by Randy Shaw on January 12, 2026 (BeyondChron.org)
San Francisco’s Market Street between Fifth and Ninth Streets features historic buildings, dazzling new housing and hotels, and legendary theaters. It has the city’s only IKEA, two MUNI and BART stations, and many small businesses. So why is Mid-Market struggling? And does the city have a plan for a Mid-Market comeback in 2026?
Drug Activities Remain
After his election, I wrote a story “How Mayor Lurie Can Revive Mid-Market,” November 18, 2024. I argued that Mid-Market needed a targeted economic strategy. One that started with closing the area’s drug markets. I also backed a new tax credit that could replicate Mayor Lee’s 2011 payroll tax measure that led to Mid-Market’s boom.
Today, the giant 6th and Market post-midnight drug market remains. While daytime drug activities along Market Street have been reduced, the nighttime markets tarnish the neighborhood’s image and hold it back economically.
In my August 2025 story on Mid-Market (“Here’s What SF’s Mid-Market Needs Most”) I urged expansion of an anti-drug paraphernalia distribution law that was helping the Tenderloin. Supervisors Dorsey and Mahmood introduced the necessary legislation last week.
The City’s Strategy
Mayor Lurie has helped raise $60 million for the newly-created San Francisco Downtown Development Corp. Mid-Market will get a share of these funds.
The city is also helping secure private funding for small business subsidy programs operated through SF New Deal. Its Vacant to Vibrant program, which fills ground-floor retail spaces, covers Mid-Market. Whether these businesses stay on after the subsidies end is not guaranteed but the program is pushing a “Pop-Up to Permanent” strategy.
The challenge in applying rent subsidy programs to Mid-Market is that much of the new housing on the north side of Market has still not built out its ground floor retail. Many commercial spaces that have opened since COVID quickly failed.
Before COVID I went to Equator Coffee at 986 Market Street twice a week . It was always bustling, fueled by workers from the 16-story WeWorks building across the street. Equator closed during COVID. The renamed and repurposed 16 story office building still appears largely vacant.
That’s the story of Mid-Market’s post-COVID small retail decline in a nutshell.
Ending the Car Ban
Mayor Lurie also moved on my recommendation to end the Mid-Market car ban. He exempted rideshare vehicles, which is a good start.
Lurie has taken unfair hits on this decision from citywide groups ignoring the strong opposition to the ban from Mid-Market stakeholders. Business owners believe that the area’s economic viability depends on cars returning. The car ban that passed in 2015 was premised on full implementation of the Better Market Street Plan. That never happened. It also preceded COVID’s reversing the neighborhood’s progress.
At the time I strongly favored removing cars from Mid-Market. But that was a different world.
Mid-Market Theater District
Mid-Market currently lacks a clear identity. It’s been described as part of Union Square and downtown. Its western border gets confused with Upper Market.
D5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood’s plan for a Mid-Market Theater District solves this identity crisis. His plan harkens back to Mid-Market’s heyday as the Bay Area’s movie theater capital. In 2006 I organized an exhibition of historic Mid-Market and its theaters based on the photo collection of Jack Tillmany. The exhibit at 1035 Market gave the city a chance to see what a great neighborhood Mid-Market once was and could be again (See “Forgotten Mid-Market Opens,” January 26, 2006)
Currently, the Orpheum, Golden Gate, ACT-Strand, and Warfield lack a specific geographic identity. A Mid-Market Theater District would address this.
Key Challenge: The Loss of Retail and Offices
Shoppers and office workers don’t want to come to areas filled with sidewalk drug activities. When City Hall sanctioned drug use and sales in Mid-Market and UN Plaza, shoplifting at the Westfield Center and the new Whole Foods exploded. These two community assets then failed.
Big name retail is not coming back to Mid-Market. Nor is office space. Mid-Market never had the quality office space to compete with downtown. It only took off after the Mid-Market tax credit and rising downtown office prices motivated businesses to relocate there. Office workers then provided the customer base the area’s dining establishments and cultural venues needed.
But COVID vacated these office spaces. Working from home became even more desirable when coming to Mid-Market offices meant contending with drug users and dealers. As a result, Mid-Market’s office market collapsed.
A recent SF Chronicle story described plans to turn a former office building at 1049 Market into 400 housing pods. I know the building well. 400 people at that site is impossible. But that a buyer would convert office space into such a use reflects the fall of the Mid-Market office market.
Tourism
Prior to COVID, Mid-Market’s tourist market was sufficiently strong to convince Joy Ou to build the Hotel Timbri. The hotel opened with a ground-floor restaurant that won rave reviews. But it soon closed for lack of business. The Timbri and Proper Hotels both represent major investments in a San Francisco tourist industry that was first damaged by COVID and then by Donald Trump.
Thanks to Mayor Lurie’s convention push, tourists have come back. And the Super Bowl and World Cup could lead to a banner year for San Francisco hotels. But Mid-Market hotels still must combat late night drug activities on Market Street. That must stop.
A Bigger Move is Needed
I don’t see anything currently on the table launching a Mid-Market comeback this year. Most believe the area’s future hinges on plans for the former Westfield Center. Could it be home to a Time Out Market? A mixed housing/retail/office complex like Embarcadero Center? A concert venue?
We’ll find out the answer soon. Just announcing a bold future for the site could trigger the new investment and support for Mid-Market businesses that the area desperately needs.
Randy Shaw
<I>Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. </I>
