Mid-Market (also Central Market, and Market Street Theatre and Loft District) is a neighborhood, historic district and development area in San Francisco, California. The neighborhood is bounded by Market Street to the north, 5th Street to the east, Mission Street to the south, and Van Ness Avenue to the west. There are many theaters in the district, most of which began as vaudeville theaters, include the Warfield and Golden Gate.[2]
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Market Street Theatre and Loft District |
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| Location | roughly bounded by 982-1112 Market Street (NW side), 973-1105 Market Street (SW side). One Jones Street and 1-35 Taylor Street, San Francisco, California, U.S. |
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| Area | 13.1 acres (5.3 ha) |
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| Architect | James Rupert Miller, et. al. |
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| Architectural style | Chicago school |
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| NRHP reference No. | 86000729[1] |
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| CHISL No. | N1436 |
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| Added to NRHP | April 10, 1986[1] |
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| Delisted CHISL | April 10, 1986 |
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In 1906, Mid-Market was decimated by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and over the next century, Mid-Market would rebuild itself. In the 21st century, Mid-Market has served as a major economic area for San Francisco. Mid-Market has contained the headquarters for Twitter, Block, Reddit, Zendesk, Uber, and Dolby, as well as historic buildings, such as the Old San Francisco Mint, the James R. Browning United States Courthouse, and the San Francisco Federal Building.
Mid-Market is part of California's 11th congressional district, as of 2021.
The "Market Street Theatre and Loft District" was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 10, 1986, for the architecture, and its events and commerce history;[2] and is listed as a California Historical Landmark since 1986.[3] It has twenty contributing buildings and covers 13.1 acres (5.3 ha).
The Mid-Market redevelopment area is centered on Market Street starting at Fifth Street, ending at Van Ness Avenue, and including a number of buildings down to Mission Street.[4] It effectively creates a sub-neighborhood of the Tenderloin, SoMa, and Civic Center neighborhoods for the purpose of redeveloping the area.[5]
The historic district is roughly bounded by 982–1112 Market Street (NW side), 973–1105 Market Street (SW side). One Jones Street and 1–35 Taylor Street.[2]
Early history
Decimated by the 1906 earthquake and fire, the entire neighborhood was quickly rebuilt and for decades served as vibrant portion of the Market Street corridor.
Noted columnist Herb Caen referred to the neighborhood as 'le grand pissoir' because of the amount of public urination, defecation, and vagrancy due to a consolidation and expansion of homeless social services in the area, starting in the mid-1980s.[6]
Economic growth
Past initiatives such as sponsored street murals have had little effect in revitalizing the neighborhood and in 2011 the city government turned to tax incentives to encourage businesses to move to the area.[7][8] It has a history of issues with public drug usage and homelessness, which has impacted businesses.[9]
The neighborhood was affected by the controversial "Twitter Tax Break" spearheaded in 2011 by Mayor Ed Lee, which brought new companies and new construction to the neighborhood.[10][11][12] The largest and most noteworthy of businesses in modern history has been Twitter, which moved into the old San Francisco Mart building (now known as Market Square) at Ninth and Market streets in 2012.[13] The move by Twitter was initially met with a great deal of controversy,[14] while other businesses such as Zendesk quietly took advantage of the tax break and moved to the area.[15] A number of arts groups, such as the Black Rock Arts Foundation, are working to move to Mid-Market.[16] In October 2013, Square moved its headquarters to the mid-Market area, followed by Uber and Dolby.[17] Reddit moved its corporate headquarters to Mid-Market in October 2019, in an area leased to Uber and Square.[18]
Equally transformative, and often attributed to the new density of tech headquarters in Mid-Market, has been the concurrent increase of residential buildings, most notably high-rise apartments and condominium towers.
Economic decline
Like the rest of downtown San Francisco, Mid-Market was hit badly by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the subsequent shift to remote work. As of May 2024, the vacancy rate in the Mid-Market area had skyrocketed to 46%, according to CBRE research, which was significantly higher than the citywide vacancy rate of 36.7%.[19] Sellers of real estate in the Mid-Market area were offering discounts as much as 70% from peak prices.[19] A 16-story tower purchased for $62 million in 2016 went for only $6.5 million at a foreclosure auction in 2024.[19]
