San Francisco's liberal politics unintentionally turns Landmark into a Porn Studio
I was shocked yesterday at the SocketSite/Redfin party to discover the extent of how much building is going on in San Francisco's downtown... it was a topic in my own backyard that I wasn't following Yesterday I noticed San Francisco Magazine had an informative spread about the downtown building boom (no online article yet). Brian Brady commented and asked how San Franciscans feel about the city's changes. Here's one consequence:
San Francisco liberal municipal government and its agencies frets over how to assimilate the working class into this most expensive city. They've instituted admirable programs, including a public condo lottery system and private developer programs for lower income residents, but the inherent conflict between the City's liberal politics and human capitalist intentions can make unusual stories.
Matt Lanning's SF Home Blog is a most unique real estate blog... blending city politics with real estate to produce original articles normally seen in newspapers. Here is a synopsis on an article about how a City landmark became home to a porn production house:
City organizations like the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition were formed during the late 1990's to arrest the gentrification of the generally Hispanic Mission District from the encroachment of dot-com companies and their employees. These public-facing Mission-based organizations pushed their district supervisors to pressure the developer of the 200,000 sqft historical Armory in the Mission into building increasing degrees of subsidized housing - from affordable, to low-income, to no-income housing. The developer tired of the game, found a buyer who would use the property commercially, signed a confidential agreement so the transaction would close without public knowledge. The buyer kink.com is turning the Armory into a porn studio. And yes, it's technically a dot-com.
Technorati Tags: san francisco, sf home blog, armory, kink.com, politics, Mission, liberal politics
On a much smaller scale we had a similar "adult" drama in Bristol a few years back. A chain adult store moved onto Route 6 and based on the media response you'd have thought the world was ending.
The wildly predicted spike in sexual violence never happened in Bristol. We never got the army of hookers either.
The store seems to be doing pretty well, and the little Mom and Pop lingere place went out of business about a year later.
The media was basically ignored I guess.
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I love it when Bill OReilly's definition of San Francisco Values reaches the quaint confines of Connecticut towns. Hey, I saw the Ice Storm.
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Commenting that said policies did bring a desired result (jobs to the area) would be in bad taste; I'll leave that sarcastic comment for others.
I think your post shows how well intentioned policies (conservatives love abatements) in real estate are constantly usurped by highest and best use of the property.
When a government puts roadblocks in front of a property owner, they usually find a "back-door" to make a profit.
Your comparison to Manhattan was probably right on, Pat. I just think that the guilt will plague the SF city officials for years until they understand that, in NYC, "the boroughs" have quite nice neighborhoods(Bklyn Hgts, Forest Hills, et al)
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Pat – sorry about that shock.... And again, we’ll have our Q1’07 Complete Inventory Index for San Francisco up on the site Monday (we're now tracking well over 100 new developments).
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Funny you should mention jobs Brian... here's a quote from one of the porn protesters:
Larry Del Carlo, Community Protestor: "We would rather see jobs in the community that give people a broad range of career choices in the future."
I'd have to say internet movie production does provide a broad range of careers...
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"I'd have to say internet movie production does provide a broad range of careers..."
Do podcasts and vidcasts count? If they do, then I guess I'll see the kink (dot)com folks at a convention someday.
Is the protesters demand that they keep the smut 5 blocks away?
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You know, I expect that the same brokerage in Manhattan that hires models from their affiliated modeling agency to show houses and have lunch with clients (and those that copy this model) can pioneer video listings... it's really a facet of the New Media, one only needs to look at the YouTube video production quality of today versus six months ago to understand that better produced media will win the eyeballs.
I have no idea why there are protests after the fact beyond the media attention they could receive... it's not like kink is going to build a drive-in theater in the 'hood... it's simply a done deal and if Kink is smart, they'll just be inconspicuous and not have parties that spill onto the sidewalks.
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