Mid-Market will thrive once San Francisco solves its drug crisis

The sun shone brightly on Mid-Market on Saturday afternoon. The sidewalks were clean. Live music dotted each block. Hundreds of visitors ducked into storefronts to admire the work of local artists. 

The 11th annual More Than 2 Blocks of Art street festival drew crowds over the weekend to more than 26 sites along the Fifth to Ninth street corridor of Market Street with installations at the Proper Hotel, the Hibernia, and an abandoned pawn shop, among others. 

On the vacant floors of office space at the Ikea building, local cartoonist and teacher Cara Goldstein was thrilled to showcase her work on the white walls she said reminded her of the “MoMA but with meatballs.” 

But just two months prior, the ability to hold the family-friendly event was in serious doubt. 

“I’m thinking we should cancel this year’s [art walk] because Market Street is just so out of hand right now,” Tracy Everwine, executive director of the Mid-Market Community Benefit District, wrote in a July email to the city’s Department of Public Works. “We can’t invite people to walk between Ikea and Dolby with the current crime and safety issues and [SFMTA’s Better Market Street] construction impacts on top of that.” 

The message, obtained by The Standard through a public records request, was the latest in a series of emails sent from Everwine and Ikea’s San Francisco-based executives to city officials, expressing frustration about the street conditions.

“Stevenson street is again in bad shape,” Ikea’s operations manager Ricardo Tapia wrote to the nonprofit Urban Alchemy, San Francisco Police Department, and the Mid-Market Business Association in a May email, alongside pictures of tents and people strung out in the alley behind the store. “One of our [workers] drove in today and could not [enter the garage] because of the conditions, so she drove to another garage to park.” 

He signed off by saying: “As you can imagine, this is unacceptable and we can’t continue to allow for this to take place.” 

In a neighborhood already bruised by the departures of Big Tech tenants, the complaints from Ikea rang like a five-alarm fire, since the store’s opening last year was hailed as a rare bright spot in a sea of negative attention.

Later that month, on the same email thread, Everwine sent a note to DPW, as well as the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the Planning Commission, the Department of Public Health, SFPD, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and the Board of Supervisors. 

The stakes, Everwine wrote, were bigger than just typical street nuisance. She said Ingka, the parent company of Ikea (and an active board member of the community benefit district), had been talking to Amazon about reopening the shuttered Whole Foods on Eighth and Market streets.

But the recruitment efforts would be for naught, she implied, if Mid-Market didn’t get additional resources and attention from the city to keep the area safe. 

The conversation appeared to move offline shortly thereafter. Everwine and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment. 

Ingka, through a spokesperson, did not deny Everwine’s claim about Whole Foods but said the company is “actively working” with the city and its partners to improve the situation in and around its store.

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who lives in the Trinity Place complex atop Whole Foods, called the store’s closure last year “the most depressing day I ever had in city government.” 

Dorsey said that he, too, has been in contact with Amazon since the market’s closure. “I think they do want to eventually come back,” he said in an interview. “But they want to see some changes from a safety standpoint.” 

The supervisor said the top priority of his office is ending the public drug use on the streets below his home. 

“Two years ago, drug dealing was a brazen 24/7 phenomenon,” he said. “Now, it’s not as much during the day. But it’s absolutely still a problem at night.”

Dorsey, who is in recovery for substance abuse issues, believes the problem can be solved through a combination of supply-side interventions, increased policing, and mandated addiction treatment. At current staffing levels, the SFPD has too many competing priorities to respond to the “nonviolent, visible lawlessness” seen in nighttime drug markets, he said. 

Even though he doesn’t agree with the measure entirely, Dorsey said he supports Proposition 36 in the upcoming election since it creates a new felony category that would require those arrested for committing retail theft while in possession of drugs to go to treatment or jail. 

“Whether it’s the courts, your loved ones, or just hitting rock bottom in life in general, there is always an element of coercion at play for the addict that pushes them to seek out treatment,” Dorsey said. “We can destigmatize addiction without normalizing drug use.” 

Until then, the progress made by the DPW and partners from the community benefit district and nonprofit Urban Alchemy — which clean and patrol the neighborhood during the daytime — are usually undone the moment the sun goes down, when those workers clock out. In the morning, the power-washing and sweeping start all over again. 

Despite Everwine’s concerns during the summer, the Mid-Market art walk was salvaged in part with increased resources and staffing throughout the corridor and dozens of Urban Alchemy ambassadors who helped manage the event.

Kirkpatrick Tyler, chief of government and community relations at Urban Alchemy, said the nonprofit is contracted to support the neighborhood from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, with an additional smaller team that patrols the Strand Theatre from 3 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. 

Joining Urban Alchemy, there was an increased presence from SFPD, DPW, and the business district’s own ambassadors. Alongside the tunes from street performances, a steady stream of chirps from walkie-talkies could be heard as members of the coalition moved to clean trash or intervene in mental health crises or drug use that spilled into the festivities. 

At the Hotel Whitcomb, Oakland artist Beth Krebs turned the grand marble lobby into a stage for her video artwork. Jeannie Kim, who owns SAMS American Eatery and Fermentation Lab across the street, said she was happy to see the space bustling with visitors. 

Before it served as a homeless shelter during the pandemic and then was shuttered altogether, the hotel provided her restaurants a steady stream of business, on top of the guests attending shows at the Orpheum Theatre. “We need some big investment to come into Mid-Market after all the tech left,” she said. 

There is hope. A new wave of housing development has arrived in Mid-Market in recent years, and there is more on the way should economic conditions improve. Furthermore, a renovated but distressed office building up the street at 989 Market has a new owner that can charge discounted rents. 

As for Stevenson Street, the alley behind Ikea, the area is finally clear. Visitors driving to the area for the art walk or to see the “Wicked” matinee were able to go in and out freely.

But less than one block away, at Jessie Street, a grim scene was unfolding. The alley was full of people hunched over or sitting on the ground using drugs. Some claimed they were corralled there to keep them away from the festivities. 

Others have been frequenting the spot since Stevenson became a no-go zone over the summer after Ikea managers elevated their concerns to the city.

“We’re moving the problem around while we’re trying to solve it,” Dorsey said. “I’m personally living it everyday. I know how exasperating it can be.”