The death (and rebirth) of Downtown with Shola Olatoye of the SF Downtown Development Corporation

Hi, I'm Sam. I'm a City Hall veteran, community whisperer and urban tech advisor. And I'm Warren, an urban planner, hyper-policy-long and government bureaucracy disruptor. And this is City People, we're planning policy, community, and culture collide. Hey Sam! Hi! Where are we? We are in the heart of downtown San Francisco. If you say so, and we are joined by. Hi! I'm Shola Olatoye. And you are at the downtown development corporation in San Francisco office. Amazing. And it's a little bit, it has like this vibe of a startup where there's a lot of optimism, a lot of hope, a lot of uncertainty, but everybody's driving towards something. We'll get to why that is and why it feels that way in a second. But Shola, we always ask our guests, do you find yourself to be a city person? And why? Great question. Great question. I will answer it by telling a story, which is. So we have, when I say my husband and I, we have lived from New York, we've lived in New York for most of our adult lives. In 2006, we moved to South Florida. He's a journalist. We wanted to follow the Florida man story. We had just had our first day of bungee. We had just had our first kid and I thought, let's try this. And so we moved to South Florida as we were looking for a place to live. Our realtor was like, "Okay, this is great community, it's great for kids." There are places to walk and the geats are wonderful and we were like, "Place has it all." No thing. So we realized that if you said the words, it's great for kids in that context. It meant that it was anti-urban, was far from people who looked like our family. And it was not where we wanted to be because we are city people. We are people who have a high tolerance for all of the things that make cities a great and fun place to be. So a rejection of not a city environment kind of reinstalled the fact that you are cities. Absolutely. I mean, we I grew up in Waterbreak, Connecticut, which is a suburban town. I like to joke that it peaked in World War I. Oh my god. And has been on a study. Far before I started. Yeah. I'm not that old. Taken a, you know, been in a study decline sense. But, you know, very kind of suburban, when it's growing up, is almost like rural suburban place. I am the daughter of a Nigerian immigrant and a girl from Brooklyn. And very much Brooklyn all the way, like deep Brooklyn roots. And growing up, we used to go to New York to visit family and cousins. And, you know, my life's work was young life was like, how do I get to this place? Like, yeah, I need to be here. And so after college, I graduated like May 26, 1996. Okay. And I knew that you moved to New York City like June 12th. Like the only thing you could know. And three seconds later, I was on the bus. With like a job that I found in the classifies, you don't know about that. I know what classifies. I might have been yellow books in San Francisco. That's good for the environment. Yeah. And like $1,000 and like moved to New York City and like began my like career as like a girl who, you know, like had really good education and training, but and wanted to figure out like how to make a difference. What brought you to San Francisco? Work. Yeah. So I have spent my career in really that place where the public and the private sector meet. I find that that's where the interesting spot. Yeah. Yeah. And I had worked for the mayor of New York City as his CEO of the New York City Housing Authority, which is an amazing and wonderful and historic institution that serves hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. And we did amazing work there to ensure that that is a housing asset for those people for generations to come. And after four years and I have the great hair to prove it. And I was like, okay, we need to do something different. Forneas, call it. Yes. Yes. And I did a lot of things sort of in the interim. I was teaching and I was I worked in in different sort of roles and consulting. And I got a call from then mayor Libby Shaft. And remember this familiar Oakland mayor Libby Shaft. And remember this would have been fall of 2019. So there was a lot going on. There was the first Trump administration that we were experiencing. Libby Shaft was unapologetically standing up for the residents of Oakland and the values of that city. And so I had been reading the National Press and I thought like this is a really interesting leader. Yeah, leader. Yeah. And it's very clear about her values around equity and how she was trying to make it a reality for the citizens of Oakland. And so I got a call from a headhunter if I would think about coming to Oakland and helping the mayor deliver on her promise to build and preserve 17,000 units of housing in Oakland. Sure. Super easy. I will say with complete self-awareness and honesty, like there was part of me that was like it's like the size of my job. I can do this. Right. Like, you know, it was sure no scale wise actually. Or barely a bureau. And so I was I was like really interested in I was really interested in the place. We had really good friends in the Bay. We've been coming to the Bay for 20 plus years. My brother was in San Francisco. He really was calling. Yeah. Yeah. All of these things sort of fell in place. My husband and his job sort of worked and you know, he said yes. Oh my goodness. So, you know, the challenge that the mayor issued to me was to help her unstick her housing plan and to bring her housing agency into the 21st century. Yeah. Which is literally the work that I had done for mayor build a closet. Yeah. And so, you know, it was a very clear mandate. I understood the challenges of working in the public factor and then the world shut down. I know it sounds weird to be so precise with the dates, but it truly was like before. It's your thing. It is sort of my thing. But it's also before time. Right. Like I started on February 20th, 2020. My family was still in New York City. I was living in my friends like 80 you. And we thought I was going to be like a super commuter. And I was going to like, you know, be like this girl living in Oakland, managing a team traveling back to your. Yeah. Or say it was insane. And then the world shut down on March 17th. Yeah. And I took the last flight out of San Francisco. I literally was running through SFO to get back to my family before the world shut down wild. And, you know, prior to that San Francisco actually then Mayor London breed, like she had declared an a state of emergency. You know, there were real preparations happening in San Francisco just over the bridge. You know, and having run a very large agency, I have a lot of experience in like emergency management. And I remember being in these conversations with my fellow city directors and like, I think we should do something. Like you see everybody running around. I'm getting information in front in from my friends who are like in the healthcare industry and like. This seems serious. This seems serious. Contact setting. So I was in the mayor's office as a director of interagency affairs. And my job was to keep track of what the other agencies were saying. Yeah. All of them were like, girl. Yeah. Like serious. Because we'd be doing something. You know, and we might cut this, but I'll share just briefly. I was in Thailand for New Year's. So that's when it all happened. Oh. So we flew back. And we're like, well, that's over there. And we're over here. Yeah. But we were over there. Now we're over here. Yeah, you're here. You probably brought it back. That was the other say your patient zero. I know. She zero. But transition is back. You know, it was a very challenging time because you had some city saying, let's get ahead of it. Yeah. Other city saying, well, let's see what happens. And I think where your head of show is that what March 20th. I want to say is when both Oakland and a number of other cities and really all about me. I said, all right, shut it down. Yeah. Go home. And there were a lot of questions from that. Yeah, there were a ton of questions. And I mean, we sort of take for granted now how easy it is for us to like jump on a zoom or jump on a team. None of that. This is not about infrastructure. None of that infrastructure existed. You know, there we were dealing with the global implications of like this health. care crisis that none of us had ever lived through. But as a city, we didn't have the infrastructure to serve the residents. We certainly didn't have the infrastructure to work together. So, let alone, let alone, so it was a real crash course in both the amazingness of humans, but also, like, necessity as the mother of invention. And we remember having, you know, one of my first staff meetings on Zoom, and like, people didn't know how to do this. So, we didn't collaborate on doing this. So, you know, one of the things I feel like I have, I really enjoy is working with teams and bringing teams together and helping to set vision and strategic priorities. And friend has said, like, you really put your whole body into it. Yeah. How do you do that on Zoom? There wasn't like a body of work that now we know about like how to have engaging virtual meetings. Not even exact. I don't know. Really cuts it for me. I mean, it's still really challenging. And so, you know, it was, it was a health crisis. It was a public safety crisis. It was a leadership and management crisis as well, particularly for city leaders who had had their own families to be concerned about. And then also our city family. One of the things I'm hearing you say, and I think it's fine because this is what I met you. I know what happens after this in the campus ahead slightly. You know, you've shared that folks had to transition from being very much in the office, in the city, in downtown with each other, to transitioning out of all of that onto our computer screens onto the door dashes and Amazon's and you know, parklets and slow streets and keeping away from each other. And I think it's interesting that ultimately you've now landed yourself at the San Francisco DDC that is responsible for, if I understand it quickly, kind of unwinding all of that and bringing people back here. So, if you could share with us one, how you've come to be here and also, what is it that you do? Look, where is this? Yeah. So, how did we, what did I end up here? Well, first let's, let's just note, like the past six years for the country, but certainly for the region and specifically for San Francisco have been challenging in so many ways. And the momentum that is now here in downtown San Francisco, you know, years of partners who were literally taking out trash and feeding their neighbors and throwing parties on the street and handing out the, so like, we don't start from a blank slate. Right. And you know, one of the amazing things that I've come to know about San Francisco is that, you know, there truly is, I didn't know this as a East Coaster, like this whole burning man thing. Like we're gonna like, what's we're gonna like just burning man it. Like people use it like a verb. And I was like, I don't understand. We're gonna burning man. We're gonna burning man it. But like that has been, you know, and it's had really important implications for what's happening downtown. But that's kind of been the approach. We're just gonna like roll apart sleeves and like burning man that's right for a city that is known for innovation and re re-innovation and crashing and burning and up and down. I take that really on its face that, oh yeah, if we can just reinvent ourselves over and over again. All right, do it again. Yeah. I think what this moment presents not only for the new administration, but also first San Francisco residents as an opportunity to intentionally design the downtown in the city of the future as opposed to us going with the next boom bus cycle, which is part of the history. We're reacting to the next. Can we take a B and B intentional about our values, about the problems we're trying to solve, about the types of uses that we know help drive economic activity downtown. And so the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation is the nonprofit private organization that really braids the amazing civic business philanthropic leadership of the city. Like we are the global innovation capital the world. Like it just is true. Just this. We are braiding that incredible asset of people with money and private capital and braiding those two things together and investing in evidence-based interventions that we know help drive economic activity. And there are models across the country where this has worked. I've been personally involved in some of that work and I'm happy to talk about that. And so that is the work admission of the downtown development corporation. It is building on the important burning man, that folks have been doing for these past years and really creating a sustainable and resilient downtown for everyone. It's incredible. I mean, Warren and I were talking about this that the death of downtowns isn't unique to a San Francisco pandemic moment. Right. We see these boom and busts in different cities all over the country. You've personally been involved in revitalizing some of those cities. It sounds like and I do want to talk about that. But I'm curious before we even get to what does it take to bring this thing back to life? As my question really is what causes a death of a downtown? Well, that is really interesting. And I would say we should take out Jane Jacobs. I knew you did everything in the city. Right. We are all like, I'm a student. I'm a student at my core. And I would say, you know, as you said, the challenge is that this country in particularly cities faced after enduring, after enduring and still post pandemic have been innumerable. And we know that certain communities, communities of color have borne the brunt of that disproportionately. And I would also say cities where some of our most vulnerable residents live because they have access to social safety. Have also borne the cities themselves have borne the impact of what has become the post COVID life. So, you know, I think there are a couple of things that we know impact the vibrancy of a place. And I mean downtown. It's down to the Pacific. Right. And I think downtown is a very, it's a very American concept. You know, if you travel to West Africa, I've not been to Asia, but Europe, etc. Like, you know, the concept of a downtown is something that unless you're like those are something like that. Right. Everywhere is down to what do you mean? What do you mean? 200 million people in like the city like else. Right. So, so like, you know, that's, so I think A, understanding that it is a uniquely American concept. And what how that has evolved over our time. Right. It has been like the economic center. It's where people drive in and you work. And I mean, this country supported the development of downtowns by, you know, creating highways, and all the things. And by creating suburbs and all the things that we know both destroyed neighborhoods and also helped to create this concept of a mirror of a never down down. Right. And so, you know, when you have a predominant use in a place like when that use is is doing well. And if by well, that means, you know, its meeting its returns and its shareholders are happy. And, you know, and it is vibrant. And there is a, there's an investment cycle and pipeline. It's that. Yeah. For that moment. For that moment. Yeah. It will, it will do well. Business offices will be filled. Parking garages will be filled with cars. You know, steak houses will have business people, you know, making reservations. It's heavily dependent on that economic activity. And when that changes, all of the ancillary activity also change. Yeah. Right. So, so that's downtowns and cities are ecosystems. It's literally like the heart. It is the heart. And in San Francisco, pre pandemic, close to 60% of the city's revenues came from downtown. Wow. That doesn't surprise me though. It was the same way. Right. Right. Right. I want you to think about a couple of numbers. 40% of the city's small businesses are in downtown San Francisco. Close to 40% of the cities. The residents jobs are here. And so when we think about a healthy and resilient San Francisco, you got to start with a place where you got to start with the heart. Yeah. You got to start with the economic activity is happening. And that, you know, when we, when I'm in conversations, why do we care about downtown San Francisco? What about this neighborhood? What about that neighborhood? And as someone who has rooted her work in urban places and in neighborhoods, like I really understand that question. And then I start to say, well, you want your library to be open. Seven years. And you want your senior center to be open and your streets to be swept. And all of those things, that revenue comes from what's happening. So if we can both increase and, and hopefully not only just ensure, but increase that revenue is truly, it means that the rest of the city's services also benefit. So, um, I, as you can hear, I am deeply passionate about places and cities in particular. And when the Lawyer Administration came into office, I was following the conversation around public private partnerships. And I had been approached by some folks. And initially I was like, is this like like booster? Yeah, I know. And I was like, that's great for you. That's not the role that I'm interested in. Like I actually want to build shit, right? And so there was some really, I think foundational work that was done to really develop a business plan. Amazing. Create a board. A board, which is truly amazing. My board chair, David Steepleman, is just an amazing leader and thought partner. And then when they came back and they really articulated the vision of what we were trying to do here. I was like, interesting. Now I'm interested. Now that I've built the infrastructure, I'm really interested. Well, that's amazing. I'm going to press you a little bit. What are some of the specific programs that you will help create, manage, fund the doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? So, let's, we've talked about the Y town. And we've talked about the DDC, but like why the DDC? Yes. Right? And what is, and it honestly, yeah. So when you look at cities across the country, from New York City to Cincinnati, to Detroit, to Miami, there are entities that have a public mission or a publicly aligned mission with the city goals of whatever the animating issues are for that place. And then there is a vehicle, an actual entity that goes about implementing what those goals and strategies might be. So in New York City, you have the New York City Economic Development Corporation. In Cincinnati, you have the Central City Development Corporation, which I helped create in 2002. Oh, wow. In Detroit, you have. This is not her first, Andy. This is not her first rodeo. So there are models of public private partnerships where there is, you know, a vehicle that has both the necessary rights and responsibilities to think about long-term venues in a place that engages the community and important stakeholders for sure, that has access to some kind of public financing that then you can leverage to actually do development deal. And so that doesn't exist in San Francisco. That doesn't exist. What does the OED in San Francisco, how does that, I'm just trying to understand the economic, it's the opposite of economic workforce development. So we work, the DDC works super closely with the situation and we are also the private nonprofit development corporation with the board and governance and bylaws that I have a boss. And one of frankly, the learning journeys for me as being, you know, new to doing business in San Francisco is San Francisco is a very complex city garden. Indeed. As we know, it has a, as to people who know it well, it has the longest city charter, if any city 544 pages. And so I believe we can do it. We can do hard to. And so we work really closely with the office of economic and workforce development that is responsible for deploying city resources to, to, to address and meet the mayor mayoral priorities in the board of supervisor priorities, everything from small business support. There's a big effort here around making it easier to open businesses in the city. Because guess what? We open up more businesses, there's more tax revenue. So that's it. More jobs. And more jobs. And more people. And more foot traffic. And so, so we work very closely with the office of economic and workforce development with the office of planning, with the office of public works because we are truly a public private part of that. Yeah. Right. So, so we are doing a couple of things in, in five kind of program areas. And I'll just say, and it's been off reported, right? The street conditions of San Francisco for the past several years were really challenging. Both real and perceived. Okay. Those of us who have, our city people were like, that's fine. I lived in summer. But if you're from, you know, if you're from Iowa and you're here for a conference that your employer said you had to go to, and you're walking down the street. I think as you've never seen before. You're seeing things that you have, have never even contemplated. Yeah. And that had a really detrimental effect on both the city's reputation and business. And so here are a couple of other sort of facts, right? Like the city conventions center business plummeted. Yeah. Those resources go directly into the city's general tax revenue, right? So we had to do a couple of things right off the bat. We had to ensure that, you know, again, we are not the public sector and our colleagues and SFPD like they have a tough job and that's their job. But as a public partnership, how can we create the conditions for investment? Well, we have to ensure that the streets are clean. If you're doing that, when you come up at a bar at 7 a.m. but someone says, Hey, how you doing? Yeah. Do you know where you're going to need the conditions for investment? It's like safe and clean. And it is bearing fruit. Climb is down in San Francisco by 40%. We did a really interesting pilot. And I think the other thing to sort of, it's kind of baked into our DNA is, you know, we're braiding that civic leadership with the private capital. And we are biased towards action, intense, intentional action, right? So we were like, well, let's see. What would happen if you put an ambassador at some of the busiest part stations in kind of key community members? And we sort of did a survey at the outset of that pilot. Yeah. And we did a survey at the end of that pilot. Well, guess what? 9-1-1 calls went down by close to 50%. Of course. Right, got it. Because you see someone who's in distress, you call 9-1-1. Right. You call 9-1-1. Yeah. Well, guess what? If there's someone there who's trained in the art of de-effigilation, who understands how to provide resources to people, all of a sudden, that's, that isn't the first resource you've got. Right. So we funded that work again around kind of creating an added layer of safety. And I jump in just for like, literally, show it. Because I've seen a number of these programs pop up. And even from a revenue dollar for dollar standpoint, if a police officer has to show up to address that issue, that is overwhelmingly more expensive on the taxpayer and the general fund, then it is to have, to your point, a trained ambassador who can de-escalate, who can address some of these issues. And suddenly, nothing at all about dollars and cents. But that is one of the critical components is that as both private and public money is flowing into all of these different organizations, using the most effective, efficient, friendly as face possible, is going to be the best choice. It's okay for it to also be about money. Because this is what we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are relentlessly focused on things that are going to grow the gross domestic product of San Francisco. That sounds kind of wonky, but like, if we are able to do that, San Francisco has a $230 for a billion gross GDP. Like that has, that's crazy. That's crazy. Right. That's country. But also, it's lower than when it was five or six years ago. Wow. So we need to increase that. Creating conditions for investment, like clean streets. So when we were, and I should say, we were founded in April of 2025. So we're like eight months old. Mm-hmm. Many of our, maybe, our babies. Our partners were doing really important work around street cleaning. They were doing it like once a month. Mm-hmm. That's not an idea. That's not an idea. So we were like, how about we do it five times a day? Five times a week. Yeah. And so now you come out on the streets at 7 a.m. You come out on the street at 6 p.m. The street is clean. Yeah. So again, creating conditions for investment. What's been the ROI on that? Well, convention center bookings are up 62%. Wow. Wow. So, convention centers are a lagging indicator. People are booking conventions for two years from now. Right. So they're making the bet that the positive things that they are seeing. Just done that same thing. Yeah. So, okay, five areas. Clean, safe, arts and culture. When you look, San Francisco is not only a innovation capital. We're, we're an arts and culture capital. This week is art week, right? Fog at Fort Mason. There are galleries and people from all around the globe who bring their art, who bring their artists here to be both, you know, introduced and, and for art to be, you know, acquired and all, all of the like. SS MoMA, down the street, amazing cultural institution, all of the, you know, other institutions that are in the downtown, they've also been impacted by this deep, deep activity as well, right? The foot traffic there. And so how do we create activities that not only bring additional foot traffic to the downtown? So San Francisco, as you may know, will be hosting this little game called the Super Bowl. Sports Bowl. You know, it goes sports. Sports. Yeah, sports. And there will be the world's press, the entire media stage will be on fourth street. And fourth street is an incredibly important transit border to the city. It also has about a 85% retail vacancy, right? Yeah. I lived on fourth in Harrison. Oh my goodness. I mean, do I know? Yeah. Boy, howdy. You know it well. And so, you know, we, and I'll talk about the fourth program area, which is actually how we get some new businesses in those spaces. But in the interim, how do we bring people to that street? How do we, when people are there and they're all going to be there, how do we make it an inviting place for them to be? So, now place that they want to come back. And they want a place that they want to come back to and a place where they can go and walk and then maybe go to the Applebee's or whatever if that's your face. I mean, as an Applebee, there is the convention center. Is it all of a garden? I don't know. One of those, one of those places that are there, which, you know, survives awful of conventions in business. How do we make that a place where people want to go and spend their dollars? Because again, those resources go back to the cities and offers, which then helps the overall city's economic health. Well, there is also a huge empty Bloomingdale building. As you know, Bloomingdale's left. I know, left the city, right? Very sad. We all have the Bloomingdale's bag. It is now wrapped with a 440 foot amazing mural done by the amazing artist, Jeffrey Gibson, who is the first indigenous artist to win the, the, the, the Ennis Benali. And he is just an amazing artist. And we sat down when I first started, literally, is my third day with the Institute for Contemporary Art. And they were like, Hey, we're moving into a nomadic model. And we're trying to figure out how we bring art to like communities across the city. Could we do something together? And we were like, Hey, they're all these people coming to this area. Could we do something in and around the street? Yes. Literally within 90 days. We identified a location. We identified a private partner. We worked with our city partners to get permitting done. That mural is going up right now. So it is, it is an example of how a private partnership can do things. Yeah. How the sector partners can't do and deliver capital. And so now there will be this amazing piece that, you know, the hundreds of thousands of people who are going to be visiting the city. And also people who live here can go and see and, and you should go check it out. I guess it's a tag us in the social media areas. So then our, our fourth area is real estate. Okay. Because we want to build stuff. Yeah. So we have a persistent office vacancy challenge, yes, hovering about around 33%. And when you dig into those numbers, yes, there are some of the larger kind of class A office spaces that are vacant. But a lot of the buildings are kind of the older stock. That some could be good candidates for office to residential conversion. Some need to come down. Yeah. Because they are past their, they're, I was just going to add, there was an amazing study by spur, which was a local policy group. And, you know, they, they went through a lot of different archetypes of the, of the buildings in the financial district across the, Cisco that could be these candidates. And it was phenomenal to see on one hand, just how challenging it is for a building that is meant for an office space to be anything other than an office. Right. Architectural alone. And on the other hand, to your point, show that there were some really good candidates who were like, if you see a building like this, that could be housing. And there's this age of a building that's really critical. And it's size. And yeah. And so please continue it. I love what the city has done is they've said, look, we will, we will make it as easy as possible for a developer who wants to do this work downtown. And the private work, it's still a bit of responding. So we actually are looking on a couple of deals where we might think about the butt for capital. But for us, this project might not happen. So we're, so we're looking at that. The second, the other sort of initiative within our real estate component is, as I mentioned, lots of persistently vacant retail. One, San Francisco has too much retail. So one, we got a string of footprint. And I'm going to say it and I said it here. We are a hundred, a hundred, a hundred, a hundred, a hundred people. Which I want us to repeat, this is really important. San Francisco regularly punches well above its guard. Right. Amazing. And for a city, because we are in a city that is less than a million people, but whose population before the pandemic would swell above a million people between nine to five, it is fascinating that they're not that many people here. Right. And so when you think about, you know, a mall that's a two million square foot retail space and I'm pointing to SF Center, right? You know, is effectively completely vacant as well as, you know, a lot of the smaller retail vacancies. Like, we're not going to just wish that back into, you know, productive use. So we have to really think holistically and intentionally about what is the market? What are the barriers? Why aren't businesses wanting to be in downtown? And so we've addressed some of the clean and safe issues, right? What are, what are the other barriers? So we've partnered with JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citizens Bank to provide below market capital to a cohort of mid to large size businesses. You asked a question about OED and how we work with them. OED has an amazing set of programs that work with small, first time, mom and pop businesses. Right. And that's SVA and that's small business and that's great. We need that. We are an important part of the spectrum. Yes, I was going to say spectrum. And so it sounds like, show what you're saying is that spectrum includes small first-timers but that the DDC is focused on the medium to large businesses. That is exactly right. Say it. So we have created the downtown business fund and it will be, it's first kind of, interracial, be a cohort of probably largely retail and food and beverage. Okay. And these are retailers that have probably have a location somewhere in San Francisco, in the end, or the Bay. They have five years of operated cash flow. These are businesses that have invested capital and have a balance sheet. So the skill set that, and I think this is critical. I remember because I spoke with the one who runs Vick and a vibrant. There's this common trap that, not trap, but I think that a lot of times we want to focus on, hey, you're a new business owner. You've never done this before. Let's get you into space. And it's like, that also needs to happen. Yeah. And that's where OEWD comes in. And however, and I think the sort you're going is that there are a lot of businesses in San Francisco where, and think of it this way, listeners, you're waiting outside for brunch and you're like, oh my gosh, if it is this popular all the time to try and get a table here, could you open another location? And even for those very popular businesses, my understanding is that there are so many barriers for them to open a second location. And it sounds like this is where the DDC kind of gets to jump in and say, well, I've got space, I've got help, I've got hands for it. Absolutely. Yeah. That's exactly right. And then I will just say I'm a vacant, vibrant for your listeners. You know, a really amazing initiative that was born out of the pandemic. I'm really led in partnership with OEWD in one of our strategic partners, SF New Deal. And they have really perfected how to get first time influencer into a space, into a space that a landlord was like, sure, you can go there. I have it. It's been big for three years. Great. Go and do it. Here's a three month lease. And it has been so successful, so much so that they opened downtown's first new bookstore on Union Square and Union Square on Pall Street. Oh my god. Go check it out. You're seeing the return of books. It's called the best bookstore. It opened up on the day after Thanksgiving. It's amazing. Go check it out. And they, every night days, what I think that a bookstore could exist on one. Right. Like you're done with work. You're looking for a quick gift. You can go to a bookstore. Right. These are just, these are the types of uses that healthy cities have. And we, you're coming out of a time where we lost a lot of that. It's also a certain gift, but bookstores also cause people to linger. Oh yeah. And they create sticky places. I'm reflecting a bit on your point of folks go to their, their conference during the day. I'm like, oh, I've got an hour to burn or something. What am I doing? Where do I go? Where do I go? I'll just pop into this bookstore grab. But you know, Mike has been loves this. Let me just try to form. I didn't know they had a third book. That's right. That's right. And I think, you know, it is exactly that. And I love that you use the term sticky because sticky means sticky, not only for whatever the primary use that people came in, but it has an ancillary impact for the other things around it, right? Whether it's frankly just being on the street, part of a lingering, lingering, a lingering part of a healthy, vibrant place or even our perception of safety is, are there other people there? Mm-hmm. Strict can be perfectly safe. But if it's making, I'm not walking down the street, right? And then it becomes, well, that street's not safe. Right? Even though there may not have been any incidents of actual crime. And so stickiness for our retail sector is super important and we're going to have to carry that. We're going to actually have to build it. Yeah. Doesn't mean we're going to be in that business. forever, but on this end, we're gonna have to get started. So that's what we're doing in our real estate vertical. The fifth and final is open spaces. Think of the last time you went to New York City or to Chicago or even, I mean, I was a Nashville resident. So you go to the High Line, you go to Millennium Park. - Yeah. - There is a great urban space that brings, that you know it gets. - That you know of. - Yeah. - And you go there and you spend some money and you take pictures and you tag it on social media. - Yeah, that it's a whole thing. - The San Francisco has amazing places like that Golden Gate Bridge, all of these amazing things. We don't have that in the downtown. And so we will be at the end of this year. We are going to be breaking ground on a newly, newly, a new in Barca Dura Park. So in Barca Dura Park is the park right across the street from the ferry building. It is where, it is. - It's a site of where the pickleball is currently happening. It is the site of the fountain. - Yeah. - It is the site of fountain. - We have to put a quote in that. It's a fountain. - Yeah, it's a fountain. - Yeah, I can't talk about fountain. (laughing) - We, but like, looks, the one thing that is constant about cities is that they change. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And so that park is going to have a new life as both either a destination or a gateway. Because San Francisco is also a regional, we are part of a region, right? And let's remember the tremendous impact that we have around the cities that are around us in the day. So that park will break around later this year. There are 3000 residents that live around in Barca Dura Park. - Yeah. - That park was a really great idea that our city partners had, but it was about a third of the way funded. We've come through, we've raised a lot of capital to help get that park done and funded. And it will, it will break around at the end of this year. We will also redesign, we're gonna, redesign the cable car turnaround on Paul Street. - Oh, goodness. - It could use a little. - Well, I'd love this point though, because my old office was right up the street from there on Union Square. - Okay. - I'd pass by all the church that are lined up. - Yeah, I'd often think, you know, this could be better. - This could be just, you know, that because. - I can't even know what's happening there because it's like, is this a thing? - This is a thing. - Yeah, it's a thing. - What's happening? Like, why is everyone standing right? And it's funny because I'm glad you mentioned the gateway, right, that a lot of people forget, like, people, there are a lot of tourists in San Francisco. And for folks who love numbers on our podcast, San Francisco's tax revenue is buoyed in many cases by what's called the TOT transient occupancy tax. That is, all the money from hotels and from convention centers. - Convention centers. - Yes. - And so, you know, for amazing residents of San Francisco who say, "Oh, what are all these tourists doing here? They are paying for city services just later on, yeah. - Absolutely. I'm so happy you talked about tourism and the importance of that as an industry. I mean, we just concluded last week with the city just concluded last week, the JPMorgan Health Conference. That is an 8,000 resident, 8,000 JPMorgan employees that are here. And, you know, as someone who has spent a lot of time in cities, I was like, wow, this is what downtown feels like when it is truly sort of populated. - Yeah. - There was a line at Blue bottle and I was like, oh, after you go around. - Yeah, yeah. - But like, that is an indicator that people are here and people are spending money and all of a sudden there were restaurants that were opening. And so, I will just say your point about that tax, that conference, Jamie Diamond the Chairman of Chase had decided to do that conference someplace else. He broke that contract. Sorry, sorry for that city. And decided to do it in San Francisco. - Wow. - Okay. And so again, because he wanted to be here, because he wanted his employees to be here. And it is that kind of activity. Every single one of our 35,000 hotel rooms were booked. - Wow. - Yeah. - We had people who were like, do you have like an Airbnb? Do you have like a mattress? And so, one, we need to build some more hotels. - Yeah. - Which is really an interesting idea. - Yeah. - Yeah. And because, you know, and again, going back to like, why downtown because of the revenue impact implications really rest of the city. So, a really important thing, a really important industry that again, makes up the ecosystem that is San Francisco. So those are our five areas. Clean, safe, arts and culture, real estate, and public space and open space. - You know, so you've mentioned a couple of times now. The authorities that this entity needs to have, its relationship to government, to private, dollars, and that ultimately is not always, and forever going to be this philanthropic one. And for our very, very technical listeners out there who are familiar with the history of California, and specifically with redevelopment authorities. I can't help but wonder if, not just the SFDDC, but a lot of the things that have popped up like it in California are nipping around the issue of cities not having redevelopment authorities anymore. And if you're comfortable opining on that. - Yeah, I think redevelopment went away in 2012, and it is not surprising that San Francisco saw its affordable housing crisis also increase around the same time. It was the tool that cities use to build a housing. - Were we building enough of it? No, were they building it at deep enough stuff city? - No, but they were building it. And so I think you are absolutely right that this comes out of a real urgency that municipal leaders and private sector leaders are like, we are not building enough for our population that's here, let alone, the growth that we hope in our state will continue to have. And so, I think we gotta be honest about the importance of government and the limitations and we have to embrace the tools that are out there. These are not new crazy radical tools. If the New York City Economic Development Corporation has been around for decades and has been responsible for huge investment and economic development in neighborhoods across that city. Center City Development has single handly built new residential, has created a residential community in what had largely been a single use district. Detroit is like they are using their entity to drive economic development in and they're now more, you know, sort of physically focused city. And so, you know, we should, San Francisco shouldn't learn from places from around the country and make it uniquely San Francisco. A number of different business districts or I would say merchants associations are starting to say, maybe we need a bid, maybe we need a p-bid. And I can't help but wonder, I read this book Little Boss is Everywhere, it's got the history of NLMs, it's fascinating. And that for listeners of the book, you should read the book, it's really. - I'm writing this down on my book list. - But I'm waiting for someone to write a book called Little Governments Everywhere because it feels like-- - It would look no further than Los Angeles. - Yeah, but that instead of having, you know, whether it's the San Francisco Bay Area with over 100 cities, the LA Basin with over 100 cities, San Diego's 20 or something, it seems like part of what we're all nipping at, I mentioned this before, is that the scale of the organization, whether it's a government bureau, whether it's a county, right, like we're a special district, all the way down to individual neighbors, right? We're trying to write size, which scale of group and what type of money fits with what type of authority to get the results we're looking for. And it is interesting to see that, you know, in California for, again, our folks who really wanna dive into this policy, the language around the creation of business and prevent districts is pretty broad. It mainly focuses on clean and safe, with a lot of like, you know, and whatever else the city lets you do, maybe. - And whatever we can raise, you know. - And so it is interesting to see, you know, 'cause the SFDDC is situated amongst several, you know, just contextualizing, like several business improvement districts, a new one, right, like the-- - Eastcott? - Eastcott, right, like, and so it's interesting to see that more and more popping up to try and address some of these issues, and that yet there's this other layer that is sort of situated beside below and above and around, all of these different groups. And I'm not sure what the question is, but just that I'm reflecting on this entity that we are really trying to take advantage of to address what some might argue, and I say this respectfully, of all my government partners out there, a failure of some government services that people think should be part of the government. - Yeah, not that I'm-- - But I also think that we're figuring out over the course of this experiment, right, like I'm having these different entities, what the role of government is. - And I think I'm gonna, I'm agreeing and amending, which is that as the world has changed, as our needs have changed, as people have changed, change of cities have changed, government. Also. change and talk about a lagging indicator, right? But I think about investor programs, right? It is awesome that business improvement districts have investor programs and there is nothing stopping cities from having ambassadors that provide the exact same services that block by block and and district works and everybody else provides and I'm wondering what it takes to if we should transition that or not? So one, I think this is a fascinating conversation and actually like I think you need to zoom in out and I mean, if you've read Ezra Klein's book like this is all about like the increasingly complex web of, you know, let's call it accountability and transparency and that was measures and process that we have put rightfully into government because for fear of the power that government has had and conversely it has made it incredibly hard to get anything done. And I'm like, don't be mad when the government you didn't want to get stuff done, didn't get it done. Didn't get it done, right? So again, that is rooted in people's very real lived experiences of why does West Oakland have like the highest asthma rate, you know, in the Bay because of all the jobs. So it's rooted in real experience. And we now have a government that, you know, it takes five years to build a housing project. And so, 1.7 million dollars will be the bathroom. And so to your question about ambassadors, could SFPD, you know, bring that in house and just do that internally at huge tremendous cost? And then, you know, and then you have that as an issue. So, you know, I do think we're in and there are people who are far smarter and learn this issue than I, but I just, I'm just using we're in this era, particularly doing this federal administration, where cities are realizing we're all we got right now. The number of times. Yeah, but I really, really, really, really, really, like this is, this is us. It's it. And, and so, you know, pay business leaders, pay civic leaders like no one's coming to save us. And so, if we want to get stuff done, we got to fix how our government is governed, IE charter for form. We got to figure out how we get 20,000 more people living downtown, which is there only 10,000 people we need at least 30,000 people to support the kinds of businesses, et cetera, that we want to have here. We got to figure out how to continue the important, forward progress around companies, or, you know, signing new leases and wanting to be here. But, you know, I think we're in this real kind of inflection moment for particularly big cities. But I would say, you know, cities in general of like, what's our role for caring for our residents? How do we work with, you know, the civic and business community in furtherance of our goals of, you know, everyone deserves like a safe and clean and, you know, habitable home. And government's role in that has become, shouldn't be primary. And it's become challenging. I will tell you though, or I agree with all that. And it takes a humble city to acknowledge when the city as a government body and its respective departments is not the, are not the agencies to deliver the needed services. And truly, kudos to Sarah and Cisco for saying, hey, she's what we're good at. Yeah. Sheers where we need help. And where we're excited to support someone else taking on this responsibility. So maybe you just said, I know we're like so over time. But like this, this concept of public private partnerships, like, oh, it's like a totally new, it's kind of been around since like millennia. Like when I just haven't talked about it. Yeah, yeah. That's right. When I started as the CEO of the New York City Housing Authority, I again, I'm a huge geek. So I there's like, there's this archive at a local community college in New York that has like all of the history. And I like was like so excited. I had to wear like gloves because the paper is so old. It was fascinating. But I saw all of these very early contracts and MOUs with all of these private companies. Now, I'm sure there were not great things happening as well. But like that is how 186,000 units got built. Yeah. Right. It was a public private partnership. Right. The government said, here's a bunch of federal money. We have all these people. Terrible conditions in New York City. We were starting to, you know, at that point, people were coming back from the war. People were not employed. It was a jobs program. Like, it was a public private partnership. So my sort of oftentimes we'll say like our current understanding of public private partnership may look like my board. Amazing business and civic leaders who were incredibly financially, a lot of our cities have been built through public private partnerships. And I think what instead of maybe decrying the idea that government can't do at all, it's like, let's recognize that public private partnerships are sort of baked into a healthy ecosystem. And what are the expectations and the ways of behaving and ultimately the outcomes of what they're doing that we expect from now? Yeah. I think that's a more, in my view, a more helpful conversation because we don't do any of this without the private sector. Yeah. The low income housing tax credit is like, it is like the most successful housing development program in the country. And it is done through a partnership with financial institutions. So like, let's just like have a little bit of intellectual honesty about love, love, love. And you know, it's funny. One of the episodes we're going to have at some point, you know, Nate Hansen, it related. I know of him. I know him. So good for my mind. And she is like a whiz when it comes to light tech. Like that's the low income housing tax credit. And this is, I just want to have a whole episode of like, how does this do? You should absolutely do that because I wonder why dad that he should absolutely do that. So key. And yet it is the main vehicle for delivering low income, right? Right. You and it's here. And okay, this is like two. Right. So like, light tech was created just as the federal government was like, we're not going to fund federal housing anymore. So fun. Yeah. Thank you. But like, we're not going to fund public housing anymore. And so light tech was born. Yeah. Right. It was born as a public private partnership. How can we get financial institutions to, you know, to invest their equity in communities of distress that was the term of the time. And thus, light tech was born section 8 also, you know, like, right. That is it. Yeah. That's an ultra firm. It is a voucher for a private landlord to pay their mortgage. That is what that is. Right. So again, and by the way, the largest section 8 outside of New York is in the middle of the country. So like, let's keep that. Yeah. That's a whole other discussion. So this has been truly a master class in how to rebuild, build community culture, infrastructure, finance, like, it's, it's you've shared so many lessons. And so I want to use just our final minutes together, just kind of helping us zoom out as our listeners are not always in serencers. Go not always in the bay. And New York across the country and maybe across the world, across your fingers. What are some of these lessons learned? What does it take? We're to get it right. Yeah. Well, when I want to be self aware enough to say, I'm a hundred and five days in, and into this role and into the job. And a big part of my leadership style and journey is a lot of listening. So I'm still listening and and and talking to community members and and business leaders who have very strong points of view about what should we have against the inferences go. Some hurt. You know, and and so I just I think that's really important. I remember a mentor of my mind thing, like, you got to understand the sauce before we try and like change it. Right. And so like, and I'm going to take that time to do that. Yeah. And I think there are some some sort of application. So I think that there are some lessons from my work in other parts of the country that are certainly applicable here. One, you know, cities are ecosystem and you have to both govern and invest and manage it. They are not one thing. Right. And so, you know, as a private nonprofit, like I, we exist in that ecosystem. We also exist to do things that the public sector can't do. Right. And we have to unabashedly do that. Right. And move quickly with intention and accountability. But do the thing. Yeah. owning the space that you're in. That's right. That's right. I think the third thing is data and context matters. So when you walked around the office, you saw their whiteboards in every office because we are constantly saying, well, okay, so what? What does that matter? Like, and so what? So you want to do that project, but so what happened? Yeah. Yeah. And we are, we are very, we have raised $60 million in private funds. We are, you know, we have a big goal ahead of us of another $40 or $50 million. But we're not a perpetual philanthropic institution. Right. We envision ourselves as, you know, a long-term entity that will have access to some kind of public financing that then we leverage in the private market. And with the, if we're, when we are successful with our Office to residential conversions or our, you know, other development activities that we're looking at, you know, some portion of that revenue will help support our staff and make sure that we have the appropriate, you know, legal and regulatory and all of the things that we need. Well, it gets reinvested in the projects of downtown. And when you look at the examples from around the country, because people will say, well, why can't the government do that? Well, the government is a fundamental and the player in delivering public services to its residents. And that is what she needs to be focused on. And we also know that the next generation of San Francisco's deserve and can't wait for us to, to just wait for the next to go. Right. Or to see how this whole AI thing shakes out. Right. Like we actually need to design the future for everyone. When frankly, if I hear you correctly, I agree, is like, let's not rely on those. Let's actually stabilize, you know, right. Sure, this has been again, phenomenal. I'm just so happy to call you a friend and a colleague. And I'm just like, tell me everything. So I'm sure we'll have to have you back on again to learn more, you know, maybe in another 105 day. On my one year anniversary, have me do that. Yeah, bring a big bouquet of flowers. Oh my god, one steer and celebrate. Well, thank you. And one of, we didn't talk about this, but you know, one of the amazing things that attracted me to this opportunity was the ability to build a team. And I have a fantastic team. As we are a mean in my team, we are soon to be six people. And getting to create a culture of work is really meaningful. And I think if you're going to be doing something for 40, 50 hours a week, you should do it with people who you care about and who you can learn from. With a sense of purpose and pride. And I'm super excited to be creating a new resident. Absolutely. That's beautiful. So I study people. Yeah, well, thank you for being a customer. Thank you, Shola. Thank you for having me. So incredible.