As you might recall our pitch "The story behind those empty storefronts in the Mission" has recently been fully funded!
As such: Work has hit a new feverish pitch. Mission Loc@l asked me to send a very hearty thank you to all of you. I hope to see the editor, Lydia Chavez, around the neighborhood and hope to get her on camerae discussing, as she already had, some of the details behind this reporting project.
Meanwhile: The first phase of collecting data about the vacancies in the Mission district is mostly done. The team has been keeping track of all the empty storefronts, where they are, why they were vacant, how long, etc. and next up is the multimedia presentation of all that data.
We will let you know as soon as we finish - and we hope it won't be too long.
Thank you again for being a Spot.Us community member and supporter of our work. More details to come soon.
If you ever don't want to get these updates, please let me know.
By SHALWAH EVANS at Mission Loc@l
Support their reporting on Mission Vacancies here.
Urban Burger offers the Big Kahuna, which comes with grilled pineapples, Swiss cheese, grilled onions, lettuce and teriyaki glaze–all on a mound of cooked beef of course. It’s just one of the specialty burgers offered on the menu of the Mission District eatery that recently went from soon to be to opened to operating.
The restaurant is one of more than a half dozen empty storefronts that have changed status since April when Mission Loc@l last looked behind the vacancies along the Valencia Street corridor.
Abe, who said he owns Urban Burger, but declined to give his full name said that the restaurant is doing well considering the current economic crisis. Decorated with graffiti art and quotes like “We Grill You Chill,” and “Nice Buns,” along the walls, the place opened in May and buzzes with a variety of customers. The owner said that the weekends are even busier than the weekdays.
“It’s been a good start, thinking about the way the economy is right now,” he said.
Other new openings include Xanath, an ice cream store, Mission Bikes and Casa Bonampak–a store that sells clothes, and folk art among other things with Latin American roots. In all, the number of available storefronts has dropped to seven from 13.
Abe from Urban Burger said he’s in the process of getting a beer and wine permit. His biggest complaint: the nearby vacancies that are eyesores.
Three vacant stories—the Charles Phan promise—are across the street. Mission Loc@l pursued Phan at Slanted Door for an update on his Mission property, but after promising e-mails from his wife and business partner, Phan never returned phone calls.
Since he left the Mission in 2002, he’s opened up places in SOMA , The Ferry building and another Out the Door in Pacific Heights. His business partner Lien Ho said that while the Phans still own the property on Valencia Street, it would be a while before they moved forward with any plans.
Just a few blocks north on Valencia is Fix, a skincare boutique. The shop at Duboce Street offers facials, waxing, and even eyelash extensions.
“People come in an ask if we do hair and nails. We don’t,” said part-owner Leslie Nichols. “Our treatments are more geared at getting results.”
Nichols, who lives near Dolores Park, said she always wanted to own a neighborhood shop and found the space, the former home of Soundworks, walking by one day.
Its location near Four Barrels and Zeitgeist has been beneficial, and she and her partner have brought their downtown clients to the Mission and they’re feeling optimistic.
“When you feel shitty financially you want to feel pretty,” she said. “Skincare should be simple but effective.”
Four of six places went from For Sale to Sale Pending,including the New College package.
See the map here for updates.Adelina Vasquez and her family of six will vacate their home of 17 years on August 16.
They may be joined by at least four other families that are facing evictions from their non rent-controlled apartments at 2789 Harrison St. after a dispute that began last year when a new landlord increased rents by as much as $800 a month.
“We understand that it is okay to raise the rent, but not this much,” said Vasquez, 48.
Adelina Vasquez sorts mail received by landlord.
The rent increases of 35 to 40 percent a month are legal because the building, constructed in 1985, is not restricted by rent control. Building owner Allen McCarthy increased the rent shortly after buying the eight-unit apartment building in June of last year for $1,190,000, according to public records.
Before purchasing the units on Harrison Street, McCarthy owned a multi-family home at 1489 Valencia St. that sold for $2.5 million in January, 2008. It was purchased for $685,000 in October, 2003, according to Trulia, a real-estate search service.
McCarthy’s lawyer Andrew Wiegel said in a telephone interview Wednesday morning that his client will negotiate with the families who live in units one, four and six, but not the other tenants because they do “the kind of things you don’t want in a family.”
Wiegel added, “that is dependent on everyone preceding in good faith. If we start seeing character attacks like protests, we might change our faith.”
Tenants later disputed Wiegel’s allegations and said they act like any other tenant.
Moreover, a demonstration scheduled for late Wednesday afternoon at 24th and Harrison went on as planned. At least one of the families McCarthy has agreed to negotiate with attended the protest of some 50 people.
“He may have a legal right to do that, but it’s immoral,” said District 9 Supervisor David Campos who attended the rally and promised to introduce a resolution next week if no agreement is reached between the tenants and McCarthy.
Dolores Street Community Services Executive Director Eric Quezada said that the tenants would have already been evicted had they not protested earlier.
Quezada, who advised the tenants last fall to refuse to pay the increases, said new landlords usually wait to bring units to market level rates until after old tenants have left on their own. He warned that evictions would would put the families in danger of being homeless or living in other substandard conditions. In the end, he said, taxpayers will pay the bill if the families go into shelters or hospitals.
Wiegel said earlier, “Mr. McCarthy is not a provider of social services.”
For the tenants, the prospect of eviction was daunting.
“I already lost everything,” Vasquez said about having to leave her apartment next month. ”I feel sad– my children try to cheer me up and say, ‘don’t worry mom we will find a better place.’”
Tenants say they began to receive letters in November that informed them of the rent increases citing that the rents, which range from $1,500 to $1,800, for the seven two-bedroom apartment and one three bedroom represented the market value for the apartments.
Christina Olague, who described herself as a tenant activist for seven years, said she had never seen such a high increase on a non-rent-control buildings.
“It is usually 10 percent, maybe 15 percent.” Olague said.
When Quezada advised them to refuse to pay the increases, McCarthy began sending tenants dozens of notices to pay or leave.
Tenants said they never had any problems with the previous landlords.
“He doesn’t even look at us,” Vasquez said referring to McCarthy.
Marla Flores, the restaurant owner of Usulutan, which is also in the building, said that she feels less certain about her future since the new owner came in.
Some of the tenants said they can’t pay the increases McCarthy is asking because they live on fixed incomes and others said the economic crisis has affected their jobs.
Miriam Gonzales, 30, and her family of four are not one of the three families McCarthy is negotiating with.
The Gonzales family has lived in a two-bedroom apartment at Harrison for almost two years. She cleans houses for a living and her husband installs wood floors.
Before the recession started they made $3,000 dollars every two weeks. Nowadays, she said, they are lucky if they can eke out $1800 every two weeks or $3,600 a month. They barely make ends meet, she said.
“There is not that much work and what he asks of us is too much,“ she said referring to the $800 rent increase to $ 2,300 a month from $1,500 a month.
The stress she gets from the situation has left her with little sleep and too much on her mind, she said.
“When I go to work I worry the whole time that when I come back he is going to take my things outside and I will find my children and our things on the street, “ Gonzales said referring to her children ages 12, and 14.
The constant letters she receives act as a reminder. Last week alone she said she found nine letters posted on her door and nine additional letters arrived by mail. The letters gave her three days to vacate the building, she said.
“We are just trying to reach some sort of agreement with him,” Gonzales said.
Tenants said they would like to stay but believe that is unlikely. Gonzales has begun looking for a place elsewhere but the only thing she has found in the Mission is a three bedroom apartment across the street for $2,500.
“We can’t pay that,” Gonzales said.
Mayra Sandoval (most right)
Mayra Sandoval, 46, and her family of four are one of the families McCarthy is negotiating with.
She currently lives with her children and their families in a two-bedroom apartment that rents for $1,700 a month. McCarthy proposed a $600 a month increase soon after he took over the building.
Sandoval has been unable to work since being diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago and she relies entirely on the $535 in CalWorks check that she receives for her two children.
“I am thinking where am going to get that money to pay?” she said. The rent is now paid by her sister-in-laws family that also lives at the apartment.
Sandoval said the eviction process has increased her stress and seven months ago, her doctor prescribed high blood pressure medicine.
Being close to San Francisco General Hospital has been important, Sandoval said because she receives her cancer treatment there. The hospital has offered to provide her taxi service if she leaves, she said.
Vasquez, who suffers from a back injury she got while working at a hotel, and her husband, who has epilepsy, are the only tenants who have agreed to leave.
She and her husband, who depend on disability, live with their four children and paying a big jump in rent would have proved too difficult, she said.
Earlier this summer, Vasquez and McCarthy reached an agreement on a $200 a month increase, but that jumped back to $600 after allegations that Vasquez’ son was drinking and littering in the downstairs garage.
“I feel tormented she said, I have everything here,” Vasquez said adding that only the Excelsior has comparable rents.
Posted by Mission Loc@l on 07/24/09From the It's-Worth-A-Shot Department, Mayor Gavin Newsom wants local artists to install their creations in vacant storefronts as a way to revitalize economically depressed neighborhoods.
The idea for Art In Storefronts came from two city departments - the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the Arts Commission. For a "small stipend," struggling artists will gain exposure to their work, and hopefully generate some foot traffic, (i.e.- sales) in neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by the economy.
And maybe, just maybe, someone will move in and lease the abandoned properties.
The program will launch in September, and the first windows to get an artistic makeover will be on Taylor Street in the Tenderloin, Third Street in the Bayview, central Market Street and lower 24th Street in the Mission District.
Posted by Spot. Us on 07/22/09
Mission Loc@l’s been watching a lot of lines along the 18th Street Corridor so we decided to offer readers an alternative—Mission Street—for Gay Pride Weekend. Print it out and take it with you. Designed by Dwane Maxwell.
Click to get a pdf to print out. Happy Gay Pride Weekend.missionstreetpdf
It’s hard to say when any one street in a city begins to regain its former luster or a new life. But if investment in a recession is any indicator, Mission Street is on the move.
In the last three years, at least nine new businesses, mostly restaurants serving everything from fresh pie with organic ingredients to Mexican mole, have appeared in the 10-block stretch of Mission Street from 16th to 26th. Six of those opened in the last four months including The Corner, a California/Italian, small plate café and Specchio, an Italian place with thin pizza and homemade pasta on the menu.
Construction workers are building out at least one more new restaurant, Gracias Madre, an organic and vegan taqueria that will open in late summer, and construction is underway at other storefronts. Investors are not only cooking, they’re building condos as well. One new project at Mission and 18th streets with 23 units is sold out and new owners are moving in this week. Another six units at 2235 Mission St between 18th and 19th streets. has two units left and one block south at 2301 Mission St. is under construction.
Colleen Meharry (Rigoberto Hernandez)
“It’s been in fits and starts, but it looks like it’s happening” said Colleen Meharry who has watched those fits and starts for decades. Meharry, the landlord of the 10,000 sq. ft. space occupied by Foreign Cinema since 1999, is also renovating a large space next door.
Many in the working class neighborhood of renters, known for its rich Latin American art and culture scene, resisted the e-fed boom of the late 1990s. This time around, the opposition has been quieter, but so have the developers.
Instead of the earlier frenzied, e-speed transformation in which new owners painted over historic murals, this is slow, almost organic growth bubbling up from recessionary sludge. Many of the new projects are owned by long-term Mission residents. Others are small efforts with a local, sustainable stamp and some do good while trying to eke out a profit.
Like The Corner, Weird Fish and Mission Pie, new ventures speak organic.
Take Ivan Lopez for example. With help from his parents, Lopez, who attended the Pratt Institute in New York, opened Artillery Apparel Gallery at 2751 four weeks ago and will have his official opening on July 2. The young designer offers original tee-shirts, art and, well, other hipsterish products.
But Lopez is Mission grown. Born in Colombia, his parents raised him working at the family’s Elite Sports one block north on Mission Street. Once the young Lopez returned home from Pratt, he took more classes at City College of San Francisco and “met a lot of talented designers I wanted to showcase.”
Artillery is far different than the discount places that line Mission Street, but Lopez is a new generation, not an outsider.
Further north and more than two decades ago, Amanda and Howard Ngo from Vietnam opened Duc Loi Supermarket at 2276 Mission St. between 19th and 18th They worked there for 10 years and then in 1996 moved to the corner spot at 2220 Mission St. In 2004, when they decided to renovate, their advisers encouraged them to build up.
In February—five years and 23 condominiums later– they reopened Duc Loi Supermarket on the ground floor. “My dream was only to open a better store,” said Amanda Ngo proudly showing a visitor around the wide, well-stocked aisles after she found someone else to take over at the register.
An outsider coming in might have had difficulty getting neighborhood approval, but the Ngos, who work at the store every day, are insiders, part of the Mission Street clan.
Amanda and Howard Ngo at their recently reopened Duc Loi Supermarket
“It’s not like places here change ownership, they just get a facelift,” said Timothy Holt, co-owner of nearby Weird Fish and The Corner. With tattoos running up his arm, Holt looks like one of the Mission denizens lined up waiting for breakfast at Boogaloos on Valencia Street.
In fact, he used to work there and then in November 2006 Holt and Peter Hood, the owner of St Francis Fountain on 24th Street leased space from a friend and opened Weird Fish at 2193 between 18th and 17th Streets. It was an instant success—a pescetarian surprise, said Holt. This year, in the midst of the downturn, Holt and Hood opened The Corner two doors down on the corner of 18th.
It’s been tougher going serving Italian/California fare, but Holt expects to survive and last week as an indication of owners who intend to stay, a workman sanded off the acid graffiti on the front window—a remnant left over from the last tenant.
Sanding down graffiti left from the previous tenant.
Like others who have opened recently in the Mission, Holt is all about sustainability and neighborhood. Vegetables come from backyard farms, beans from Sonoma, and wine from Sadao Nelson’s vineyard treasure hunts for, of course, bio-dynamically defined fruit.
Mission Pie at the corner of 25th and Mission streets is succeeding with a similar philosophy. It sources ingredients from its farm in San Mateo County and offers customers pies and freshly picked eggs. But even before the bakery, Karen Heisler, one of the owners, became familiar with the neighborhood by assisting with a class to teach Mission High School students about rural farming and sustainability. Now, Mission Pie hires students and graduates.
Like the atmosphere at The Corner, where neighbors drop in for a glass of wine, Mission Pie has become an integral part of its surroundings—a place to hang out and eat good food. Nearby by residents drop off bags of lemons when their trees go into overdrive.
Neighborhood support is something survivors of the dot.com bust know well. Foreign Cinema between 21st and 22nd on Mission Street opened in 1999 when, “it was hard to do anything wrong,” said John Clark, who now owns it with his wife Gayle Pirie. After the crash in 2002, the 10,000 sq. ft. space stayed open thanks to steady clientele from the Mission, Noe, Bernal Heights and Potrero Hill.
That block got another boost in 2004 when Gus Murad opened Medjool Restaurant and the Elements Hotel. And when some in City Hall began to raise questions about his rooftop bar’s lack of a permit, he turned to the neighborhood.
Every third Monday of the month, Murad now opens the rooftop for a non-profit fundraiser. Visitors—this month Mission Learning Center was the beneficiary–donate between $5 and $20 for free wine, beer and a generous serving of appetizers. And, oh, there’s a petition to sign: Save Medjool and the Rooftop bar.
Few, however, are anxious for anyone to close. The 2500 block of Mission between 21st and 22nd streets is a tight knit group that banded together in 2005 to become a business improvement district. Owners pay and extra tax to to keep the block graffiti free and the sidewalks clean.
It’s meant a cleaner, more welcoming block, said Meharry, but she’s aware that others on Mission Street are unlikely to agree to new taxes during a recession. Right now, all she and others want to see are more openings.
And that is happening. Two blocks north, Specchio, with a Venetian chef who spent much of the last decade in North Beach, opened on the same block where Bruno’s, (with DJ nights, not your grandfather’s Burno’s), Charanga, Cha Cha Cha, and Bissap Baobab remain.
Bissap Baobab, which started in 1997 with Little Baobab on 19th Street, and added the Mission site in 2001, recently opened the Bollyhood Café on 19th Street.
Even further north, closer to the 16th Street BART in blocks where vagrants, drug addicts and porn shop visitors walk side-by-side with immigrants and hipsters, new places have appeared including La Oaxaqueña at 2128 Mission St. and Café Prague at 2140.
“We thought this was a good place to capture the Latino market,” said Harry Persaud, the co-owner of La Oaxaqueña with chef Vicente Martinez. “But we’ve started to get more Americans than Latinos.”
In part, Persaud attributed the change to Yelp, but he and other owners said that many in the immigrant Latino population that used to fill the dozen or so taquerias on Mission are unemployed or struggling.
David Kuu, who owns Yucatasia a few doors south, said he opened three years ago after working at nearby Tony’s Grocery and watching Latino workmen buy groceries. He could feed them for less, he said, but nowadays, many of his clients don’t have jobs.
In this atmosphere, no one complains about competition that brings more foot traffic and a sense of energy.
Charanga
Outside Charanga on a recent afternoon, Gabriela Salas, the owner, was taking out the trash. Small and full of energy, she invited a reporter back into the spotless kitchen where she chopped up yucca and talked about the struggle.
“It’s picking up a little now, but it’s been really hard to keep the doors open,” she said. During the dot-com high, she served three seatings a night. Nowadays it’s one. While she sometimes worries about the street losing its “essence” she also needs more business so she’s delighted that The Corner and Weird Fish are nearby and she looks forward to her Pakistani neighbor’s plans to expand.
On a recent Saturday night, she said, Charanga filled with families, Latinos, Anglos and Italians. “It was beautiful,” she said. “It’s why I moved to the Mission.” That, and a sense of camaraderie with her neighbors keep her going. “Sometimes early in the morning we’ll play soccer in the street, but only for five minutes, then we have to get back to work.”
Related: A Map of Mission Street highlights. mission-mappdf062909
Posted by Spot. Us on 07/10/09Mission Comics and Art is a potential business here in the Mission. They also donated to the pitch. Upon researching their emerging business we found out why. In their search for space they note:
"...one thing I'm continuing to learn is that every commercial landlord seems to have their own process that they're comfortable with for negotiating a lease agreement. This particular landord has two adjoin properties that he'd prefer to lease together, if he can't do that, lease to two separate business at the same time."
This shows exactly why it is we need information about what vacancies we have in the Mission, how long they've been there, who owns them and what, if any, particularties about their empty storefronts.
Good luck to Mission Comics and Arts - and good luck to our pitch which is almost 2/3rds funded!
Posted by Spot. Us on 07/01/09
