In March 2024, Mayor Breed set a bold goal to bring at least 30,000 new residents and students downtown by 2030. This vision sees downtown as a diverse, mixed-use, 24/7 destination and neighborhood. San Francisco will achieve this by continuing to put in place key initiatives that work towards the Mayor's Roadmap to San Francisco's Future.
Convert at least 5 million square feet of office space to approximately 5,000 units of housing. These units would welcome some 10,000 new residents to downtown’s historic office core. Actions towards this goal include:
Approved in March 2024, Mayor Breed’s Proposition C ballot measure waives the real estate transfer tax on up to 5 million square feet of commercial-to-housing conversion projects downtown, eliminating a significant cost for these projects.
Published in September 2024, the Department of Building Inspection’s Commercial-to-Residential Adaptive Reuse Information Sheet clarifies Building and Fire Code requirements and alternative methods of compliance for adaptive reuse projects.
Introduced in September 2024, a new ordinance proposed by Mayor Breed and District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey waives inclusionary housing and development impact fee requirements for commercial-to-residential conversions to remove the primary remaining City-imposed development cost for these projects.
In 2025, following passage of Assembly Bill 2488 that was signed by the Governor in September 2024, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) will establish a special Financing District for commercial-to-housing conversion projects that would reinvest incremental property tax revenue to offset a significant share of development costs for these projects.
Build 5,000 new units of housing to welcome another 10,000 residents across downtown neighborhoods. Steps towards this goal include:
Launched in February 2023, Mayor Breed’s Housing for All plan implements San Francisco’s Housing Element target of 82,000 new homes by 2031. The ongoing plan continues to speed up permitting for new housing development citywide and Downtown.
Passed in July 2023, the inclusionary housing and impact fee reforms, sponsored by Mayor Breed and adopted by the Board of Supervisors, significantly lower inclusionary housing requirements and reduces development impact fees by one-third for new and pipeline housing developments through 2026 citywide. Fee reform also permanently allows developers to defer 80% of their impact fees until Temporary Certificate of Occupancy, reducing risk and costs for housing builders.
Passed in December 2023, Mayor Breed’s comprehensive housing streamlining legislation simplifies the approval process for new housing projects citywide, eliminates special approvals for large projects, and removes procedural and design constraints on new residential developments Downtown.
In April 2024, OEWD entered two Downtown office buildings—1 South Van Ness and 170 Otis—into the C40 Cities Reinventing Cities Competition, a global design and development competition to transform underutilized urban sites into innovative, zero-carbon, and resilient developments. The City is also soliciting proposal for high-density housing developments at these sites.
Introduced in July 2024, a new ordinance proposed by Mayor Breed and District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey increases capacity for residential development in the Central SoMa and Transbay Plan Areas by eliminating zoning provisions that require a minimum amount of commercial space in mixed-use projects on large sites.
UC Law SF's new building in its Academic Village includes over 600 units of below-market student housing, UC Law SF
Bring 10,000 students, teachers, and staff by attracting universities and colleges to locate or grow their presence downtown. Actions taken towards this goal include:
Launched in June 2024, Mayor Breed’s Black 2 San Francisco (B2SF) summer internship program connected 60 students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) across the country with paid opportunities at more than 30 City departments. The eight-week pilot of the career exploration initiative offered B2SF scholars the opportunity to live, learn, work, and explore in San Francisco, creating meaningful and lasting ties to the City. Daily morning classes and other programming held at the University of San Francisco’s Downtown Campus at Howard and Spear provided a successful model for shared space engagement and productive public-private-nonprofit partnership.
In October 2024, the Planning Department will launch priority permit processing for student housing developments to streamline approvals. Student housing is a key component of attracting higher education campuses to San Francisco. Recent projects like the University of California Law San Francisco‘s new Academe at 198, which houses students from numerous local universities, demonstrates the strong potential for student housing Downtown.
As part of Mayor Breed’s B2SF initiative, the City will engage HBCUs to develop and operate a satellite campus Downtown with a full suite of academic and professional programming. The City will invite regional higher education partners to collaborate on this effort and to work toward shared economic and social justice goals.
OEWD is devising economic development strategies for targeted recruitment of higher education institutions including incentives tailored to the unique needs of each potential partner institution. Incentives may include tax abatements and credits, development incentives, and support for research initiatives.
OEWD continues to meet with local university partners, to position San Francisco as an ideal location for higher education. Specific upcoming efforts will work to drive 1) internal partnerships between local higher education partners to explore potential for shared physical spaces, personnel, and recruitment efforts; and 2) external partnerships between higher education and San Francisco’s job creators, towards internships and job placements.
Transform Downtown’s public realm to serve its future as a mixed-use neighborhood, with outdoor spaces that serve all of its future users. Steps towards this goal include:
Completed in December 2023, the Recreation and Parks Department’s (RPD) transformed United Nations Plaza features a skate park and recreation hub with exercise equipment and dance classes, chess and ping pong tables, lighting, music, and new public art.
Unveiled in June 2024, the proposed Powell Street redesign plan transforms this iconic pedestrian-centered promenade to better serve residents, retailers, and visitors and support Union Square’s economic recovery. An initial $4 million in the City’s 2023–24 budget will assist OEWD, SFMTA, and the Union Square Alliance with the final design and implementation.
Announced in June 2024, the Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure plans to advance construction of the East Cut Sports & Dog Park to add 2.4 acres of outdoor recreation space to serve the East Cut neighborhood and to simultaneously preserve The Crossing at East Cut as a space for everyday recreation and community gathering uses that are managed by the East Cut Community Benefit District with support from OEWD.
In fall 2024, the City, through RPD and in partnership with OEWD, is negotiating an agreement with BXP, the owners of the adjacent Embarcadero Center, to establish a public-private partnership that will redevelop Embarcadero Plaza into a Downtown “living room”. Once approved by the RPD Commission and Board of Supervisors, the project will overhaul the currently underutilized public plaza to include amenities for residents and visitors such as spaces for entertainment and marketplaces and other park features to be determined through a public outreach process.
Passed by voters in the November 2024 election, Proposition B (Healthy, Safe, and Vibrant San Francisco Bond) includes up to $41 million in funding to improve and modernize public spaces in Downtown.
OEWD, in partnership with the Planning Department and SFMTA, is working to expand Downtown’s public realm network by activating at least 10 additional streets and alleys into resident and visitor-serving public spaces using strategies such as entertainment zones, pedestrian-only street hours, and street fairs and night market activations. This initiative builds on community-based efforts like the Downtown SF Partnership’s Public Realm Action Plan and Landing at Leidesdorff, a new public gathering place created through a City and private partnership.
