Now that finding a Mid-Market messiah's officially a thing again, the Redevelopment Agency is reconvening the Mid-Market Project Area Committee.
The Central City Extra reports a bit on its history: the group, comprised of residents and neighboring businesses, was first convened in 1995, after which it took 10 years to hammer out a comprehensive plan to rehabilitate the run-down commercial drag. And then: nothing, officially.
Though the Mid-Market plan never got officially shelved or put out of its misery, district supe Chris Daly gets credit to this day for its unexplained disappearance. According to executive director of the Market Street Association, he just "didn't like the whole idea of gentrification," and without his support, other supes saw no reason to stick their necks out for such a transformative plan. (Daly did get credit elsewhere for making Trinity Place happen.)
Anyway, the Mid-Market plan made it as far as the Board of Supes' Land Use Committee, where it proceeded to languish in committee hell — just a few months ago, according to the Extra, supe Sophie Maxwell said she couldn't even remember what happened to it. So what of renewed efforts? The 10-year groundwork has already been laid, but a new plan should take at least a year, according to the project manager at the Redevelopment Agency.
And people actually seem cautiously optimistic that things might turn out differently this time, citing a changed "landscape," a different feeling — magic in the air? 'Course, it might also help the cause that Chris Daly, the project's invisible opponent, terms out soon — but that's no guarantee his successor's going to be a supporter either.
· Central City Extra, May 2010 (PDF) [Central City]
· Another Magnifying Glass on the Various Failures of Mid-Market [Curbed SF]
· Gavin Announces a Do-Over for Stalled Mid-Market Redevelopment [Curbed SF]
