Go back to News pageSAN FRANCISCO -- After years of criticism over a garish mural-covered wooden barrier along a prime block of Market Street, the Redevelopment Agency is ready to mend fences.
The wall north of St. Patrick's Church would come down under the agency plan, opening a vista toward Yerba Buena Gardens from Market Street and creating the potential for a $25 million row of shops.
The fence, built in the early 1970s, stretches along Market near the Marriott Hotel. It blocks views to the south and prevents people from walking directly between Market and Yerba Buena Gardens, an $87 million redevelopment project that opened in 1993.
A Redevelopment Agency agreement last summer to repaint the wildly colored fence failed to satisfy developers of a $55 million complex of cinemas, restaurants and shops along the Fourth Street side of Yerba Buena. Without assurance of access from Market Street, the Redevelopment Agency said, prospective tenants would not sign deals.
Yerba Buena co-developer Paula Collins of WDG Companies last week proposed the creation of "an allee, not an alley" through the empty lot between St. Patrick's and the Marriott. Both sides of the row would be lined with shops and restaurants.
"This way you really get drawn into the gardens," Collins said.
WDG Companies and the other developer, Millennium Partners, have assured the Redevelopment Agency that they would foot the bill for the project and for opening a Muni Metro/BART connection to the Powell Street station. In return, the agency has agreed to give them a four-month option on the 500-foot-long, 55-foot-wide passageway.
Yerba Buena Center Project Director Helen Sause said the Market Street fence will be removed by the end of next year.
A temporary 2,200-seat, 80-foot-high theater for the San Francisco Ballet will occupy the parking lot adjacent to the fence. The ballet is being displaced from the War Memorial Opera House by an earthquake-retrofit project.
Go back to News page