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Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

sfchronicle.com

11–20 of 272 posts

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#11

I really hope L Breed and her leadership approve more residential conversions of office spaces in downtown. A few developers are interested but there seems to be a holdup for whatever reason. SF has already had some successful conversions like 100 Van Ness. While I don't think that is a surefire way of fixing dtsf but it is a start. The superdense neighborhood of chinatown and somewhat dense neighborhood of little it…

I think the supervisors decide that, not the mayor?

Probably because the supes are elected by neighborhood, they are very NIMBY.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#12

I really hope L Breed and her leadership approve more residential conversions of office spaces in downtown. A few developers are interested but there seems to be a holdup for whatever reason. SF has already had some successful conversions like 100 Van Ness. While I don't think that is a surefire way of fixing dtsf but it is a start. The superdense neighborhood of chinatown and somewhat dense neighborhood of little it…

S.F. has nearly 16 million square feet of vacant office space. Why can't it become housing?

https://archive.ph/znGkU

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#13
> Some commercial real estate firms say that as interest in opening businesses downtown has dropped, it has risen in other areas of the city.

> “We had our best year in 2021,” said Santino DeRose, managing broker at Maven real estate. “The neighborhoods by far, where people lived and worked, came back the fastest.”

This actually might be a good thing. If the city gets optimized for people who want to live there verses people who are forced by their job to work in the city, in the long term it will be better for everyone and relieve some of the upward pressure on housing.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#15
Having just spent an hour reading it and following various links, I'd rank this as a don't-miss article on the subject:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/how-san-fr...

The headline makes it sound like an exercise in question-begging, but it really isn't, as the author makes clear.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#18
post #9

I really hope L Breed and her leadership approve more residential conversions of office spaces in downtown. A few developers are interested but there seems to be a holdup for whatever reason. SF has already had some successful conversions like 100 Van Ness. While I don't think that is a surefire way of fixing dtsf but it is a start. The superdense neighborhood of chinatown and somewhat dense neighborhood of little it…

Why would people want to live in relative expensive housing if there are no jobs in the city for them? Converted apartments are not going to be "affordable" (by say the likes of students, and people just out of college not in finance or tech. Once the white collar workers leave, there is less demand for service workers to live there. Sure maybe some salaried workers like in emergency services and policing might choos…

The housing won't be as expensive if there is mass office to residential conversion, and a large percentage of jobs go remote

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#19
post #2

The market is telling you everything you needed to know. People aren't in San Francisco because they don't want to be in San Francisco. Even the people that "loved San Francisco" didn't even like things in the actual city limits, talk to nearly anybody about what they like there and they'll pick an endless list of things from the Pacific Ocean to the border of Nevada. Other cities aren't like that. Red Flag 1 through…

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