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By Emily Landes

When Ed Reiskin moved to Barracks Row in Washington D.C., one of the main attractions was the street itself. Filled with historic buildings and leafy trees, not to mention shopping, restaurants (including 15 outdoor cafes) and regular arts events, Reiskin says it was “the most delightful place to go stroll in the evening.”

But, just a few years earlier, Barracks Row was hardly a place to go walking at night. The street consisted of run-down and abandoned buildings and the empty ghost-town feeling lead to quality-of-life crimes in the area. Many attempts were made to revitalize the neighborhood, but none had any staying power until, in the late 1990s, the Barracks Row Business Alliance joined together with the city to turn Barracks Row into a “Main Street.” The multiyear, $8.5-million streetscaping project included urban forestry, new light fixtures, public transit analysis and other pedestrian-friendly improvements that Reiskin says, “activated the street.” Since 1999, according to the BRBA, 51 facades have been restored, 43 new businesses have opened, and 198 new jobs have been created.

As the new Director of the San Francisco Department of Public Works, Reiskin now has high hopes that San Francisco’s own Great Streets program can promote similar revitalization in several of the city’s neighborhood commercial corridors. Created in the fall of 2005, the Great Streets program is funded largely with federal dollars and authorizes $11 million to be spent on creating pedestrian-friendly streets to bring economic vitality and community spirit to nine San Francisco locales in need of a new, more attractive look.

The program touches corridors in nearly every district in the city, from Divisadero Street (between Haight and Geary) to Polk Street (between O’Farrell and Sacramento) to Leland Avenue (between Bayshore and Alpha). All of these neighborhoods have very different specific needs, but in general all projects will involve traffic-calming elements like bulb-outs and higher visibility crossings, more attractive street furniture like lighting and benches, and green features like plantings in medians and throughout the street. “It’s probably, all in all, a somewhat fixed and not all that exhaustive tool set that you can bring to any of these,” Reiskin explains. “But then each neighborhood is going to decide which tools they want to apply.”

Community Planning
In fact, no streetscaping can begin until after an extensive community planning process. In the beginning, DPW facilitators meet with the public to identify the characteristics of the street as it is now, and what people would like it to be. City staff brings data on troublesome corners (like Divisadero and Fell, where the intersection of two major thoroughfares can be problematic for pedestrians) and on what is possible given the financial constraints (each street has a budget between $1 million and $5 million, depending on the grant funding for that area). But in the end, the decisions are left up to the community.

This community process can be very time consuming and is a large reason why construction has not begun on eight out of the nine projects. “The scarcer the resource, the more intensive the planning process because there’s a lot more negotiation,” says Reiskin. “Generally, that’s where things will slow.” Further timing factors include work being done on the street by other city departments. For example, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will soon begin work that involves tearing up part of Cesar Chavez, so DPW cannot start its streetscape project there until the PUC project is finished.

So far, only one “Great Street” has been completed: San Bruno Avenue between Silver and Mansell. Reiskin feels that the work was not as transformative as it could have been because the project’s funding was stretched out over ten city blocks. Even though the work included 120 new street trees, enlarged tree wells, banner poles and “Portola” banners, Reiskin calls the results “modest.” While he prefers more intensive renovations done over a smaller area, in the end, he says, that’s a decision the community must make and support.

“The concept of a program like this really only works if the community embraces it and it doesn’t necessarily mean stepping up with dollars,” he advises. “On the small scale, if you are going to plant a tree in front of somebody’s house or business, they need to embrace the responsibility for that tree. On the large scale, if you’re going to make a major investment on a strip of road, you really want and need the community to embrace it, which is why we’ve used the community process. It’s not just the government coming to say, ‘Here’s how we’re going to fix up your street and you better like it.’ It’s ‘What do you want? What would make this better for residents, business and people who come to the street?’ And to develop that in such a way that people will want to assume ownership of it, even if the bulk of it is still going to be maintained by the city. That buy-in is very important, regardless of who is maintaining what.” 

The Planning Behind Plantings
One of the biggest questions concerns who will maintain the street trees that are an intricate part of the Great Streets projects. While DPW will maintain all trees and plantings in medians and traffic islands, property owners may be responsible for the street trees planted in front of their homes. Then again, they may not. When property owners on Polk Street voiced their concerns about street trees they felt could be maintenance and liability issues (as well as possibly blocking their storefronts should they become overgrown), DPW agreed to take over responsibility for all the trees planted as part of the Great Streets program there. “A lot of people feel, it’s been this way forever and now you are going to throw a tree in front of my store. That can’t be good,” Reiskin says. “It’s sometimes hard to get through that hurdle, but from our perspective trees are as an important part of the infrastructure as the sewer pipes or the roads.” He goes on to explain that trees not only beautify a street and create more of a neighborhood feel, they also help with storm-water management, air quality and add to a generally healthier city.

Plantings will vary depending on the neighborhood’s microclimate and soil type, as well as what will fit aesthetically with the area. San Bruno Avenue received Scarlet Maple, Flowering Cherry and Queen Palm street trees, while Van Ness will see raised planters with blooming shrubs accented by decorative paving and ornamental metal rails. After much consternation, Polk Street neighbors agreed to Queen Palms at the intersections, Southern Magnolias at the mid-blocks and Kwanzan Cherries in the alleys. DPW will also replace existing street trees that have not been maintained and are in decline.

Aside from the new plantings, other green aspects of the program (which are also being instituted throughout DPW) include increased recycled content in asphalt and concrete and better storm management strategies. Reiskin argues that creating more pedestrian- and transit-friendly boulevards is a green statement in and of itself. While he admits that there has to be a balance between the needs of keeping these corridors moving quickly and making them more attractive on a human scale, he says, “the purpose of this program is not to make vehicle traffic able to move better. It’s just not really a goal. We want to make it safe and we want to acknowledge whatever vehicle impacts there are, but it’s really, in some cases, to take back these areas for humans who over the years may have yielded to vehicles.” That being said, the extent of these traffic changes is still left up to neighborhoods. Community members near Divisadero were all for improving bus shelters and stops, but when DPW discussed having a rush-hour bus-only lane for the 24 line, that element was quickly shot down and eliminated from the plan.

If You Green It, They Will Come
Taking back the streets is the first step to the kind of economic revitalization Reiskin witnessed in Washington, D.C. The idea is that as the area becomes more inviting, it attracts not only people, but businesses and eventually jobs. “If it’s as transformational as the ideals of the program are, you would notice a pretty big change,” Reiskin says.

With new retail and more pedestrians come higher rents and property values, explains Allison Chapleau, senior associate at Marcus and Millichap. “Renters are willing to pay more to be in close proximity to desirable retailers,” she posits. “All neighborhood improvements, such as the creation of pedestrian-friendly streets, additional streetlights, new crosswalks or planting trees, increase a multifamily asset’s value.”

Another hope for the program is that work on these specific streets would lead to a spreading of these positive changes throughout the neighborhood. So, even if DPW only has enough funding to fix up Valencia between 15th and 19th streets right now, private property owners on 20th Street may be inspired to invest in similar improvements to their properties.

Just how long it will take to see this level of improvement, both in the immediate vicinity and in the surrounding areas, is difficult to predict. Reiskin believes an area like Valencia Street, parts of which already draw a good number of pedestrians to its stores and restaurants, is in a particularly good spot for these improvements. Other areas may take longer.

For Chapleau, the speed of increasing property values is directly tied to rent control. If there is an opportunity for a lot of turnover in an area, a neighborhood could experience a fairly quick increase in values after a street beautification project. If apartments remain occupied by long-term tenants, that process is slower. “Retailers follow residential renters. An area with a high concentration of affluent renters paying market rents is always a more desirable location for retailers,” she explains. “In most cases, apartment building values increase before retail property values. Retailers prefer to be located in high-rent districts. In high-rent districts, street beautification places upward pressure on rents, thus
increasing property values.”

But, she cautions, in neighborhoods where the majority of renters live in
rent-controlled units—trees or no trees—property values tend to increase at a much slower pace.

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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of SFAA or SF Apartment Magazine. Emily Landes is the managing editor of SF Apartment Magazine. Copyright © 2008 by SF Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.