Episode 95: The Reinvention of Downtown San Francisco

Listen Now | VOC Producers | Share | Donate | Resources

About This Transcript: This text version of our radio show/podcast is created to make our content more accessible to all audiences. However, it may not be 100% accurate. Some things to keep in mind: The original audio is always the most reliable source. Some words or phrases may be transcribed incorrectly due to audio quality, accents, or overlapping speech. Speaker labels are our best attempt at identification. We welcome your feedback if you spot errors that affect meaning or understanding.

VOC Covid 19 Podcast Advance SF & BACEI EP 95 Mix 2

[00:00:00] George Koster: Welcome to Voices of the Community, which explores critical issues facing Northern California communities. We introduce you to the voices of community thought leaders and change makers who are working on solutions that face our fellow individual community members, neighborhoods, cities, and our region.

This is George Koster, your host.

This episode is part of our series Exploring COVID nineteens impact on nonprofits and small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area back in April of 2020 when we decided to create this ongoing series on COVID nineteens impact, first on nonprofits and then on small businesses in the San Francisco Bay area.

We like you had no idea how long the pandemic would go on and what the health and economic impact would be in our community. As we enter the second half of 2022 with the latest explosion of cases from the most recent COVID-19 Omicron mutations, along with the masking requirements being changed and folks getting their vaccinations, our communities are still struggling to deal with the health.

Economic, mental and societal impacts of the ongoing global pandemic. This all adds to the ongoing uncertainty of our ever-changing indoor and outdoor vaccinated and unvaccinated protocols and the politics of the pandemic that will drive how we all come back together as a unified or fractured community.

We will continue to shine a spotlight on the nonprofits and small businesses that make up the fabric of our community. Along with the founders and staff who are struggling to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their operations, services and sustainability, until we can all get to the other side of the pandemic.

Along the way, we will also share with you all the amazing solutions that our nonprofits, small businesses, foundations, and government leaders are working on to help us all get to the other side of the pandemic and come together to rebuild our communities with more economic, social, and environmental equality.

[00:02:13] Jeff Bellisario: I do think a focus on the downtown core is important and an understanding that we do need to bring this area back to bring the entire city back just because it is the lifeblood of San Francisco and the economic driver of not just the city, but to a certain extent, the entire region. So I, I do think this becomes more than just a San Francisco question.

It becomes a very much regional question going forward.

[00:02:34] George Koster: Our show today focuses on the impact the COVID-19 pandemic is still having on the city of San Francisco's downtown community area, along with its businesses, workers and visitors. The city of San Francisco, along with businesses and community leaders have developed studies, plans and funding to attempt to reinvent the downtown community.

We've invited two thought leaders to share with you their work to address these issues and how you can get engaged. Our guests for today's show are the Vice President of Advanced San Francisco, Chris Wright, and the executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, Jeff Bellisario. Welcome to Voices of the Community, Chris and Jeff.

[00:03:11] Chris Wright: Thank you. Great to be here.

[00:03:12] George Koster: I'd like to begin by just having each of you provide a quick background on yourselves and then each of your organizations and what your mission and kinda services are. Let's start with you, Chris.

[00:03:24] Chris Wright: Great. Thanks George. My name's Chris. I'm with the Business Association in San Francisco called Advanced sf.

I'm the Senior Vice President there. Advanced SF is an organization that's made up of the city's leading employers and that it's focused on the economic vitality of San Francisco and the livability of San Francisco. We've done this through independent research and we also help to educate the public and city leaders.

We do that on matters related to the economy and also the quality of life. That's something that our organization has evolved to take on in the past, this organization was known as the Committee on Jobs for years, and we recognize that the city has changed a lot and 30 or so years, and that the business community is part of a larger ecosystem and that we need to look at a broader set of issues that are not just sort of business taxes and business regulations that again, we are part of a larger story.

And that the issues that we're concerned about are also of concern to the public. Our key focuses over this first year of our being recognized as advanced sf, we're focused on the clean and safe streets of San Francisco, where we've been looking at the affordability crisis and middle income work. And that's what Jeff will be speaking to during this podcast.

And also we've put a lot of effort into the future of downtown San Francisco and what is now recognized as sort of the economic core of San Francisco. That's a major concern right now for the city.

[00:04:53] George Koster: Thank you, Chris. And turning to you, Jeff, could you provide a little background on your organization, which is part of the Bay Area Business Council, as I recall?

[00:05:02] Jeff Bellisario: Correct. So my name's Jeff Bellisario. I lead the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. We're a relatively small think tank, focusing on policy and economic issues in the nine County Bay Area and around California. We do a lot of work to educate elected officials, educate the public. I'm gonna tell the story of the economy in a way that is extraordinarily accessible, we hope to general audiences.

I wanna talk about some of the key issues, uh, and opportunities impacting both our region and the state. So the Economic Institute is connected to, and part of the, the broader Bay Area Council, which is a 77-year-old business advocacy organization. We have more than 300. Business and employer members spanning the nine counties.

We generally focus on kind of big, long-term issues that we see as being critical to the economic competitiveness to our region. So largely things like housing and transportation and workforce development. More recently we've gotten involved in homelessness, diversity, equity, inclusion, climate change. So we cover a lot of topics.

We utilize. The expertise within our networks from our business members. We use the economic institute's connections into academia, into government to really create conversations and dialogue amongst all of those groups to think through policies, plans, investments. That can push our region's economy forward.

And over the last couple of years, we've, like all their groups, have really shifted to how our economy recovers, how we're comparing to other locations, and in particular, what do we need to do to make sure that as a Bay Area and as you know, cities in the Bay Area. What policies and investments need to happen to make sure that we really stay at the forefront.

We've spent much of the last decade pre COVID as the envy of the globe, and much of what we're talking about here today is how we get ourselves back into that position in a post COVID economy.

[00:06:51] George Koster: Thank you, Jeff. I wanna turn back to you, Chris, and just have you, if you will kind of frame up for the audience, the affordability crisis in San Francisco.

It's obviously been building for a decade plus, and the COVID-19 pandemic's really had an impact. So share with the audience from your organization's point of view, its impact on San Francisco's economic.

[00:07:11] Jeff Bellisario: Sure.

[00:07:11] George VO: Well, just to frame it in the beginning or before COVID, the city's economic core and by the economic core we're, we're not just talking about the old financial district.

We're looking at Union Square, the old financial district, Soma and Yuba Buena, and maybe even closer to City Hall. That area accounted for 72% of the city's GDP, and that has significantly changed as a result of. COVID and the use of remote work because of people being required to stay at home and relying heavily on remote work.

Many businesses learned that they can be as just as productive as they were before. And on the other side, the employees learned or understood or realized that they appreciated the flexibility of working from home. With that. As a result, we're now in a situation where between 25 and 30% of workers have returned to that downtown core.

I think San Francisco right now has the highest office vacancy maybe in the nation highest, certainly none that's ever been measured. About 25% of our office space is actually just outright vacant, and that number's probably gonna climb when you have fewer people coming downtown. That estimate has been, you know, around the 300,000 mark, 300,000 people are no longer coming down to that downtown economic core.

That has a tremendous impact on a lot of jobs and a lot of businesses, small businesses, restaurateurs, retailers. And you know, because of that, there's a whole drop in sales tax revenue that the city won't be collecting now because people are doing their shopping in other locations. So, because of COVID and the use of remote work, we're looking at an economic core that looks significantly different.

Than it did pre COVID. And you know, some of those affordability issues that we've had. Again, we've had a high cost of living in San Francisco for a long, long time. The high cost of leasing space for businesses, and obviously high cost of living, high cost of housing for workers. And now that people can work wherever and businesses can operate wherever, that raises a whole question of.

What are we doing in San Francisco? So we wanted to take a closer look at, you know, the hollowed out middle that we have in San Francisco and the economy. We wanna take a closer look and use this going forward. You know, what do we need to maintain that middle income employee? A lot of those small employers and also mid and large size.

How can we make sure that the economy is whole and that the jobs there are as inclusive as possible? That's the work that Jeff and the payer council started to look at more closely.

[00:09:42] George Koster: Thank you. And turning to you, Jeff, that kind of leads us to the creation of the middle wage job report. So if you will, to kind of back up and give the audience just a little bit more context as to why your two organizations came together to basically publish the middle wage job report.

[00:10:00] Jeff Bellisario: We've been looking at this topic even before the pandemic San Francisco was becoming what we might call more of a barbell economy, where you have many jobs at the top and you have jobs in the service sector kind of supporting those jobs in the top. This is happening across the US too, where the middle class has been hollowed out, but particularly the jobs here within the city, given the high cost of living, which then pushes wages higher, many jobs in.

You know, administrative support, accounting, parts of sales, human resources, those were the jobs that were being pushed out of San Francisco and exported out to places like Texas and Nashville and Indianapolis. Those jobs, they were potentially in tech companies, but they weren't necessarily the. Coders, software engineers, heavy STEM type jobs.

So if you can pay, you know, 20% lower wages in other places, but still get the same type of talent, you know, many companies were looking at that, you know, doing those calculations and saying, you know, why don't we have offices in these other lower cost places? We can still keep our core tech talent in San Francisco, but we need to be expanding elsewhere just based on cost.

So that was all pre pandemic. We were seeing that kind of loss of the middle. Really wanted to look at how you can. Potentially keep those jobs in the city and within our region. Now, you know, fast forward a couple of years looking at what happened to our economy in COVID-19. Now bringing back every job is becoming more important.

We're seeing San Francisco now at the bottom of the list in terms of its economic and its jobs recovery. So we, we wanted to look at a couple of things. We started off with middle wage jobs. We wanted to see how we can create policies, create ideas to ensure that the city is focusing on that area. Now we're also looking at, you know, what has changed because of COVID-19?

What are the key roadblocks to the city's economic growth? And you know, we had identified middle wage jobs as being a potential avenue where you could see job growth in the future. An area where, you know, frankly, there are not a ton of jobs in the middle in the city right now. Only 20% of the jobs in the city we would classify as middle wage roles.

So again, I think it comes back to equity as well. You know, if you're looking to create a balanced city that has opportunity for everyone. Part of that is a housing and cost equation, but part of that is creating the job, you know, that can fit within the city as well. So when we talk about middle wage jobs, we're talking about roughly around $75,000 per year in terms of wages.

You know, many of these jobs, again, are kind of the office administrative support. There's jobs in construction, jobs in arts and entertainment, and jobs in community services and healthcare effectively across all sectors. Right. But you're talking about jobs. Even at that level, you know, don't come close to really supporting a family that would or could want to live in San Francisco, right?

When you talk about a $1.5 million median home price, you're talking about roughly $300,000 needed to really afford that on a per year salary and wage basis. So this jobs piece is part of it, and I think as we look forward, the other piece of this becomes affordability and housing, but I think both have to go hand in hand.

But bringing the city back though, you know, creating a business, climate and environment where companies wanna be here, where employees want to be here, where households wanna be here. I think that's become the name of the game now in a COVID recovery type of economy in San Francisco.

[00:12:58] George Koster: And staying with the report, Jeff, the report actually teased out 10 trends driving post COVID recovery.

Can you share what those trends are?

[00:13:06] Jeff Bellisario: So, you know, when we look across the country, dense urban economies have really been impacted the most from COVID-19. Those high cost coastal areas have seen loss of population. They've seen loss of jobs, and we've seen the center of gravity shift to what you might call more second tier location.

So Austin is at the top of that list. Salt Lake City, Denver, Nashville, Phoenix, all of these lower cost places have seen population growth and they've seen employment growth. Whereas here in San Francisco and New York is another example of this, we're still trying to catch up in terms of the amount of jobs that we've lost.

Another piece of this is in our region. Leisure and hospitality has been hurt more than in other regions across the country, so a lot of middle wage jobs are in that sector, and we've really seen massive job loss there. Still 25% job loss within that sector. That sector's still down about 30,000 jobs today from where we were.

Pre COVID. San Francisco overall is down about 40,000 jobs. So that's one of the key issues here, is that there are fewer workers coming into downtown supporting those restaurants. There are fewer tourists coming into the city, supporting hotels and supporting the entertainment and the arts sector. So leisure and hospitality really fractured within San Francisco today.

Uh, we've seen thousands of people drop out of the labor force altogether in San Francisco. Part of that is the population decline when you look across the country. San Francisco on a percentage basis, has had the largest population decline over two years of any. City or county in the US and then, you know, all of those things are driven by remote work and it's really been a game changer for workers.

It's untethered that home work location nexus we've had for so long. If you can work remotely a hundred percent of the time, if you can move outta the state, move out of the city altogether, right? If you can work remotely just a day or two or three days per week, maybe you're going to make a longer commute into the city than you would've otherwise.

It's also changed the game for employers where now previously used to have to have that location in San Francisco or Silicon Valley to draw that talent. Now you're looking for remote workers. You're employing in the cloud. You're looking across the globe for your talent. It's not necessarily geographically focused.

And then the other half of the equation is driven by cost, right? So San Francisco's never been the cheapest place to live or to do business or high housing costs. Now with remote work and ability to move around, our high housing costs are potentially finally outweighing all the benefits of the city and the great aspects of the city.

The new business taxes the city has imposed in the last couple years is also, you know, adding to that cost equation for many businesses and then other geographies are just catching up to San Francisco. You know, everyone was looking at. The San Francisco Silicon Valley playbook, how do we attract tech?

How do we attract workers to places like Austin, Miami, Denver, Boise? You know, all of them have had these campaigns to draw in workers, and we're not competing against just one of them. We're competing more so against the cloud and all their geographies in San Francisco, but. Everyone's catching up to us.

The center of gravity for tech is still very much here, but other places have taken, you know, bigger pieces of the pie. I'll close just by saying the tech economy has driven a lot of San Francisco's growth over the past decade. In particular, the tech economy does have, you know, trickle down effects.

Those tech workers are supporting our service workers. Tech companies need lawyers, and they need architects and construction workers as they grow too, right? But now we're seeing in a remote work world where tech is going more remote and those workers have disappeared from San Francisco to a certain extent that a.

Future San Francisco economy just can't be so relying on tech. So there's been lots of change and upheaval, and I think what COVID-19 has done is really magnified the challenges of living and working in the city, but it's also created now an opportunity to re-envision what San Francisco can look like going forward.

[00:16:44] George Koster: Well, and speaking of re-envisioning if you will, what were the recommended actions from the report, Jeff, that came out?

[00:16:51] Jeff Bellisario: Yeah, so I think the, the first piece for us, when you think about San Francisco and you think about growing the economy and you think about making it a business friendly place where employers want to hire, you can think about taxes, right?

So the city has enacted multiple new taxes over the last few years on businesses of all sizes, particularly larger employers. So recommendation one is to pause. Implementation of new taxes, fees, and regulation until we can get our economic footing and find growth. Two, we've had many companies leave San Francisco even before the pandemic, they were exiting due to high costs.

So two would be to understand why those companies are leaving exactly and make sure that we're tracking that and understanding that and can better understand our challenges, particularly to educate our policy makers on the challenges of doing business in the city. Three. The cost of living is high here, right?

And it's not gonna come down overnight. But I do think investigating the city's overall cost of living, comparing that to other cities and really making a commitment to housing in particular, housing at all levels of affordability is key for the city going forward. Four, and we look at middle wage jobs in this report, but I think really identifying the industries and occupations that the city is losing.

And should have policies to make sure that they can retain those types of jobs, I think is a key one, particularly from a policy standpoint. You know, few people focus on middle wage jobs, right? There are large focuses on low wage workers. There are all kinds of programs and policies to ensure people can get into the labor force that are not in a labor force.

There are very few policies that focus directly on this kind of middle wage, middle income type of role and type of household. And then five, we look at the potential for financial incentives for employers to create middle income jobs in the city. You know, in addition to pausing the taxes, I think there are ways that employers can be rewarded for creating the types of jobs.

The city wants to grow going forward, Dix, making sure that our economic programs and our workforce programs are really aligned with middle wage occupations and the needs and desires of those employers. Oftentimes, we see programs that are very well intentioned, but don't necessarily totally line up with what the employers are looking for from.

Skill perspective. So making sure that employers are in those conversations would be a, I think a big solution for the city over the long term. The seventh one we look at and talk about is, you know, again, coming back to housing. So thinking about new policies that can catalyze the construction of workforce housing in particular.

So housing that would be affordable to the middle rungs of our populace here in San Francisco. So those are things like. Creating modular housing that's really affordable by design, right? Smaller units, different types of product that become more affordable, and we're thinking about different subsidies, particularly for groups at the middle part of the wage spectrum to help them afford to purchase, buy and live within San Francisco.

Lastly, you know, this is the big piece of, of all this is really just a refocus on quality of life within the city. You know, over the last couple of years with fewer people coming downtown, issues on crime and homelessness, safety and cleanliness have all been magnified within San Francisco. And I think when you talk to household or employers, everyone is talking about these types of issues.

And without solving that, I think we're gonna have a hard time really changing the narrative in San Francisco and making it an attractive place. People that wanna come to work, that want to live here. Because right now, for the remote workforce in particular, you would much rather stay in your house in the suburbs, right, than make a commute into San Francisco on Bart.

You know, you're hearing and seeing in the news all these headlines on homelessness, crime, just what the city looks like today. So I think changing the narrative there, but also creating actual change in those areas will help. Change that perception about the city that I, I think exists, you know, not just in our region, but across the US Right now, San Francisco has fallen on tough times as a headline we see in many places.

So I think it is incumbent upon us and our city leaders and really everyone to solve these big, intractable problems in the city.

[00:20:42] George VO: You're listening to Voices of the Community, which explores critical issues facing Northern California communities. Voices of the Community is supported by a grant from the James Irvine Foundation dedicated to a California where all low income workers have the power to advance economically more@irvine.org.

This is George Koster, your host, and if you're just joining us in this episode, we're discussing how the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our economy, and especially downtown San Francisco with the Vice President of Advanced sf, Chris Wright and the executive Director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, Jeff Rio.

Let's get back to our conversation about their work on the middle wage jobs report, as well as the plans to help bring back the economic core of San Francisco and the downtown community.

[00:21:30] George Koster: And Jeff, so the report is published, and how has the mayor's office and board of supervisors kind of reacted to the report and the recommendations from the report?

[00:21:40] Jeff Bellisario: Chris, you wanna take that when you probably had closer context?

[00:21:42] Chris Wright: Yeah, that's something that we've been working on, trying to educate the members of the Board of Supervisors and the mayor's office and other city leaders. You know, they're getting through their budget right now and working their way through a number of measures that will be on the ballot.

I think there's gonna be some time where they will be able to take a look at this more closely. I think people are honestly a little slow to recognizing what's going on with the economy and what is happening in particular to that downtown economic core. And it's gonna take some education on our part among others.

We know that this is a top concern for the mayor's office and you know, it's our job to continue to educate and to bring forward what is actually happening in this area.

[00:22:22] George Koster: Well, to that point, Chris. You both came together, created the report, and in parallel to all that, there's the San Francisco's Economic Core Recovery Initiative and spending plan.

So can you walk the audience through that, Chris, like what's the background of that?

[00:22:36] Chris Wright: So several months ago, the mayor's office reached out to our organization to partner with them on a series of meetings with stakeholders around the future of the city's. Economic core, we're concerned about it. You know, the mayor's office is very concerned about it, and we brought together a range of folks, small business leaders, larger employers, restaurateurs, property owners, arts organizations, and we started to have these conversations around what's happening and you know.

What are some ideas that people have about how to best to move forward? So from those initial conversations, and again, this is the beginning of a process, we're just beginning to understand what remote work is doing to our local economy, especially in that downtown economic core. So this is the beginning of the conversation, but we've begun to, and the mayor's team began to identify some potential ideas and incorporated some of those ideas in her budget for this coming year, and that's something that will be an ongoing process.

And it has just started. There's a lot of work to be done and some ideas still to come forward.

[00:23:43] George Koster: And staying with the plan itself, what were the recommendations? 'cause there was a economic core forum.

[00:23:49] Chris Wright: Yeah, the forum was one of the places where some of these ideas germinated, but in the mayor's budget that the board approved, there is, you know, $6 million in this fund that will go towards, I think, events and festivals that they're looking to help generate new interest in coming downtown.

Put some pop-up ideas. Again, these ideas, they're in the process of being developed and OEWD, the Office of Economic Workforce and Development will begin to take a closer look at some ideas that are coming from the stakeholders in these areas, and then there's some additional money for small business support.

There's about $10 million, I think, in the budget for direct assistance to the small businesses. Across the city, but also in this area. And then the mayor and the board agreed to continue to fund few ambassador programs. There's some significant money in that. And the ambassador programs you, you may be seeing people wearing various vests in various parts of the city and they're in the key sort of high traffic areas.

They are in the areas where the tourists are and where workers are, and they're there to help report emergencies and hazards and they, in some cases, make wellness checks on in individuals in need. But overall, they're there to help make people feel welcome again in this area that has been largely, you know, without people, so they're part of that effort.

In addition, the mayor's budget includes some additional money to maintain and attract new police officers. That's a citywide effort, but you know, some of those police officers will be more present in down.

[00:25:16] George Koster: Along with that, there were recommendations for addressing the safety and sanitation issues facing downtown, which are really facing pretty much most of downtown, if you will.

Extending it all the way out to a civic center, Hayes Valley area, et cetera, and of course into the mission. Housing plays a big part of that as well.

[00:25:35] Chris Wright: That's right. You know, that's part of that mayor's budget. There is some additional funding to attract new police officers and increase the number of Academy classes.

Right now, the number of police officers. I think we're down 500 from what is recommended, 500 police officers. So increasing the Academy class is trying to attract some existing officers and then also keeping the ones that we have right now, and that's part of the mayor's budget.

[00:25:59] George Koster: It is great that you also engaged the arts and culture, uh, community as well, and so it looked like some of the recommendations were to try to create, you had mentioned popup.

But the whole idea of community gathering spaces, performance spaces, we have obviously, sadly, thousands of vacant storefronts. So can you walk the audience through a little bit of the recommendations that you came up with on that?

[00:26:22] Chris Wright: Yeah, you're exactly right. This is the beginning of the process to look at potential ideas around how to make the downtown thrive.

Again, the economic core thrive again, and there are many ideas that are emerging almost on a weekly basis, but I think there are. Three sort of core areas where we're seeing, you know, some ideas begin to rise up. The first is looking at that downtown core, not just to the nine to five environment that it has been prior to COVID, but to look at that downtown economic core as a more livable and entertaining area that goes beyond nine to five.

That goes. Maybe not so much before nine, but after five. So there's some opportunities around, you know, making it easier for businesses, for new restaurants, for new bars, for new entertainment opportunities to emerge in that area. And on an effort to attract younger people and families into that area.

There's a richness already that exist downtown. You know, we have museums, we have theaters, we have galleries, we have sports teams. There's a lot to go to there. And I think that that is a natural avenue for people to pursue in a more robust way. The second area I think that has emerged is that we need to, again, focus on clean and safe streets.

People might be attracted to come to some new festival or some new restaurant, but they're not gonna come again if they don't feel safe or in the areas not clean. So that's something that needs to be done, and that's visitors and residents and employees. And then finally, as you mentioned. We need to look at some of these spaces differently.

We need to see how they can be adapted. Empty office buildings, empty storefronts, underutilized streets, I think are all opportunities to bring in the arts, to bring in cultural centers. You know, can we establish mentoring programs that exist in these spaces? Can we offer childcare in these spaces? I think looking at how these.

Places are zoned, how they're set up and how they financially work for the operators that needs to be examined. You know, for example, just this week, the downtown CBD, the Community Benefit District that exists to support the, the downtown area has issued a report that identifies a number of locations, number of streets that.

It could be considered to be shut down and then turned into cultural artistic areas where people can come to make it more interesting to come downtown. So these ideas are coming up on a weekly basis, which is fantastic.

[00:28:37] George Koster: Coming back to everyone's favorite topic, housing. Before we came on today, we were just talking about.

There's been a dialogue literally for the last year plus, and it's not a new dialogue with regards to, okay, now we have all this vacant office space. Why can't we turn it all into housing? Wouldn't that help provide workforce housing, get folks who are unhoused off the street into some warm, dry, safe place between your two organizations?

What's your take on that?

[00:29:01] Chris Wright: I'll start. So there has been some conversations around building new housing in this area, in the economic core, or even converting some of the existing buildings into housing. Uh, on the latter part, it's a lot more difficult than people might first imagine. A lot of these office buildings, they have a much larger floor plate that would accommodate housing for individuals.

For people, when we're talking about housing, we need light. We need. Plumbing. We need ability to get in and out. And that isn't the case in these existing structures. So that's something that's not every building that's down here can be easily converted at all. And even if the buildings are convertible, you need to have an empty building.

And right now there's a lot of businesses that are still operating outta these buildings. So there would have to be a lot of, not luck necessarily, but there has to be an opportunity for these buildings to be, you know, able to be converted. Vacant to be converted. And then also the cost factor. You know, there needs to be consideration of the cost right now, and to do that is very expensive.

So in some cases it might be easier to build new housing here. Rather than to convert. But again, I think that the situation is where some of these buildings, people will be looking at that more carefully. So there might be a couple opportunities that pop up.

[00:30:15] George Koster: And Jeff, your thoughts?

[00:30:17] Jeff Bellisario: Yeah, I do think the conversion aspect does get talked about a lot as a potential solution, but it practice, it is not going to be the solution for downtown San Francisco.

I think there are for sure opportunities that may exist to convert certain types of building product particularly. We look around the real estate market, the kind of like Class B, class C type office space is the one that is less occupied, maybe obsolete going forward. So I do think the city, through policy and through partnerships is gonna at least have to look at those types of buildings and do an inventory of them, see what exists, and ask questions about how they could be reused in a different, better way.

But yeah, the cost piece is huge there. I think when we think about the downtown area, you know, it, it's been. Central business district. It's been the daytime population. It's the workers that have made it vibrant, and I think it will again, be the workers that make it vibrant in the future. But now we're running up against a remote work trend that is keeping people at home.

So the big questions for the city, I think are more on how you create an environment and create amenity to get people from around the region to want to come back into downtown San Francisco. We're very much creatures of habit. People were working from home for more than a year, at the very least. Right.

We got very used to living and working in our dining rooms and bedrooms and offices and decks. But I do think once people come back into San Francisco, if, if you have a good commute and you have a good experience that first time and that second time you begin to do it again and we begin to build that center of gravity that was here before, because right now we're.

A little bit of a collective action problem. Everyone's working from home. So you ask the question, why do I myself need to work from home? So the city, I think needs to make sure that we have that infrastructure and amenities set up to make that experience great. When you do come to the office and eventually things will build back because the solution is gonna be more people.

Part of that is housing for sure, but I think more so it's creating a climate here in the city where the worker and the businesses want to be here.

[00:32:15] George Koster: Great. And as we were both talking before we started, KQED did a good piece on this, and our friends over at Spur did a great panel discussion on converting office space into housing.

So I will have those links for our listeners and the show notes. And now I'm gonna turn to my favorite question, which is, how can folks who are listening to the show, people in our communities get engaged in this process of helping reinvent downtown? Would you like to start, Jeff?

[00:32:41] Jeff Bellisario: I think one of the things that Chris already mentioned is we're having new ideas come from every corner of the city and every corner of the region in terms of how we can grow back in better and different and new ways within San Francisco.

So I do think there are various avenues of engagement through advanced SF through the. City through even the Bay Area Council where these conversations are happening. And I do think, you know, we're almost at it all hands on deck type of of approach here, right? There are urban planning aspects, architecture aspect policy.

We need good ideas on how to bring vibrancy back to San Francisco and bring it back quickly. So I, I think that's one. I think the other thing that we encourage at the Bay Area Council, particularly of our membership, but of of the public. To engage with our policy makers and elected officials within the city.

I think that voice is huge, and I do think a focus on the downtown core is important and an understanding that we do need to bring this area back to bring the entire city back just because it is the lifeblood of San Francisco and the economic driver of not just the city, but to a certain extent, the entire region.

So I, I do think this becomes more than just the San Francisco question. It becomes a very much regional question going forward.

[00:33:50] George Koster: Thank you Jeff. And turning to you, Chris, what are things that folks can do? Can someone engage in the economic core forum or there community meetings that folks can go and participate?

[00:34:00] Chris Wright: Absolutely. First, people could come to our website, advanced to get regular updates to communicate with us and. We can figure out how we can get everyone involved. There are other groups that are also working on this spur, the Chamber of Commerce, the Bay Area Council. These are all civic groups that are looking at this important issue.

So yes, I would encourage folks to reach out to those organizations among others. And to get engaged and Jeff mentioned, you know, let's talk to elected officials and then also let's look at downtown. Let's look at the economic core and all the places that people can go and visit and eat and drink and have fun.

It's happening right now, but you know, take another look and to see what might interest you and come back down and try it out.

[00:34:41] George Koster: Great. Essentially support our small businesses, especially those that are still surviving in the core.

[00:34:46] Chris Wright: Exactly.

[00:34:47] George Koster: Alright, I want to turn to our final question for each of you today, and I'm gonna stay with you, Chris, on this one.

So what are some of the good things that you see that have come out of the pandemic that can help or hinder the San Francisco downtown and San Francisco's affordability crisis?

[00:35:01] Chris Wright: So, you know, it's hard to overlook the damage that has occurred down here. The small businesses, the restaurateurs who have all suffered.

Through to going on three years of inactivity and the lack of shoppers and people eating. So it's been really, really hard. I would say though, that a positive aspect is that through this, I think we've realized that we're all interconnected, that you know, the. Small businesses, restaurateurs, large employers, we all need each other to carry on.

So with that recognition, I think that people are now prepared to reexamine this area and to see what it can be. How can we make it interesting? How can we make it vibrant? How can we make it inclusive? I think that with this combined effort of businesses, government leaders, arts community, nonprofits, I think that there is right now a recognition that we're all interconnected and that this area is important.

It's essential for the city and the region, but I think that there is a great opportunity for all these groups to come together and to build something great.

[00:36:05] George Koster: Chris, on a personal level, what do you feel like you've learned about yourself in these last two plus years of the pandemic, especially since you're a business person in downtown trying to make it all work?

[00:36:15] Chris Wright: Yeah. On a personal basis, if you asked me pre COVID VID, was I introvert or an extrovert, I would tell you I'm an introvert and I had to say for the first several months of COVID, I kind of enjoyed it. Being locked up. I don't, that's not true. I kind of enjoy being with my family in a closed area. We've thrive, but then I think I've grown to realize that, you know, going in the office is important.

Getting out meeting people is essential. We miss so much on Zoom and you know, on remote work, I have learned to realize that I'm much less of an introvert than I realized before, or that I thought I. Before.

[00:36:51] George Koster: Thank you for sharing that. And Jeff, let's start off with that same question over the last two plus years.

You're a think tank guy, you're in there crunching numbers, et cetera. What do you feel that you've learned about yourself from the pandemic over these last two plus years?

[00:37:03] Jeff Bellisario: Well, I think it's been a rough two and a half years for everyone, and now we're facing inflation and a whole new set of. But for me, it's been kind of a welcome site to have everyone really coming to us at the Economic Institute and asking what the heck is going on?

Right. So it's been fun to a certain extent, just as the economy has changed so rapidly, and I think there's a new sense from elected officials, but. The broader public, even in kind of understanding the data and the nuances of our economy that, uh, maybe wasn't there when everything was just going pretty smoothly back over the last decade, pre COVID-19.

So I do think for me, you know, we've learned a lot about. Our team and our capabilities and how to best bring our message forward. And I think for me, it's been maybe similar to Chris, where I have found the value of kind of getting out and talking to folks and getting out of the data and trying to get a good understanding of what's happening, you know, on our street corners and within our restaurants and within our small businesses that maybe the data doesn't show us the greatest examples, but having those conversations and having those anecdotes oftentimes can kind of bring more light to the story here than just the numbers that we look at.

[00:38:09] George Koster: And from the lens of a regional think tank, how has the pandemic provided from a regional perspective to make changes that, as you've said, and I think we've all acknowledged, have been floating out there for several decades?

[00:38:24] Jeff Bellisario: Yeah, the housing challenge and the trans. Transportation challenge and the homelessness challenge in our region and in San Francisco.

The pandemic really did shine a bright light and magnify all of those issues, which we also know are very much interconnected in certain ways. So I do think there is a, particularly from a policy perspective, kind of a new energy around. Really making actual change in many of these areas, whether it's getting our transit system back up and running and getting it running in a great way, whether it's really trying to solve homelessness or whether it's thinking about, you know, how we do housing in our region in a way that actually can be affordable.

I think there is a lot of energy around those questions. The solutions are not easy. There's not just one solution, but I do think there are. Now many, many, many more people thinking about those issues. And I'd also say we're at a unique time. I'm, I'm not sure you can go back in history and find a time that looks just like this with pandemic and remote work.

And in fact you can't. But we were the center of the.com bus 20 years ago. We've been in these ups and downs and I think just saying San Francisco's gonna come back is not good enough. But we historically have always found a way to innovate. And I think that the people here have done that. I think there's that people energy, the people that have remained that want to see San Francisco strong and vibrant have come together.

And I think, you know, again, it's not an easy solution, but I do have confidence that between our elected officials, our civic leaders, our business leaders, our nonprofit heads, our workers, our households, we're gonna come back. And I think we're gonna come back in big ways. But you know, we do need to solve these issues.

So it's not just gonna happen for us.

[00:39:58] George Koster: Thank you. That was great. We want to thank the Vice President of Vance sf, Chris Wright and the executive Director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, Jeff Rio, for sharing the work of each of their organizations on both the reinvention of the downtown San Francisco community and addressing the economic disparity through their research and policy work.

So Jeff, if folks wanna get a copy of the middle wage jobs report, where should they go to download a copy?

[00:40:23] Jeff Bellisario: You can find that report and all sorts of data on San Francisco and the regional economy@bayareaeconomy.org. And we're on Twitter at Bay Area Economy.

[00:40:32] George Koster: Thank you and Chris, if folks would like to learn more about the Economic Core Recovery Initiative, the forum and the spending plan, what is the best place to get that information?

[00:40:40] Chris Wright: Sure. They can go to advance sf.org to look up all that material and to learn more about how to get involved.

[00:40:48] George Koster: Great, so we'll make sure that our listeners have your contact information, website, social media, so they can follow and support your work as well as get engaged in the work to address these issues facing our community and economy.

Please stay safe and healthy as we work our way through the latest surge of COVID-19. That's it for this episode of Voices of the Community.

[00:41:06] George VO: You've been listening to the voices of the Vice President of Advanced sf, Chris Wright and the Executive Director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, Jeff Bellisario.

You can read a copy of the middle wage Drops report and the reports recommendations along with the results from the San Francisco survey@advancedsf.org. And to read all of the research and recommendations from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, go to bay area economic.org. For more information about the city of San Francisco's economic Core recovery initiative, go to sf mayor.org.

We will include links to the reports as well as the City of San Francisco Economic Core Recovery Initiative on the episode webpage on george koster.com.

We hope that you enjoyed the insights, points of view and personal stories from the voices of Change makers and their nonprofits and small businesses featured in this series.

To find out more and get engaged with the nonprofits, small businesses, and staff members featured in this series, please go to my. George koster.com and click on Voices of the Community to find links to the extended versions of these interviews and to listen to the entire series. After listening to these stories, we hope that you will consider making a donation and volunteering to provide a hand up to your fellow community members.

Today's episode was made possible by the Audio Wizard and our associate producer, Eric Estrada. And the graphics magic of Kasey Nance from Citron Studio, along with a wonderful crew at the San Francisco Public Press and KSFP. Voices of the Community is supported by a grant from the James Irvine Foundation, dedicated to a California where all low income workers have the power to advance economically more at irvine.org.

Voices of the community is a member of Intersection for the Arts, which allows us to offer you a tax deduction. For your contributions, please go to george Koster.com and click on the donate link to make a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one. While you're on our website, you can enjoy our archived Pass shows, which feature community voices working on solutions to critical issues facing Northern California communities.

And you can sign up for our newsletter to find out more about future shows as well as shows and events from the organizations that are included in our episodes. Take us along on your next COVID walk by subscribing to voices of the community. On Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

You can follow us on Twitter at George Koster and we'd love to hear from you with feedback and show ideas. So send us an email to George@georgekoster.com. I'm George Koster in San Francisco, and thank you for listening.

Thanks to our Sponsor

Voices of the Community is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation, dedicated to a California where all low-income workers have the power to advance economically. More at www.irvine.org

Donate to Voices of the Community

We are fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one. If you want to send us a check, please make checks payable to Intersection for the Arts and write [Voices of the Community] in the memo line of your check. This ensures that you’ll receive an acknowledgement letter for tax purposes, and your donation will be available for our project.

1446 Market Street | San Francisco, CA 94102 | (415) 626-2787