As downtown San Francisco grapples with an oversupply of commercial space and anemic street activity, the city’s leaders have an opportunity to reimagine the area to create more housing, boost entrepreneurship, and nurture the arts. In a new brief, SPUR proposes establishing a quasi-public entity to plan and deliver capital projects, negotiate real estate deals, and provide public financing. We asked SPUR’s Sujata Srivastava how the envisioned authority could tackle downtown’s challenges.

In October, Shola Olatoye became the first CEO of the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation (DDC), a nonprofit organization formed in early 2025 to raise and deploy private investment to transform downtown San Francisco. The DDC is evaluating options to create a long-term entity with regulatory and financing capacity to play a greater role in downtown’s economic vitality. On the heels of our policy brief Reinventing Downtown, we spoke with Olatoye about the DDC’s vision, partnerships, and priorities for downtown.

In December, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted the city’s most ambitious zoning reform in decades. The Family Zoning Plan allows dense multifamily housing to be built in most neighborhoods in order to help address the city’s housing crisis. SPUR led advocacy efforts to ensure the plan met state mandates and addressed housing inequality, as well as facilitating public engagement throughout the process. Here’s what went into getting the plan passed — and what it will do for the city.