San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee walked along a few blocks of the city’s Mid-Market neighborhood Thursday to mark the release this week of a report on strategies to improve the long-blighted portion of the famous thoroughfare.
Lee was joined along Market Street this afternoon by police Chief Greg Suhr, other city officials, and 10 new community safety ambassadors who will be roaming the street between Fifth and 12th streets starting Monday.
The ambassadors, hired to help people find their way around the neighborhood and report cleanliness or safety issues, are part of a move to enhance security in the area, an objective called for in the Central Market Economic Strategy the city released Wednesday.
The revitalization of Mid-Market was a priority of Lee’s predecessor, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who launched a public/private partnership to increase the number of businesses in the area and restore the neighborhood as the city’s downtown arts district.
Lee said, “We’re building on Gavin’s work … and we’ve got now an even larger foundation to build on.”
The mayor visited several businesses in the area, including Huckleberry Bicycles and Zendesk, and noted that the microblogging company Twitter will be moving into the neighborhood next year.
“We’re starting to identify some serious economic resources that can be put into place to help,” he said. “We’re on the verge of a real revitalization.”
The economic strategy report was formulated with the collaboration of several city departments, as well as private businesses and neighborhood representatives.
To read the report, visit www.centralmarketpartnership.org.
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
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