San Francisco shares vision of its future, and a roadmap to get there

Written by Andy Castillo

It’s been three years since the pandemic began, and in that time, San Francisco, Calif. has seen its office vacancy rate rise to 25%. To meet the evolving needs of an economy that’s in flux, city officials have published the “Roadmap to Downtown San Francisco’s Future,” a plan that outlines strategies administrators will look to implement in coming years.

“While things have shifted profoundly during this pandemic, we also know that San Francisco’s innovative and creative spirit remains as strong as ever,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed, noting the plan “builds on our values and commits San Francisco to a clear economic vision to carry us forward. This will take work and partnership with our business leaders and workforce, but I know that working together we can build a stronger, more resilient future for downtown and our city.”

San Francisco’s downtown serves as a hub for both the city and the region, with a $250 billion annual gross domestic product. Before the pandemic, almost 70% of all jobs were in the downtown district, generating a majority portion of the city’s tax base and revenue. And nearly 80% of the Bay Area’s economy is produced by office-based businesses in and around downtown.

In the last few years, data from the Census Bureau documents an explosion in remote work from about 5% pre-pandemic to 20% today. This has profoundly impacted the bottom line of cities throughout the United States, which rely on taxation for revenue.

Its impact extends beyond commercial real estate and tax revenue, especially in San Francisco, where tech companies account for about 30% of all industry (tech companies have notably embraced remote work). Along with a decrease in foot traffic, impacting local businesses, public transportation has declined almost 70% compared to 2019, and tourism, while recovering, is down 18%. Likewise, the number of passengers at the San Francisco International Airport is 26% below 2019 numbers, according to a statement about the initiative.

Speaking at a recent webinar on the evolution of office space hosted by the Volcker Alliance and the Penn Institute for Urban Research, Romy Varghese, a politics editor at Bloomberg News, noted that business travel has been slower to return than leisure. Further, business travelers typically spend more than those traveling for pleasure. Given that San Francisco’s downtown is geared toward business, panelists speaking at the webinar highlighted the city as one that’s facing an uphill challenge. To that end, as the office vacancy rate continues to rise, the roadmap lays the groundwork for a necessary evolution.

“Downtown’s future is San Francisco’s future,” said Rodney Fong, CEO and president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. “As we recover from the pandemic and revitalize our City, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to chart that path. I share Mayor Breed’s vision of a safer, cleaner, and greener downtown—a destination where residents, visitors, and workers will want to spend time.”

The roadmap consists of nine strategies to recreate San Francisco’s downtown as a place where people want to live, as opposed to its current business-friendly environment: Cleaning up to make the downtown safer; bringing in diverse employers to build a resilient economy; creating flexibility in building codes to allow offices to be converted to housing units; making it easier to start a business; growing the workforce; converting the downtown into an arts, culture, and nightlife destination; enhancing public spaces through design; investing in public transportation to make downtown easier to navigate; launch a brand campaign “to reclaim San Francisco’s narrative,” the statement says.