Gets axed

Yet another idea to revive San Francisco's downtown gets axed

By Madilynne Medina

The University of California said it is not planning to pursue San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s idea of creating a downtown San Francisco campus.

In a statement to SFGATE Friday, UC spokesperson Ryan King said though the UC system thanks Breed for her goal of revitalizing downtown San Francisco, there’s currently no money to build new campuses or facilities in the city at this time.

The UC system’s funding is currently under debate as part of the 2024-25 state budget negotiations between the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom. A recent budget proposal would reduce the UC budget by $125 million.

“We look forward to continuing to consult with Mayor Breed and other regional leaders on future educational and research opportunities for UC students and faculty in San Francisco and across the Bay Area,” King said in the statement.

Breed has been pitching the idea of a new downtown campus for some time now, including in the plan she launched last year to revitalize downtown San Francisco, which is intended to help the neighborhood recover to its prepandemic levels of activity. Breed said she hopes to have “conversations” with the UC system and historically Black colleges and universities. 

She said bringing universities to the area would help fill empty office spaces. San Francisco hit a 36.6% office vacancy rate earlier this year, which is a record high.

The mayor’s office formally asked the UC system to consider a downtown San Francisco campus last year, in a letter to UC Board of Regents Chair Richard Leib signed by Breed and City Attorney David Chiu on July 18, 2023. The two suggested that a new campus would help with university housing. 

“There are a number of properties that would be uniquely able to house a mixed-use UC campus, complete with student housing, classrooms, lab space, and student services,” Breed and Chiu said in the letter. “We welcome the opportunity to discuss some of the possibilities in greater detail.”

Though the UC system isn’t moving forward with any plans, officials are interested in “continuing the conversation in the future,” Jeff Cretan, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, told SFGATE.

Currently, the UC system operates UC Law San Francisco and UCSF in the city and in April broke ground for a new, 15-story UCSF hospital, expected to cost $4.3 billion.

This isn’t the first big idea Breed has presented to help with downtown’s recovery. 

Breed has also suggested tearing down the former San Francisco Centre mall as it struggles with low foot traffic, and building a soccer stadium. It’s unclear if plans have progressed any further. 

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce requested renderings of the soccer stadium at one point that were developed by Gensler, an SF-based architecture firm, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office told SFGATE. 

“But this is not the only location that this stadium could be in San Francisco, and we continue to engage with Bay FC as they make determinations for their future,” the mayor’s office said. “Right now, the mall remains open and continues to add tenants.”

And on Thursday, Breed visited three Vacant to Vibrant pop-up businesses, which are part of a program that helps place small businesses in the SoMa district. Breed urged the Board of Supervisors to keep all of its funding after a report released days before called for the program’s $15,000,000 budget to be slashed by $750,000. 

Some developments have slowly started to pan out in downtown, though, including a new Nintendo store slated for next year, several new tenants at the Emporium Centre San Francisco mall and a proposal for a revamped Powell Street corridor.