new ideas spanning arts and culture, sustainability, and adaptive reuse, and uniquely departing from San Francisco’s historical business-centric planning to create a Downtown that better serves the city’s diverse needs.