From the San Francisco Examiner:
Taking a cue from cities such as New York, San Diego and San Jose, [a San Francisco] pilot program will temporarily place original art installations in [19] vacant storefront windows. The first to be filled will be in the mid-Market Street area, followed by Taylor Street in the Tenderloin, Third Street in the Bayview district and 24th Street in the Mission district.
No word on when said program might make its way to Union Street, or on any plans to fill some of the never leased (or at least never opened) new development restaurant/retail spaces about town.
∙ Art installations will help city fight blight [San Francisco Examiner]
∙ San Francisco Retail Space Update: Vacancy Rate Up Four-ish Fold [SocketSite]
Are they sure these “art installations” aren’t just graffiti covered windows?
Seriously though, what kind of businesses would thrive in all these vacant stores regardless of the economic environment? I’m always baffled by how many shops in SF can’t seem to make up their mind what they want to sell. It’s a flower shop, no it’s a purse shop, no wait they have books!
I have a better idea.
Stop wasting tax payer money on art installations, graffiti removal, and enforcing anti-loitering laws aimed at the homeless on the street and lift the ridiculous ‘anti-chain’ policies in SF and let businesses that can actually afford the rents into SF to generate sales tax revenue and encourage some urban renewal.
Oh, and (of course) lift the ridiculous Prop 13 cap on commercial properties.
See that way we change these storefronts from being an expenses into revenue. Generating cash for the city and state as well as providing much needed services for the residents.
Empty storefronts mean that the market is not clearing. At a low enough lease rate, every single storefront will be occupied. Maybe not right away, but in a few months they will. No need to put in statues or anything.
The problem is that too many landlords have fixed debt service costs, in which case they should do everyone a failure and default, or, more likely, they can just hear the footsteps of a recovery around the corner, and are deciding to wait things out. So this is a market dislocation.
Now, if the city really views this as “blight”, then they should fine the hell out of the landlords for all vacant storefronts that remain vacant, say, for 6 months or longer. If it’s not blight, then leave them alone, and let the landlords put in art if they want to.
@badlydrawnbear,
Your idea doesn’t sound that much better. Starbucks is closing hundreds of its stores. So are many other chains.
Lipstick on a pig.
I agree with badlydrawnbear, especially regarding Union Street. If we could stop putting in all those lingerie, and mommy-and-me stores and other useless enterprises focused at the 30-something model wannabes who stroll that street, there’d be no need to put art work in the windows. The real stores like Fredrickson’s on Fillmore @ Union and Real Foods, and the mom and pop stores like Valentino’s serve a purpose, stay open and are well maintained. Nearby the Starbucks and Peets and the Walgreens on Chestnut Street work fine as chain outfits.
Robert, I think you underestimate the number of storefronts that are empty (with huge wish prices) and remain so because their carrying costs are so LOW, rather than the carrying costs being so HIGH (because of debt). Repeal prop 13 for commercial entities and we fix that problem.
@Wai
Starbucks is hardly the only ‘chain’ business in America. Remember the American Apparel store shut out of the Mission? Instead of a convientially located inexpensive apparel store catering to residents of the Mission they now have???
Another empty store front.
and let’s recall what defines a ‘chain’ in SF.
Also remember several neighborhoods have outright bans on chain stores that supersede these laws.
“mid-Market Street area, followed by Taylor Street in the Tenderloin, Third Street in the Bayview district and 24th Street in the Mission district”
hm…these areas all have one common and pressing problem and it’s not lack of artwork.
Not that I’m Pro-Prop 13, but there was an interesting article in the NYT yesterday about an electronics factory in the mid-west that was going to be razed as it would be more expensive to mothball the building due to property taxes.
I wonder how many under utilized structures would be destroyed and/or manufacturing jobs would be pushed out of CA if we made a shock adjustment to Prop 13.
If Prop 13 had never existed then it is probable that business models would have adjusted over time with the increase of property taxes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/business/economy/21manufacture.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Obama%E2%80%99s%20Strategy%20to%20Reverse%20Manufacturing%E2%80%99s%20&st=cse
HappyRenter — that’s not really a very good argument for Prop 13. For example, why should the rest of us subsidize these poorly-run businesses when instead more efficient, better, more profitable businesses could be in the same space?
One of my friends made this same argument re: rising interest rate spreads because of higher risk, and how it would hurt businesses that based their whole business model on cheap debt. Fails there too.
That guy in the NYT is yet another lying republican crybaby looking to blame Obama for his woes. Here are some facts:
1) He’ll still have to pay property taxes on the land.
2) The tax rates for Cary, IL is under 3% of market value (http://www2.illinoisbiz.biz/communityprofiles/profiles/cary.htm). So it would take 33 years of property tax savings on the destroyed building to equal the value of the destroyed building itself.
Basically, this guy sounds like he can’t do basic arithmetic. No wonder his business went under.
Is plywood considered artwork?
@badlydrawnbear
Of course Starbucks is not the only chain closing stores. Gap, Jamba Juice, Circuit City, Blockbluster, Hollywood Videos, Shaper Image, Virgin, … Do you know of some chain that’s ready pick up a good number of vacant spaces?
Is plywood considered artwork?
I remember my doctor in Paris. One day he was boasting about his “new” 6X4 piece of plywood hung on his office wall with a “street art” piece by Jérôme Mesnager.
You could see Mesnager’s pochoirs on blighted/abandoned buildings all around Paris during the mid-90s RE downturn. If you watch the movie “Ronin”, you’ll find one covering the entrance of the hideout/squat. Everything that could be detached ended up becoming art in the 2000s.
http://www.fotopedia.com/albums/9aa7124c-b04a-4b4d-9f4d-a2fb3bfd61d5
http://www.flickr.com/groups/mesnager/pool/
I say slap some plywood, ask a few local artists to throw whatever they want and see what sticks. Who knows what will come out of this?
For example, why should the rest of us subsidize these poorly-run businesses when instead more efficient, better, more profitable businesses could be in the same space?
Aside from just typing, how do you suggest this happen? Details please!
Any business has to be blessed by the BOS, the neighbors and their distant relatives before they are allowed to exist. Aside from meeting all the ordinances, they have to deal with the planning department and then the vote of the people who don’t want any changes. And even when the PD has issued all of the permits, that only paves the way for the NIMBYs can get involved in the picture. Talk to the ice-cream shop owner in North Beach who got all through the planning process only to have the NIMBY’s kill the project, after paying all of the fees and meeting all the codes and incurring all of the expense. Home Depot and American Apparel learned this too, even though they could have helped the local economy and help with problem of blight. There was another paint store that was not allowed, again in the Mission because you could drive to another paint store a mile away.
You can blame prop 13 all you want, but look at the real contributors; a failing economy for one, but mostly a bunch of spoiled brats who feel entitled to protest everything in this town, even what goes into empty storefronts. We should be making it easier for businesses to fill up these spaces but we do quite the opposite and then conveniently blame a state-wide taxing system as the culprit.
Art in the windows makes sense because it is cheap, easy, and mostly doesn’t anger people.
Getting rid of Prop 13, or at least the wost of it would be great, but that is a huge project and the blight is a problem that is with us right now.
Letting the market do its thing seems to be a good option, but might be a terrible trap. Books like No Logo, Big-Box Swindle, and Cheap reveal that many of currently dominant retail practices are antisocial, unsustainable, and ultimately self-defeating. How and where the boundaries have been drawn is easy to criticize, but the alternative might be even worse and effectively harm good business development.
Even letting the market go is more complex than it may seem. Property owners and managers might prefer to leave units empty rather than have expensive and confusing churn of various unprepared players falling down one after the other and leaving a kind of psychological pall over the place. There is a lot more to retail success than just making the rent. In almost any circumstances it is natural for retail to be weak in marginal areas and then in high demand later which makes allocating space in planning into a complex guessing game.
viewlover,
Agreed wholeheartedly.
I live on Telegraph Hill and pass by at least 5 empty storefronts almost every day. An old empty grocery store on Union and Montgomery that I have seen for lease forever, a cluster of closed or half-dead stores on Union down to Grant, the closed frozen Yogurt place on Grant (at Green?) and the list goes one. What’s going to replace these? Nimbys say no to chainstores, no to new bars, no to anything that might change the cultural aspect of the area. Landlords still want to charge an arm and a leg and that’s natural in this neighborhood. Something’s gotta give or Nimbys will get something they won’t like: becoming an extension of Chinatown and seeing NB slowly melting away.
oh speaking of empty north beach stores, don’t forget they suspended the Survivor winner’s yogurt/smoothie shop because during the permit process, the number of such shops around the country passed the threshold of 7 or 11 or however many it is.
SFS:
thanks for the Mesnager link. It brings me back to old times.
Other cities are fighting blight with art as well, with success. For instance, Minneapolis started adding murals to walls to combat graffiti, and it worked awesomely.
Now many businesses, alleyways, etc have murals painted on them. It brightens up the area. the do this on closed businesses as well.
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=761887&catid=2
Look I am not anti art and I am not actually against this program.
I am pissed at living in city that seems to favor empty store fronts, massive deficits, cutting city services, and having to pay an arm and a leg for the privilege.
I understand some of the store fronts are vacant because of a down economy but the anti-chain store regulations and the ridiculous level of power some of the neighborhood groups yield in getting permits killed in favor of NOTHING is doing more harm then good.
A paint store in the mission wants to move from it’s current store front to a vacant space a few hundred feet away and is shot down because it sells Gliden paint and therefore is a chain. mixed, parking, retail, and condos are killed in the Haight because, we I still can’t fathom the reason. American Apparel is killed in the Mission because they didn’t kiss someone’s ring and so the storefront stays vacant. A battery store wants to move into a vacant store front at Divisadaro and Oak and it is killed because it is a chain, meanwhile a year later the store front is still vacant and covered in graffiti.
Vacant stores cost the city money, not only in lost tax revenue but in increased need of city services due to crime and blight.
If you could fill even half the empty stores in SF with ‘chains’ think of the jobs, sales tax, and income tax revenue that these stores would produce. How much cleaner the neighborhood would be as the stores help keep sidewalks clean, doorways clear, and buildings free of graffiti.
Honestly, I don’t even understand hy do residents of SF even have to be convinced of this considering the squalor of most of SF.
Until San Franciscans stop being so knee-jerk liberal, things might improve. That might require some graffiti and gangbanging in Pacific Heights or, better yet, Telegraph Hill, where Shorty needs to taste some of the results of his destruction of San Francisco.
badlydrawnbear:
Actually, those vacancies are not all due to the chain store ordinance.
ICI paints has been allowed to open on Cesar Chavez: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/06/BAFU10HR2T.DTL
The mixed use project at Haight and Stanyan died because of the deflation of the real estate bubble. The chain store (Whole Foods) might still move into the old market.
The vacancies mostly are because of the bad economy, not the chain store ordinance. Once rents come down a bit more, and economic activity increases a bit more, some of the storefront vacancies will be filled.
During a recession we are going to have lots of empty store fronts. I don’t think it is a great idea to fill them all with chain stores, because then we will end up with them forever and San Francisco will lose some of its charm. And it is not entirely impossible for a chain store to go in, note Walgreen which is slotted for the spot on Ceasar Chavez and Mission, albeit not without a fight with MACD. So even in the hallowed Mission, you can put in a chain store.
Having said all that, I have no idea why some stores get approved and some do not. The whole process seems pretty capricious. Plenty of regular posters have what I believe is a naive view that the “Free Market” produces the optimal outcome in these cases. One look at Houston should disabuse you of that notion, as Houston in general has no zoning laws. And in most places, what passes for the “Free Market” is just an unholy alliance of politicos and developers.
But the opposite of bad planning is not no planning, it is good planning. I would like to see the whole process streamlined and made more predictable. I think it is the sheer irrationality of it all that cause economic harm here. No business wants to operate in such an unpredictable climate.
Love the murals, btw. They really brighten up the parts of The City where they are frequent.
More public art = good.
If they can get a KMart approved in Manhattan surely San Francisco can accomodate a few chain stores. Target anyone?
Good planning? You talk of unholy alliances of politicos and developers in Houston, but we have stringent planning, and we have an unholy alliance of NIMBYs and nonprofits (and well-connected developers here) unduly influencing the politicos here too.
As long as there are lobbyists, political donations and public sector unions, any government-based process will eventually get corrupted to benefit the few. SF is ground zero of that.
And so is Sacramento.
NVJ –
So – boarded up, graffiti covered, and empty storefronts have a greater “charm” factor than chain stores?
It must be selective, Diesel, Pottery Barn, Levi’s, Sprint, Walgreens, Radio Shack are all in the Castro, and the “charm” has not been impacted.
NVJ – I right on. I certainly don’t want to sound like I want the BOS act like SF is a ‘wide open’ city, good planning is crucial. And it is the seemingly randomness of decisions by the planning commission and the BOS that kind of drives me nuts.
Its a bit sad that the people trot out canned ideas about chain stores in what is essentially a thread about effects of the recession.
Maybe the chain store regulations are contributing in a meaningful way here, but I doubt it. Certainly no one has tried to make a case for this.
In any case, I still advocate fining landlords that are unable to rent out property after a period of time. For those of you fixated on Proposition 13, the amount of the fine can be equivalent to the property tax rate in the absence of Prop 13. How about that?
About this chain store business, it might also be useful to think about the economics of chain stores. They tend not to be optimized for neighborhoods with a lot of foot traffic by locals, due to their heavy marketing overhead and the difficulty responding quickly to idiosyncracies. So I don’t think local business would be squeezed out if they were to compete with them. In any case, no one has tried to explain why they would be.
Moreover, the concerns themselves are telling. Namely, that people attempt to bring diversity and charm by looking at shopping options. Diversity is not about shopping, and is not hurt or helped by shopping. Shopping in general is a fairly self-focused activity. It is really difficult for it to be an interesting experience.
But we are in a heavily consumption-focused society, so there is a lot of boredom and soullessness (which is what I really believe the No Logo concerns are about). This boredom and soullessness comes from an excess emphasis on shopping as such and not on a poverty of local retail options. Moreover, variety and charm come from associating with a variety of people, or having a variety of ideas. It’s not lessened or increased by having a variety of retail buildouts.
Robert, I like your idea, but it seems like an enforcement nightmare. How would you get around the person that says that his unit is rented out and just blinds up in the windows and leaves the “for lease” sign up. When asked, he just says that it’s a month-to-month lease to a psychic who only uses the space by appointment.
This sounds crazy, but in my neighborhood there are several legitimate businesses like that (a psychic, a shoe repair place, and a pharmacy that’s only open about three days a month).
Oh, I didn’t think of the psychic problem. I assumed that the city would have records of business and their operating locations, since there is a lot of paperwork that must be filed such as business registration fees and vendors permits.
Wouldn’t that paperwork typically be filed by the business entity and not the landlord?
NVJ –
So – boarded up, graffiti covered, and empty storefronts have a greater “charm” factor than chain stores?
Surely the thread of my argument wasn’t *that* difficult to follow. Or was it?
You talk of unholy alliances of politicos and developers in Houston, but we have stringent planning, and we have an unholy alliance of NIMBYs and nonprofits (and well-connected developers here) unduly influencing the politicos here too.
No, actually I said that Houston has no planning whatsoever. An example of a city with an “unholy alliance” would be a place like Los Angeles, where City Hall is all in the developers pockets. Here, what you call “an unholy alliance of NIMBYs and nonprofits”, I call the people who actually live here, and we agree that they dominate the planning process. I think it is better that The City is actually designed with the interests of the residents first, rather than some corporation that doesn’t even reside here and is only interested in maximizing profit. Don’t get me wrong there, I am a capitalist and work at a Fortune 500 company, I just think that maximizing the profit incentive in all situations leads to some pretty clearly sub-optimal outcomes in some cases.
In any case, there are plenty of places in America that have the former kind of planning and not too many that have the latter, though I think that the success of the “San Francisco Model” has spawned imitators, for better or for worse. This is the beauty of the Confederation model, different regions and states can experiment in their own ways and learn from each other.
Robert!!! What the hell’s wrong with you? Do you really hate shopping that much? WHY???
viewlover wrote: It must be selective, Diesel, Pottery Barn, Levi’s, Sprint, Walgreens, Radio Shack are all in the Castro, and the “charm” has not been impacted.
It most certainly has changed the neighborhood – it is all in your perspective if you think it is better or worse. The march of Walgreens up Castro street replaced a beloved dance bar. All American Boy is no more – did Diesel affect them? Maybe, maybe not. And there are many other examples. You may think the neighborhood hasn’t lost its ‘charm’ but it is most definitely not the neighborhood it used to be, and there are many who lament it.
Viewlover, I don’t hate shopping at all. I just don’t equate diversity with shopping diversity, that’s all. I don’t really care whether there are chain stores or not. I don’t like boarded up buildings, though, particularly in areas with a lot of foot traffic. Those spaces should be put to good use, and landlords should be encouraged to make a deal.
Viewlover, I don’t hate shopping at all. I just don’t equate diversity with shopping diversity, that’s all. I don’t really care whether there are chain stores or not. I don’t like boarded up buildings, though, particularly in areas with a lot of foot traffic. Those spaces should be put to good use, and landlords should be encouraged to make a deal.
well we don’t disagree then, your posts are a little over my head though. Landlords should be encouraged but not forced, and not forced to rent only to those that the “community” sees fit. Its’ a business and not a popularity contest. And I do understand that lack of planning is not good. But most cities in America understand tha value of commerce and it seems to be lost in SF, we’ll just take the money part.
I was using “charm” sarcastically as it had been used in a previous post as part of the effect of chain stores . Not only has the Castro changed, it has changed for the worse in my opinion. I used to walk the castro during weekdays and talk to space-lady with the accordion, Robert the wire-hanger artist, and a host of other colorful characters. Sadly, gone forever, just like that era, but nothing is as constant as change.
Although I did chat with a young musician recently. He was playing the accordion, a tamborine and a bongo drum and harmonica while he sang, it was pretty amazing and reminded me of the past. I gave him a good tip and he really did’nt understand why, he gave me a hug.
Hey viewlover,
About the Castro changing — I can’t say as I haven’t lived in the city that long. But, from what I hear, the issue is gentrification. That, and it becoming a bit of a tourist spot. But even now, I don’t see a lack of local businesses there. I think you should look at the chain stores as indicators of the neighborhood changing, not the cause of the change. Typically when one business replaces another, it’s because the first one couldn’t make it financially — nothing nefarious is going on. People understand this with residential tenants, but not commercial tenants.
We owe our livelihoods to tourists spots like this, and while people complain about gentrification, just wait to hear them complain about the opposite of gentrification, which is an area becoming much poorer and less desirable.
About “encouraging” — it’s a friendlier way of saying “incentivizing”, in the sense that prop 13 allows landlords to keep land unproductive, and this is something we want to discourage. There are many reasons for this. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to rent storefront property in this city, but you run into a lot of landlords that have a fixed number and simply refuse to budge. For years. Of course, family relations get a different number. Then there are all sorts or prejudices. Many Indians do not want a chinese tenant, for example.
A friend of mine once used this racism to escape from a lease, by threatening to sublet his store to a chinese restauranteur, the indian owners quickly gave in. No way in hell were they going to allow a chinese restaurant in there. He pointed out that his lease allows for subletting, and permits an establishment that sells food and drink. He squeezed about 50K out of them, too! After not budging for months, as soon as they saw a chinese guy taking measurements — that day they handed him the money and voided the lease. It was brilliant!
Now, what is the effect of all of these frictions? Spaces can be vacant for a year or more. On the one hand — so what? On the other hand, these are vacant buildings in prime pedestrian areas. This is storefront property. There are examples of spaces that have remained vacant through the entire bubble and now into the bust, because landlords wanted $3-4 a foot, when the market price was $2-$3. One example, in chinatown — the difference was about $200 a month. In order to not give up that $200, they turned down the applicant in a war of nerves between two very stingy people, and to this day its an empty store.
We’re talking about an empty storefront in one of the densest areas of the nation, squatted upon by an old chinese woman because she absolutely would not rent the place for 10% less than she wanted. She would rather it be empty.
And the fact that she couldn’t find a buyer since 2006 gives some indication that her price was off, and that 90% figure was the best she was ever going to get. So it will remain vacant until they pry it from her cold insolvent hands. The fees I proposed would help accelerate the insolvency, or cause sufficient pain to happen so that she is forced to rent at market prices.
There is a wealthy man that owns a certain spot near Sutter. Previously, he rented it out to a man who put in a grocery store, and the guy ended up screwing him, so the landlord decides: no more grocery stores! no more coffee shops! He refuses to write a lease that would allow this, even though it’s a prime spot for a grocery store.
What are the effects? Well, the prospective tenant opens his grocery store nearby, but it’s in the middle of the street, not on the corner, and grocery stores in the middle get 1/3 less revenue than on the corner. What goes on the corner? A stupid specialty chocolate store that does nothing but bankrupt some hungarian dreamers — and is now boarded up again.
So the owner would rather lease to someone with no business plan, little capital, and no experience running a small business, all because he prefers specialty chocolate to groceries. So, these are the ins and outs of leasing space from smalltime owners.
Its much less to do with NIMBYs the BoS and a lot more to do with various prejudices of what are basically incompetent landlords, because they can hold land unproductive with little penalty. Many of them inherited the property or made their money doing things unrelated to being landlords, and suffer the tendency to make quick, firm decisions, idee fixe and self-assurance common to successful small-business owners, but lethal to successful landlords.
In any reasonable city, the carrying costs of land would be high enough to weed these people out, or at least encourage them to have the management handled professionally. Here, we accumulate them, because we have a ton of small-businessmen — particularly in the immigrant communities — that dream of being landlords, and the scrappy stubborn ones are the ones that make it.
Now, throw in a recession and all of a sudden you have 15% vacancy rates. How do you get the market to clear? This is the idea behind the fees. If you want, make it apply only to storefront space in high pedestrian traffic areas.
Robert, thanks for the very comprehensive responses. I would have never thought of the situations you mention, so this site does help to open ones mind.
If anything, it is a complicated situation. I still can’t get over the fumbles with American Apparrel and the ice-cream/sherbet situation in NB.
I have retired friends that go to every single meeting at the Planning Department. I was invited once to one when the Octavia Boulevard project was being done. These people have too much time on their hands and the politics are way over the top, everything becomes an issue. The BOS does not help either, they consider all input whether is has merit or not, you can’t really be too inclusive because nothing gets done, except that delays and modifications eat up valuable resources. Combine that with the things you point out and, well, just hope for the best, ultimately economics prevails.
I’m just sick of all you posers and stuck-up people in SF who look down on chains and have this holier than thou attitude in SF.
“I love it…it’s so cosmopolitan!”
I could puke.
Chains are legitimate businesses and I for one would rather shop at Target and get consistency then some dirty hole in the wall shop that smells of must and has zero parking
SF residents get over yourselves.
“then some dirty hole in the wall shop that smells of must and has zero parking”
Isn’t this true for parts of the Mission, btw? A buddy of mine lives there and said he wanted some cereal, and the only place reasonably near him was a crappy convenience store, and the only cereal they had turned out to be ridiculously old and stale. I’m not sure why these sorts of “local character” are better.
“If they can get a KMart approved in Manhattan surely San Francisco can accomodate a few chain stores. Target anyone?”
Bravo Willow! This gets back to San Francisco’s identity crisis. If you read through this very long thread you can see how threatened many are at the possibility that the “unique” character of this city may already have gone away. Sort of like the French banning English words for fear their national identity will vanish. Chains are not the cause of San Francisco’s problems.