Yes SF. Shine On SF. It All Starts Here. Vacant to Vibrant. Downtown ENRG.
That’s not the transcript for one of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Instagram reels. It’s the eye-glazingly long list of post-pandemic efforts to enliven downtown neighborhoods, assist small businesses, burnish the city’s image, or some combination of the above.
Now, Lurie is taking his own swing with a plan, announced this month, that has a similarly focus-group-tested name: Heart of the City. Although his strategy, like some of the others, depends on the goodwill of civic-minded billionaires, the mayor aims to boost its impact by consolidating disparate efforts under one heart-shaped banner.
It’s little surprise that Lurie, a multimillionaire heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, has a talent for marshaling private capital. He has personal connections to the city’s old-money elite and honed the skill while running the anti-poverty nonprofit Tipping Point Community.
But the scale may astonish. Since taking office in January, the mayor has convinced rich donors to fork over close to $100 million to combat the fentanyl crisis, buy new fire trucks, powerwash streets, and transform the Embarcadero Plaza, among other projects. Five years ago, the city used federal Covid funds to plug holes in the budget; now it uses billionaires’ private capital — while outsourcing city functions to private entities.
Most recently, Lurie drummed up $40 million in private funding through the new Downtown Development Corporation (which exists to turn private money into public improvements) for Heart of the City. His announcement promised “tens of millions more.” That spigot of capital was enabled by a waiver obtained by the mayor’s office that allows public officials to solicit private donations for city projects or initiatives through the DDC.
Some of this money came from DDC board members, including billionaires like Gap’s Bob Fisher and Ripple’s Chris Larsen, who have previously made donations for small business grants, powerwashing efforts, a network of more than 1,500 security cameras, and a “vibrancy index” to measure Union Square’s recovery, among other projects.
Heart of the City encompasses preexisting efforts, including the mayor’s rezoning plan and the Vacant to Vibrant program, which pays rent for small businesses in vacant downtown commercial spaces. It also introduces a new small business fund and helps pay for downtown ambassador programs, street cleaning, and the creation of parks and entertainment zones.
All of these efforts are directed at the same goal: economic revitalization.
“We hadn’t yet tied all that work together,” said Ned Segal, the mayor’s chief of housing and economic development.
In other words, you can’t attract a university campus downtown if the streets aren’t clean, and you can’t lure an office tenant if there are no nearby restaurants where employees can kvetch over a salad.
In addition to Larsen and Fisher, the DDC board includes former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, union leader Olga Miranda, developer Chris Meany, and Tipping Point Community CEO Sam Cobbs. Former affordable housing executive Shola Olatoye will begin as CEO of the organization Oct. 1. Segal said the DDC ultimately decides what it wants to do with the money it puts up for Heart of the City. The mayor’s office and DDC board worked together to hammer out the priorities, but DDC is a private entity — it funds what it wants to fund.
Political consultant and City Hall insider Jeff Cretan, who served as Mayor London Breed’s communications director, said this is typical of initiatives with deep-pocketed funders. He would know — DDC board members including Larsen, Fisher, and Whitman stood up civic efforts during Breed’s tenure as well.
“They want to do something, but these are very successful people who have very strong opinions about how they want to do things,” Cretan said, noting that that’s not always a bad thing. “They want to put their money where their mouth is, and we should encourage that.”
Larsen, who donated some of Heart of the City’s initial $40 million funding and helped fund a separate powerwashing program this year, has drawn the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for his efforts to blanket San Francisco in security cameras and pay for high-tech police equipment like license plate readers and drones.
The EFF ripped Larsen for his contribution to police tech, saying the gift raised concerns “that an unaccountable and untransparent fundraising arm shmoozing with corporations and billionaires would fund unpopular surveillance measures without having to reveal much to the public.”
Privacy concerns about surveillance are less relevant when it comes to efforts to support independent businesses and keep streets clean, but broader trepidation about the transparency and sustainability of private capital remains.
“These are fair questions,” Larsen said. “We have to be constantly asking this.”
He added that there are checks and balances built into the system to prevent corruption and misappropriation of donated funds.
Meanwhile, despite the many millions of dollars Lurie has solicited for the city, the commercial vacancy rate downtown remains above 30%, there’s still poop on the streets (and buses), and overdose deaths are back on the rise.
But who needs traditional measures of success when it comes to recovery? An effort backed by Fisher is developing a “vibrancy index” to measure recovery progress in Union Square by surveying pedestrians. City boosters can only hope the project’s vibes-based data paints a sunnier picture than the standard economic indicators.
Even so, San Francisco can use all the funding it can get. Although the mayor in July managed to close an $800 million shortfall with his budget for fiscal 2025-27, there are still plenty of money pits to fill (the city’s public transit system being a timely example), and private dollars will be a big help.
Larsen said that given the mayor’s track record in public safety and cleanliness during his first eight months in office, he has no doubt that donors will give tens of millions more to Heart of the City.
“I’m very confident in that,” he said. “It’s overwhelmingly understood: This is what we have to do.”