The vacant building owned by Sophie Lau at 6th & Balboa with 5 storefronts that have been empty for well over a year.
One of the bigger issues we face in the Richmond District are empty storefronts. While the neighborhood is a great place to make a home, it’s also meant to be a bustling neighborhood for businesses along several commercial corridors like Geary Boulevard, Clement Street and Balboa Street.
All you have to do is walk down Clement Street, Geary or Balboa and it won’t be long before you’re standing in front of an empty business. A recent survey done by the Richmond Review found that nearly 13% – or one in seven – storefronts in the Richmond District were empty.
Rising rents and changes in the retail industry have made it challenging to keep every storefront occupied in the neighborhood. Many small businesses can’t afford the rents that landlords are asking, or the required upgrades to take over a space. And if larger businesses like chain stores want to move in, there is a lengthy conditional use process required by the city.
When a storefront is empty, it downgrades the character of a block, and can invite graffiti, vandalism, homeless and other blight issues.
The City Isn’t Paying Attention
Even the city isn’t sure how many storefronts are empty. In 2016, the Department of Building Inspection, who is responsible for monitoring which storefronts are vacant and for how long, claimed there were no commercial vacancies at all in the Richmond District.
The city has put laws in place in recent years to track and try to reduce vacant storefronts. Owners of buildings with commercial property are required to register a vacant property after it’s sat empty for more than 30 days, and then pay an annual fee of $711 if it remains vacant. Not doing so can result in a fine as high as $6,399.
But in reality, no one at the Department of Building Inspection is tracking vacant storefronts, and most landlords refuse to register for fear of scrutiny, or they don’t even know about the requirement. DBI admits that most vacant storefronts that are cited come from citizen complaints, not their own tallying according to the Richmond Review story.
And in what is one of the more puzzling moves made by the Planning Department, ground floor retail continues to be included in new housing developments (4334 Geary, 6044 Geary, 2224 Clement) despite the fact that we can’t even come close to filling all the retail spaces we already have.
[Related: Enter the Void: New Buildings, Vacant Storefronts | Mission Local]
An example of the vacant storefront violation notice, posted at 500 Balboa.
#FewerVacancies Effort to Count Vacant Storefronts
In a February 5 meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Committee, Supervisor Sandra Fewer criticized the Department of Building Inspection for their lack of oversight on vacant storefronts after they claimed there were no vacancies in the Richmond District in 2016.
“That’s ridiculous and not true,” she said. “Complaint-driven is not going to work. We have to be more proactive.”
To address the problem, Supervisor Fewer, with the help of the Richmond Blog, has launched a #FewerVacancies campaign, asking residents in the District to report empty storefronts to complete a vacant storefront census.
While still a citizen-reporting effort, Fewer’s office is committed to making sure ALL commercial vacancies are counted and reported to the Department of Building Inspection so that enforcement of existing laws can proceed.
To contribute to the census, all you need is the address of a vacant storefront (or several!) within the Richmond District (Arguello out to Ocean Beach, Fulton to Lake). Use this online form to report one or more storefronts that you found vacant this month. All addresses will then be turned over to the Department of Building Inspection for verification and enforcement.
Group Count Event on Saturday, April 7
Supervisor Fewer’s office has also organized a group count event for Saturday, April 7 at 2pm. Meet at the corner of Geary and 14th Avenue (in front of the now vacant Ticket Crushers business), and then head out from there to count vacant storefronts.
In the meantime, spread the word about #FewerVacancies and submit your findings to the online form!
Sarah B.
this is a great idea! i think i have also read several articles relating to the “chain” store restrictions and how loosening that could help our neighborhood rather than hurt it. If you look at Chestnut, Union Laurel Village etc they all have chains mixed in and, i think, that can only help the other businesses survive by increasing foot traffic.
That building in first photo has been vacant for over at least 4 years.
How about storefronts that aren’t exactly vacant, but haven’t been open for quite some time? The 33 Mart on Clement Street has been locked up for at least a couple of months, and a little further down, that furniture/colletible/?? store between Dish Delish and Bai Som Thai actually has a handwritten ‘permanently closed’ sign on it.
Don’t commercial real estate owners already have all the incentive they need to fill a space? Going a year or more without rent from a renter is a huge lost opportunity. I assume that lessors would experiment with reducing the prices until their places are rented.
Is there some reason this doesn’t work for commercial real estate? It seems to work well for residential rentals.
There are issues in a commercial lease besides rent. Term, tenant improvement allowance, but, critical to the Richmond perhaps, is viability. The District has gone from being Irish to Chinese with the addition of Russians and of late, a mix of young Asian and Anglo techies who work downtown or bus to Mountain View. This influences what kind of restaurants and stores will survive. American restaurants have been dropping like flies for over a decade. Heritage (ex Clement Street Bar & Grill) is one start at a comeback but long term, we’ll see. Have we reached the saturation point on exotic Asian restaurants?
It would be great, if possible, for Sandra to find a way to interview the vacancy owners and find out why they feel they can’t lease. It wouldn’t be easy, landlords tend to be private and there are language and cultural issues. However the information, properly analyzed, would be invaluable in solving the problem
Greg Smith CalBRE 01008175
And yet we are building MORE. That whole strip has empty fronts, from the old Javaholics down to Bay Fung, and across to that old Chinese building supply place. Same with the video/stun gun store that became a massage parlor. Don’t know for sure, but I think La Vie is gone, and it looks like Bai Som too now? Ernesto’s: gone. That place across from the old Yet Wah has been empty for years.
https://richmondsfblog.com/2017/01/03/new-4-story-mixed-use-building-to-replace-parking-lot-on-clement-near-23rd/
MICHAEL B. Commercial real estate works a bit differently because the leases are longer (5-10 years). Landlords would usually rather leave a place empty for a year or more than sign a 10 year lease at a lower rate. The math works out up to a point, but places like the one in the picture have been empty for at least 5 years. It’s a shame too because that little stretch used to be pretty nice but the closed businesses have kind of snowballed and now it’s a bit of a desert.
Heartbreaking to see this near my old “hood”. Seems to me that the answer might be simpler: lower the rents! Reward long-time responsible tenants in some tangible way. One vacancy can beget others, leading to the “Broken Window” syndrome and loss of neighborhood connection & cachet. Down with greedy landlords!
Fix the zoning restrictions.
Here are ones I submitted, in case others are submitting and don’t want redundancies:
388 16th Ave
5158 Geary
5160 Geary
6423/6425 Geary
207-209 23rd Ave
5126 Geary
5128 Geary
410 15th Ave
3448 Balboa
6207 Geary
1136 Clement
1115 Clement
1121/1125 Clement
439 Balboa
443 Balboa
445 Balboa
449 Balboa
5427 Geary
5351 Geary
3129 Clement
3029 Clement
375 32nd Avne
823 Clement
5549 Geary
5843 Geary
5851 Geary
5800 Geary
5400 Geary
5545 Geary
Also submitted:
32 Clement
124 Clement
121/125 Clement
115/117 Clement
141/143 Clement
308 Clement
324 Clement
517 Clement
900/902 Clement
And some more:
1909 Clement
1918-1922 Clement
1944/1946 Clement
2115 Clement
1408 Clement
2301 Clement
I didn’t really look at Geary between Arguello and Park Presidio, or any of Anza, or most of Balboa between Arguello and 30th, though there isn’t that much commercial on those streets. But may have missed some in those places. Also didn’t look at Fulton, Lake, or California between Arguello and 25th – out of these, only California has much or any commercial. And I didn’t do any Avenues really, but there’s hardly any commercial on the Avenues, themselves.
@Zebediah – thank you!
Increase residential density and businesses will become more viable long-term.
What is really going on here is that it is much easier to sell the buildings if there are no tenants locked up in leases. My boss has sold buildings in SF recently and the negotiations around current tenants is so messy. $711 a year no problem – he made millions.
I had friends with a shoe store… It just became a fitting room for people shopping on Amazon. And then there are the disability access lawsuits. Ugh, who wants to run retail brick & mortar these days?
What I don’t get are the storefronts that are empty for years and years, like that Kosher grocery store around 20th on Geary.
BTW, anyone know what’s happening with the proposed Safeway on 32nd? I’ve been looking for signs of activity but haven’t seen any.
@Bob – Because they’re a chain they have to go through a Conditional Use process to get into the space. So it will take some time.
Remove the Eric Mar era zoning requirements. Let more successful “chain” stores come in and the mom-pop stores will feed off them.
If the landlord of 439, 443, 445, and 449 Balboa was actively seeking new business renters wouldn’t she include the area code of the phone # posted in the storefronts?
In all the years those locations have been vacant, the signs have never included whatever the area code is.
There is a store front that was a restaurant on Clement. The restaurant owner also owned the building. When they were closing I asked why? A large part of the answer was that their business relied on hiring young college students who were personable, bright, and hard working. I was told that the owners were hearing from these young people that they could not afford to go to school here and pay their apartment rent on what they were making in this restaurant. The owner said they could not increase the cost of their food to provide better wages as they were at the market clearing price where people would stop coming if they did. So, they could not afford the help they needed to run the restaurant.
In the end, they sold the building and went out of the business.
So, the next time everyone smiles when they hear what their property is worth here in San Francisco, just remember that everyone is interlinked and those nice high rents and building prices that people get snowball in effects that roll down the hill into less services and empty store fronts.
One of the longest vacant businesses,and incidentally one of the largest, is the old Busvan property on Clement.
two restaurants that have been vacant for years
tricolor 4223 geary
le bergerie 4221 geary
there has to be a better way to fully view the full list of empty storefronts.
de blasio is introducing vacancy taxes in nyc soon..?
I just want to point out the absurdity of the fact that it took me about an hour to compile the several dozen storefronts listed above and submit them. Presumably we are paying the salaries & pensions of an office of people downtown whose entire job is to keep track of this stuff, and who apparently thought that there were *zero* empty storefronts in the Richmond, as well as a Supe and several aides, all of whom could have done the same thing in an hour, any time during the last decade. I am all for crowdsourcing, but if that’s the way we’re doing it, we should reconsider the utility of setting up offices of people who are apparently doing nothing. Almost every interaction I have with city agencies goes this way – I end up doing their job for them and playing the bad guy because I am actually trying to get something done for my neighborhood – being sent in circles into endless voicemail boxes. If you have dealt with the city you know what I’m talking about. Anyway. Props to Fewer for at least putting this together. How about fixing the horrible condition of parts of Geary next (which the brand new buses are presumably getting destroyed by driving down) – which has been in disrepair for a decade, getting DPW to actually enforce street cleaning regulations against the RV encampment in the Ocean Beach parking lot, and also fixing the unbelievably decrepit asphalt in the Ocean Beach parking lot as well, next? It is embarrassing to see our local leaders getting involved in national politics while our city falls apart. Enough with the ideological bulls*** – focus on nuts & bolts.
^that’s DPT, not DPW.
1701 Balboa (corner of Balboa and 17th Avenue) — it’s been vacant for at least 15 years.
Zebediah for Mayor!
The Alexandria Theatre…the grand dame of empty.
Greg Smith’s use of “exotic” when referring to Asian restaurants carries inherent falsehoods and colonial effects. Could it be that there is thriving Asian American community that supports Asian cuisine? Or simply a desire from all walks of life for Asian food? Greg may not have meant anything malicious by using the term “exotic” but it’s important that we avoid language with racial undertones. Otherwise we’re promoting an unintended conflict of “us” versus “them”.