by Randy Shaw on November 13, 2023 (BeyondChron.org)
The Tenderloin’s Little Saigon pre-Covid
SF Must Revive Tenderloin’s Key Business District
I counted eighteen vacant storefronts last week in the two block stretch of Larkin between Eddy and O’Farrell. The area known as Little Saigon.
Little Saigon has been the Tenderloin’s most thriving restaurant district. Today, customers are few and encampments are growing.
The vacant storefronts in Little Saigon are not like those in other neighborhoods. Most are boarded up. Nearly all need major repairs before re-occupancy.
New private investment is not going to happen on its own. San Francisco must jump start the process. The city has a choice: invest in Little Saigon revitalization efforts or watch an area only a 5 minute walk from City Hall further descend into despair and criminality.
Why Little Saigon Declined
On December 10, 2015 I wrote a story, “Little Saigon’s Bright Future.” Years prior to his election as mayor, Ed Lee focused on improving Little Saigon. Under Mayor Lee the city funded new streetlights to help evening business. New restaurants were opening. Nearby encampments were permanently cleared. A new condominium project was built with a destination dessert spot in one of the retail spaces.
COVID wrecked this progress in four ways.
First, thousands of nearby city, state and federal workers in the nearby office towers are still working from home. This has hurt the entire Civic Center/Mid-Market area and particularly the lunch business in Little Saigon. Turtle Tower’s owner told me that their business was only strong on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which coincides with the work pattern of those who once worked daily in federal, state and city office buildings.
Second, while the city funded ambassadors in Little Saigon it allowed the chief routes to reach the area—the 600 block of Eddy and Larkin between Golden Gate and Eddy—to be dominated by open air drug markets. Customers did not feel safe getting to Little Saigon.
Third, during COVID the city arranged with the COVA Hotel—which borders Little Saigon—to go from housing tourists to temporarily housing the unhoused. The COVA remains the only hotel still used for the homeless. It’s not a coincidence that the biggest Tenderloin encampments are near the COVA as those housed don’t stay inside all day; this city-funded shift in the COVA’s use has badly hurt Little Saigon.
The fourth reason for Little Saigon’s decline is that other nearby tourist hotels—-the Phoenix, Epik, and Red Coach—either closed for tourists or have trouble attracting tourists due to nearby open air drug markets and drug users. Tourists are a key customer base for Little Saigon but the city has failed to protect these hotels as it has done for tourist hotels on Seventh Street.
City Hall also lacks a strategy to revive the area. Here’s what should happen.
An Action Plan
San Francisco has provided funding in response to post-COVID economic challenges in Downtown, Union Square, Mid-Market, Powell Street and other neighborhoods. The city also implemented a safety plan to bring back closed tourist hotels on Seventh Street in SOMA. But City Hall has failed to stem the steep decline in the Tenderloin’s Little Saigon.
Many immigrant business owners aren’t skilled media or political players. Little Saigon restaurant owners are too busy trying to survive to have time to testify at City Hall about their problems.
But it’s not like we are talking about an out of the way commercial corridor that the mayor and supervisors never see. San Francisco’s elected officials know about Little Saigon’s dramatic decline. They now need to take the initiative to revitalize it.
Five tourist hotels border Little Saigon. They could be the future customer base for Little Saigon—but the SFPD fails to protect these hotels from drug activities. So tourists are not coming.
So Little Saigon’s revitalization starts with the SFPD consistently clearing dealers, users and encampments from the surrounding area. You are not going to see new investment until that happens.
The city should then extend its Vacant to Vibrant program to Little Saigon. The $710, 000 program uses pop-ups to activate vacant storefronts. It is a perfect strategy to get people to return to Little Saigon and to improve public perceptions of the area.
Arts spaces filling the vacant retail brings people to Little Saigon restaurants and tourists do nearby hotels. It is a huge win for the city at a price much less than is spent for ongoing police enforcement.
The combination of consistent public safety and retail space activation will help revive Little Saigon.
Will City Hall act?
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including 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. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
