Initiative will rethink San Francisco downtown for ‘post-COVID’ work patterns

Diving letter:

• A new initiative from the San Francisco nonprofit Downtown Community Benefit District (Downtown CBD) will develop a plan of action to rethink 43 blocks of downtown neighborhoods to manage the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Downtown CBD has selected San Francisco-based urban planning firm SITELAB urban studio to develop a series of recommendations to rethink the Financial District and historic Jackson Square neighborhood, which have seen visitor and business decline in the wake of the pandemic. The two groups will gather input from the community and coordinate with the city on a number of guidelines to make the area more vibrant and engaging for residents and to adapt to a future that may not be the traditional 9-to-5. Includes pendulum pattern.
• “My vision is to promote downtown as a neighborhood for everyone so that San Francisco residents can live, work and play here,” said Robbie Silver, Executive Director of Downtown CBD. He added that the area had already developed but the pandemic “really gives a sense of urgency”.

Dive Insight:

With office workers staying at home during the pandemic, business-oriented city centers emptied. A current report from the Urban Land Institute and PwC US, based on input from nearly 1,700 real estate experts, found that downtown areas need flexibility, especially when employees continue to have partially remote schedules that don’t keep offices busy. The impact, the report says, affects not only offices, but restaurants and shops that rely on office workers as well.

Silver said the Financial District, which is the center of the new initiative, is a prime example of an urban area that has suffered from the pandemic. The area, he said, is defined by “bankers in suits who work from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., maybe have a drink after dinner and then take the transport home.” Like many business development districts, Downtown CBD began in January 2020 with goals including improving the cleanliness and safety of the district, creating and marketing an identity for the district, and “activating” its public spaces region.

Laura Crescimano, Co-Founder and Director of SITELAB, said the initiative is about “actions that can help downtown move into its next era,” looking at how urban design is “the glue that holds us together.” “. The group will organize community engagement sessions across the city to get a feel for how people see the city center and what they would like to see of what the neighborhood has to offer. The groups will then work with city officials and the mayor’s office to develop recommendations and an action plan that covers everything from public art to retail space to community programs.

“If you look at European city centers and other cities with vibrant city centers, they tend to fulfill a multifunctional, multifunctional role,” said Crescimano. “What the ‘multi’ means for us is one of the big questions we have to answer.”

Cities across the country are considering theirs Inner cities are more inviting and flexible. In Boston, biotech laboratories are moving into vacant office buildings. Cities offered Incentives for restaurants to move tables outside and to create more attractive open spaces in city centers. Open street programs have also redesigned some urban corridors with public art and performances, including in New York’s Meatpacking District.

A 2020 report from the Boston University Initiative on Cities, based on a survey of 130 mayors, found that 60% of respondents felt that downtown office buildings would be “less desirable” in the future. However, Katharine Lusk, co-director of the initiative, said the 2021 poll, due out this month, showed that mayors are now less concerned about the shift to remote work. “We suspect that the worst-case forecasts for the inner cities have not been realized in most parts of the country,” said Lusk in an email.

Downtown CBD and SITELAB said it was too early to know what changes downtown San Francisco could take on. In the short term, Silver’s group is planning its first public outdoor art event, a projection mapping of the work of local artists, which will illuminate four downtown buildings in December, which he believes will help kick-start the neighborhood’s revitalization.