A years-long effort to build a performing arts and education center at the intersection of Market, Turk and Mason streets could collapse now that an out-of-town property owner has ended talks with the project’s backers and put the lots up for bid.

“I’m hoping that whoever ends up with the property is willing to do an arts component and not just make everything market rate,” said Will Thacher, whose family has owned the rest of the proposed project, the adjoining property at 950-964 Market St., since 1937. “But San Francisco is one of the hottest real estate markets in the nation and Mid-Market now is one of the hottest areas in the city.”

It wasn’t always that way. Just a few years ago, Mid-Market was a seedy urban desert plunked in the middle of the city’s signature boulevard. Then-Mayor Gavin Newsom and current Mayor Ed Lee worked to create tax breaks and incentives to bring in businesses to replace the empty buildings, boarded-up storefronts and cheesy retail shops that contributed to the area’s dangerous, down-at-the-heels vibe.

Against that background, the plan for a mixed-use arts center that would transform three-quarters of one of the sketchiest blocks on Market Street was a gift from above. City officials, the arts community and neighborhood groups from the adjoining Tenderloin quickly embraced the plan.

“Theater groups are getting priced out of the city, even as people are coming to the city for the arts,” said Carmela Gold, president of the Tenderloin Economic Development Project, which has put together the proposed arts project. “If you talk to anyone in the arts, even an organization as big as (the American Conservatory Theater), they’ll say they’re going to be priced out of the city in five years.”

The plan for the 950 Center for Art and Education calls for four small theaters, rehearsal space, meeting rooms and public areas that could be shared by several performing arts groups, along with office space. ACT, which is converting the nearby Strand Theater into another performing space, would also use the new center for administrative and education efforts, according to a January 2013 report on the project.

“We want to provide affordable space for arts groups that are being squeezed out of the city because of what’s happening in the real estate market,” said John Clawson, founder of Equity Community Builders, the development consultant on the project.

With the arts activity on the second and third floors of the proposed development, there would be room in the sprawling building for street-level restaurant and retail space, as well residential or office uses on higher floors, making the project more attractive to a developer.

Ideal for small groups

The shared space idea is perfect for small local theater groups, which wouldn’t be burdened with the day-in, day-out costs of running their own performance spaces, said Steven Anthony Jones, artistic director of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.

“We can share office and rehearsal space and put the money we save into the artistic side,” he said.

But, except for Thacher, property owners’ early interest in the arts plan waned as the price tag rose on Mid-Market property. The Lone Star Fund of Dallas, which now owns the other three Market Street parcels earmarked for the arts center, turned down an offer by the project’s backers and opted to put the properties up for bid late last month.

City officials, however, continue to see the arts as a major part of Mid-Market’s revival. On Jan. 30, the mayor and Supervisor Jane Kim sat down with the arts center’s sponsors and potential bidders for the Lone Star property and made it clear the city would work with developers to get the deal done.

“We’re excited about the economic growth we’re seeing,” Kim said. “But the concept also was to recognize the existing community that had always been there … and continue to protect services and the arts who were the area’s original tenants.”

Trying to stay in S.F.

If the arts plan dies, it will be a loss to the city and the artists who make it home.

The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre has been the Bay Area’s signature professional black theater company for 32 years, all of it spent in San Francisco. But after losing their theater a few years back, “we’ve been barnstorming, making plans and then looking for a venue,” said Jones. “This would mean we’d have a permanent home.”

Without the new arts center, “I’m not sure we can stay in San Francisco,” he said.

For now, there’s not much Gold and other supporters of the arts hub can do.

“We’re just waiting for Lone Star to pick a winner and then talk with whoever gets the bid,” she said.

But Gold remains confident. The arts center has both political and financial backing and is the type of project that could transform the adjoining Tenderloin neighborhood.

“We want the Tenderloin to benefit from the extraordinary growth of business along Mid-Market,” she said. “We want development to increase to where people are happy to walk down Turk Street.”

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Mid-Market-arts-center-at-risk-amid-boom-4342332.php

She also spends time making sure other people stay out.

“We don’t have open doors, ever. They’re always locked,” said Melchor, whose Gray Area Foundation for the Arts sits at the convergence of the Tenderloin and Mid-Market, two of the city’s most downtrodden neighborhoods. “We must see 100 crimes every week out of these windows, and although the city wants it to change, it hasn’t happened.”

The foundation’s arrival in 2009 was heralded as the start of a trend that would culminate in a unique creative hub along Market Street, one of San Francisco’s busiest thoroughfares, where the wide sidewalks are packed most days with tourists, street performers and employees from the nearby financial district.

Yet the five block stretch of prime real estate known as Mid-Market remains a sea of boarded-up storefronts and “For Lease” signs, and transients are the most visible occupants. The most common crimes in the area are drug deals and muggings, according to San Francisco Police Department data.

But a new crop of potential tenants — Twitter Inc., the American Conservatory Theater and the organizers of the annual Burning Man festival — and a recently announced Mid-Market tax incentive plan are renewing hope that a transformation is finally coming.

“I think the time is now and we’re going to see some bravery,” said Marian Goodell, director of business and communications for Burning Man, which held its first gathering in San Francisco in 1986 and has based its offices there ever since. “I’m really optimistic that some magic is going to happen.”

The tax proposal announced Feb. 7 by Mayor Edwin Lee and two city supervisors is an attempt to solve two pressing problems: the general reluctance to take a chance on Mid-Market and the threatened exodus of Twitter and other prized businesses from San Francisco to parts of the Bay area where real-estate costs are significantly lower.

“Keeping companies like Twitter helps us create jobs, boost our local economy and, in this case, can be a catalyst to transform our central Market Street area,” Lee said of the plan, which would offer a six-year payroll tax exemption for companies that relocate to the area. The plan must be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Jennifer Matz, director of the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, described Twitter as “the big fish” the city hopes to lure with the new incentive, though it would be available to any for-profit business with a payroll above $250,000.

A spokesman for Twitter, which is quickly outgrowing its current headquarters three blocks south of Market Street, declined to comment on the city’s claim that it is considering leasing the massive former San Francisco Furniture Mart. The social networking service currently employs about 350 people, but has said it expects to expand to several thousand over the next five years, Lee said.

With or without Twitter, the positive effects of a Mid-Market tax exemption would ripple throughout the city, said Jim Lazarus, senior vice president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce

“San Francisco remains a very attractive place for people to live, and yet we’re losing jobs,” he said. “This will help bring the kind of employment density into the area that it desperately needs.”

The efforts to bring new blood to Mid-Market also are eliciting praise from groups in the neighboring Tenderloin — home to the city’s highest concentration of parolees but not a single full-service grocery store.

“We need an edge, because right now we just can’t compete with other neighborhoods on an even playing field,” said Randy Shaw, executive director of the nonprofit Tenderloin Housing Clinic. “Maybe with what’s going on in Mid-Market, businesses will think of moving here.”

Others caution that it’s still too soon to declare a Mid-Market renaissance. And the would-be tenants themselves acknowledge that nothing is set in stone.

The American Conservatory Theater, currently located a block from Union Square, is planning to expand into a $100 million Mid-Market arts complex that would include a 300-seat theater, housing for visiting artists and various other facilities. ACT has found the land — a 200,000-square-foot lot at the corner of Turk and Market streets — but is still seeking the partners and funding it would need to complete the deal.

“Either it’s going to happen or it’s not going to happen in the next six months,” said ACT executive director Ellen Richard.

Burning Man has narrowed its search to three Mid-Market sites, including the historic Warfield Building, but the organization remains uncertain it can afford the move, Goodell said.

In the meantime, Melchor is continuing to talk up the neighborhood’s potential while dealing with the harsh day-to-day realities of being a lonely pioneer.

“We’ve become this beacon in the area, but there’s no one else to help balance out what’s going on all around us,” she said on a recent afternoon, after politely turning away a man who knocked at the door asking for money. “We have a five-year lease. After that, we’ll have to see.”

Article source: http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articles/blighted-37981-real-downtown.html