August 24th, 2020 | PRESS RELEASE
San Francisco — The nonprofit Livable City, will be transforming Folsom Street between 6th and 8th Streets into a temporary car-free open space for residents and businesses to use on a weekly basis from 11:00am – 4:00pm through the City’s Shared Spaces program starting August 30th through October 18th, 2020. Then on Sunday, September 6th until October 11th, Kultivate Lab’s joins Livable City on Folsom St with their popular program UNDISCOVERED.
“SoMa has a lot of families and residents who have been living in small houses without yards during Shelter-in-Place, a serious deficit in public parks, and most of our streets are high injury corridors,” notes Katy Birnbaum, Associate Director of Livable City. “That’s why we’ve been working for months with Kultivate Labs’s UNDISCOVERED to make this Shared Spaces site a reality and ensure it serves both residents and businesses safely during COVID-19.”
District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney, who has been vocal about his frustrations on the lack of Slow Streets in his district, exclaimed “I love this project! Our residents need open space more than ever. We have to create lifelines for our food, beverage, and nightlife venues to stay alive. And we have to support the Filipino community who has been grinding for years to regain an economic foothold in this neighborhood to continue that work.”
In the spirit of the original Sunday Streets, this weekly pop-up will provide open space for SoMa residents and a platform to reach vulnerable communities about essential resources while supporting local businesses. “Our community has been devastated by COVID-19,” said Desi Danganan, the Executive Director of Kultivate Labs. “Businesses are closing, and people are losing jobs. Shelter-in-Place has impacted the mental health of our community. At the same time SoMa has some of the densest housing, but the least amount of open space,” he continued. “We are teaming up with Livable City to try and resolve these issues in the safest manner possible.”
The weekly Sunday Streets SoMa Pop-Up will have expanded outdoor dining from neighborhood mainstays like Basil Thai offering dishes focused on brunch like ‘Kao Soi’ Northern Thai Style Curry Noodle With Braised Chicken. Some of SoMa’s nightlife venues and adult beverage shops that have been closed under the Public Health Order will be greeting customers again with outdoor dining made possible by food partnerships organized by UNDISCOVERED SF, like the partnership with Decant SF and SoMa restaurant, Mestiza Taqueria, who recently decided to close their brick & mortar and focus on catering.
Sanitized and supervised public dining tables are being provided by SoMa West CBD every week. UNDISCOVERED will also host curbside pickup retail in support of SOMA Pilipinas Cultural Heritage District economic development goals on select dates.
Some of the most proactive COVID-19 safety measures will be enacted. Social distancing and face-covering orders will be strictly enforced by trained staff, along with all relevant public health orders for outdoor recreation and business activities. Sanitation stations will be at every entrance, along with COVID-19 information and basic health screenings being provided by SFSU’s School of Nursing. A COVID-19 pop-up testing site partnership is also in the works with hopes to bring free testing to the community by late September.
For more information visit undiscoveredsf.com.
About Livable City
Livable City is a San Francisco-based 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to increasing affordable housing, improving transportation, land use, open space, and environmental policies, and supporting grassroots initiatives to make San Francisco a safer, healthier, and more accessible city. For more information, visit: livablecity.org.
About Kultivate Labs & UNDISCOVERED SF
UNDISCOVERED SF is a non-profit venture designed to jump-start economic activity and public awareness of SOMA Pilipinas Cultural Heritage District. UNDISCOVERED SF is part of a multi-prong strategy to build a thriving new commercial corridor in the SOMA Pilipinas cultural district. For more information, visit undiscoveredsf.com or kultivatelabs.org.
