News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
FILLMORE STREET CONTINUES to remake itself into a mecca of high-end fashion labels from around the world, despite the city’s professed intent to limit chain stores in neighborhood shopping districts. Partly that is because the rules limiting “formula retail” — defined as companies with 11 or more stores — do not include stores outside the…
WORK BEGINS in early March on an ambitious new plan to transform the forlorn public plaza at Fillmore and O’Farrell streets into a dynamic green space that honors the history and culture of the neighborhood. “It’s got a lot packed in,” said architect Jane Martin, whose Shift Design Studio designed the new plaza. “We want…
AS FILLMORE STREET continues to rapidly remake itself into a mecca for fashion labels from around the world, supplanting basic neighborhood services, legislation has been introduced at City Hall that would subject more businesses to the city’s limits on chain stores. Under the existing “formula retail” ordinance — enacted by the voters in 2008 to…
SIGNALING IT WILL be harder for chain stores to open on Fillmore Street in the future, the city’s Board of Appeals on May 15 revoked the building permit secured by German-based clothing company Oska for the space at 2130 Fillmore, where it had intended to open a new boutique. Now that Oska has been adjudged…
AT ITS REGULAR monthly meeting tonight, the Board of Appeals ruled that Oska, the German clothing line, is a chain store and must comply with the city’s formula retail ordinance before it can proceed with plans to open at 2130 Fillmore Street, formerly the home of Jet Mail. EARLIER: Oska stirs chain store fight on…
The six-story building at Webster and Sacramento Streets that is home of the dental school of the University of the Pacific — which is scheduled to move downtown next year to Fifth Street — may be converted into condominiums. Trumark Urban, a privately owned development company based in Danville, is exploring the possibility of creating…
By MARKOS KOUNALAKIS BUDAPEST, Hungary — Many of my Saturdays used to start out with a saunter down Fillmore Street for an early morning cup of coffee while the rest of my family was still in bed. Budapest is also a coffeehouse city, but more famed for the conversations and art that grew out of…
ON ANY GIVEN NIGHT, Fillmore Street south of Geary is buzzing with street life. Stylish patrons make their way to 1300 on Fillmore for cocktails and dinner, or line up outside State Bird Provisions hoping for a coveted seat at what Bon Appetit magazine anointed as the best new restaurant in the country. Concertgoers head…
CRIME WATCH | Chris Barnett The familiar sight of shattered glass in the gutter is hard evidence of a crime that plagues local residents, visitors and shoppers alike. Anyone with a car is a potential target. Smash-and-grab thieves don’t care if it’s a Mini Cooper or a Maserati. You’d never know it from walking the…
IT’S SUMMERTIME, and the living is not so easy for those in the neighborhood who take their dogs — or themselves — for a walk in the park. Both of the neighborhood’s four-block hilltop greens — Lafayette Park and Alta Plaza Park — are mostly brown this summer. Both are undergoing renovation. At Alta Plaza,…