San Francisco’s latest effort to revitalize its downtown corridor was formally launched Friday.
It's called the "Vacant to Vibrant Program" and it aims to pair innovative businesses with vacant storefronts.
Vandor Hill of Whack Donuts is now selling donuts downtown at Four Embarcadero Center. There was a soft launch this week that gave some indication of how this new temporary spot is going.
“I’ve had to ramp up compared to when I was opening up donuts at rainbow for example, I was dropping off a couple of donuts daily. Here now that I’m in one centralized location, I have to make almost eight to ten dozen per flavor because the first three days I sold out before 11,” he said.
Janice Fitzsimmons tried some on Friday and she’s working downtown and appreciates the effort to re-energize the area.
“It’s really helpful to have more interaction with people and see the businesses filling in for these vacancies that have been in the downtown Embarcadero,” she said.
On Friday, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the formal launch of the new vacant to vibrant program, 17 small business pop ups downtown in vacant storefronts.
Breed says it’s one part of a larger response to economic challenges related to the pandemic.
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“We want them to stay we hope the public and the people in the downtown area will support them,” she said.
Christie Smith has more in the video above.
