Public Realm Prize report, 'Mid-Market, a Center for Creative Action' Presented

Tuesday September 21 was the debut of the first annual San Francisco Beautiful Public Realm Prize report, “Mid-Market, a Center for Creative Action.” Eighty people crowded into Luggage Store Gallery at 1019 Market Street at 5:30 for a wine and cheese reception followed by the 6:15 presentation.
The report was prepared by Cindy Talley, a recent graduate with a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley.

In sponsoring the San Francisco Beautiful Public Realm Prize, San Francisco Beautiful’s objectives are:
- give a gift to the city that will stimulate positive change to the environment
- demonstrate SFB’s philosophy and principles in a tangible way
- provide the opportunity for an exemplary young professional to contribute to the city.

This year we selected Mid-Market Street as the site of our efforts because:
- last November, Prop D, encouraging billboards on this street, was erroneously being promoted as promoting positive change and economic development
- SFB led the charge to inform the public, who defeated Prop D at the polls
- SFB then took the responsibility to produce a positive alternative that is complementary to the many efforts the City is putting into Mid-Market and that can demonstrate quick, affordable changes to the environment.

Market Street will be repaved in about five years. The city is mounting major design studies to rethink the entire street, from the Ferry Building to Octavia Boulevard. San Francisco Beautiful, working with the Planning Department and other City agencies, selected the most troubled stretch, from Sixth to Van Ness, to posit a number of activation strategies. Whatever specific design solutions the City chooses to ultimately build, the City and SFB believe they must be in support of two principles:
- life on Market Street should reflect its physical prominence in the city
- pedestrians in the public realm should experience comfort, enjoyment and safety.

The goals we are attempting to optimize are:
- increase pedestrian activity on weekdays, nights and weekends by developing a creative center of theater, cinema, music, art and poetry
- fill the need for affordable creative space through simple, low-cost renovations to empty buildings
- establish an art themed trajectory for future changes to Mid-Market