SF Wants to Give Downtown a Boost With More Pop-Ups in Empty Storefronts

San Francisco officials are expanding an economic revitalization project to bring business back to empty downtown storefronts, announcing plans for additional funding and more pop-ups set to open next month in SOMA, the East Cut and the Financial District.

The eight pop-ups announced Thursday as part of the Vacant to Vibrant program include a deli, coffeeshop, social club, glass workshop and florist.

The project, launched last fall, matches local entrepreneurs with property owners who have vacant ground-level commercial space. Landlords must agree to rent the space for three months free of charge, with the opportunity to extend, and utilities are covered by the program’s $1.2 million budget.

The initiative is part of San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s effort to jumpstart the city’s sputtering economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, an exodus of office workers and the decline of brick-and-mortar retail.

“We’re seeing thousands of new businesses pop up in communities, but we weren’t having that same success downtown — Vacant to Vibrant has changed the game,” Breed said at a press event on Thursday. “For those folks who have a new idea and want an opportunity to thrive in San Francisco and in downtown, we want to make it possible, so we will be investing more.”

Signaling a desire to expand the program, Breed said she plans to include it in the upcoming city budget but did not specify how much. She also called on more property owners with vacant downtown storefronts to partner in the program.

As Breed gears up for a mayoral election that is in many ways a referendum on the city’s direction, her office has focused on improving a downtown tarnished by “doom loop” narratives.

Vacant to Vibrant is a partnership between the mayor’s office, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and SF New Deal — a nonprofit that began during the early days of the pandemic as an effort to help keep local restaurants afloat.

Wells Fargo has also pitched into the program’s budget and on Thursday committed an additional $1 million to support vendors who want to become permanent after the pop-up period ends.

For Nafy Flatley, owner of the Senegalese food pop-up Teranga, who was part of the first Vacant to Vibrant cohort, the incoming assistance will be much appreciated. Despite the logistical and financial support from the program during her six months of operating as a pop-up, when it was time to negotiate her own lease, she found herself on her own.

“Google was my best friend,” Flatley said. “I had to be the one working on talking to them, learning about how to read contracts, learning about how to negotiate. I really became an expert in contracts and an expert in reading this fine print.”

The space Flatley moved to at 4 Embarcadero Center is smaller than the one she was in as a pop-up, and she said she’ll have to downsize her staff.

For the upcoming cohort, SF New Deal plans to offer more support to businesses that want to become permanent.

“Previously, we weren’t sure after six months what people were going to be able to do,” said Jacob Bindman, co-founder and chief program officer of SF New Deal. The money from Wells Fargo will help the businesses “in terms of grant funding, in terms of technical assistance, to keep them here over the course of that first year or longer.”

Another change from the first cohort is an increase in the grant amounts given to the pop-ups, expected to be $8,000 to $12,000.

Of the nine pop-ups that participated in the first cohort, seven have signed leases downtown, according to the mayor’s office.