“Downtown San Francisco finds itself at a pivotal moment. As an organization and a city, we can continue operating under a pre-pandemic status quo or we can embrace this opportunity to evolve our practices and places to better serve all who live, work, and play in SF’s urban and economic core. Forward thinking adaptation is the clear choice for us, and with the Public realm Action Plan, we have laid the groundwork for that people-centric change to become reality”
- Robbie Silver, Executive Director of the Downtown SF Partnership
SF Downtown Public Realm Action Plan
Downtown San Francisco is changing. Emerging challenges to the district’s economic vibrancy include competition from neighboring mixed-use office districts, disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, shifting work/life balance patterns, and changing retail dynamics. Amidst these challenges, the Downtown SF Partnership forged ahead with reimagining downtown’s built environment through a robust “people-centered” focus on walkable and activated streets and spaces.
The Downtown SF Partnership engaged SITELAB urban studio, Bela Urbanism, and Fehr and Peers in a 6-month process to prepare a public realm action plan for the district with the goals of; evaluating the district’s existing public realm conditions, incorporating opinions from district stakeholders and the public, identifying future opportunities, and proposing short, mid and long term changes to the district’s public realm.
Bela Urbanism led a targeted public life public space assessment and user intercept survey that together with a broad digital public survey and numerous conversations with key neighborhood stakeholders identified challenges and opportunities and established the principal goals of the plan. Principal John Bela served as a design advisor to the project team in crafting both strategic moves as well as short term actions and design interventions.
The new Public Realm Action Plan is a comprehensive roadmap that includes physical, programmatic, and organizational recommendations to reimagine the future of downtown San Francisco. The plan serves as a visioning framework to influence change in the downtown area and identify public realm improvements within San Francisco’s Financial District and Jackson Square Historic District.
The Plan outlines concepts, strategies, and pilot programs, leaning on urban design as a means of economic recovery, to reimagine downtown San Francisco as a pedestrian-centric, more vibrant and culturally rich area.
Ket concepts include strategies to reposition and activate ground floors, leverage city led active mobility investments in combination with Partnership led programming initiatives, utilizing privately-owned public open spaces, linking the network of pedestrian laneways to existing green spaces, expanding the urban forest and tree canopy cover, increasing accessibility, walkability and flexible seating, and investing in public art.
The Public Realm Action Plan winner of the 2023 Innovation by Design Awards.
Client: SF Downtown Partnership
Collaborators: SITELAB urban studio, Fehr & Peers
Year: 2021-22