Founders, Silicon Valley investors, and executives are returning to San Francisco after fleeing during the pandemic almost four years ago.

Technology founders even boasted about their success in securing funding outside the Bay Area and pushed for remote work among their employees. 

But despite the city suffering high levels of crime and homelessness, virtually rendering parts of downtown a no-go area, slowly but surely those involved in the tech industry are making a return to the City by the Bay.

Notable tech figures, like Elon Musk who has long criticized San Francisco’s political culture, has been back in the city since October 2022 when he purchased Twitter, now X together with its headquarters. 

Entrepreneurs and investors are returning with the city now at the forefront of the latest revolution in emerging tech, as AI slowly becomes more mainstream, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Notable tech figures, such as Elon Musk , who has long criticized San Francisco’s political culture, has been back in the city since October 2022 when he purchased Twitter, now X together with its headquarters.

The headquarters of X occupies a pride of place position in San Francisco’s downtown area

After a pandemic-induced exodus from San Francisco by founders, Silicon Valley figures, and tech execs, there is a notable return to the city, driven by new tech. Pictured, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco

Companies like OpenAI, which run ChatGPT, are leasing new buildings in the city while other Bay Area tech companies are reinforcing return-to-office mandates, with Robinhood Markets and Chime now implementing stricter policies for staff.  

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has his main home in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood. 

Tech institutions like Y Combinator are also expanding their presence in San Francisco, while some co-founders, like those of fintech startup Brex, have returned after initially moving to other cities during the pandemic.

In 2020, venture capitalist Keith Rabois encouraged startup founders to leave San Francisco altogether for Miami, citing the latter’s safety, lower taxes, and tech-friendly mayor.

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has his main home in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood

Companies like OpenAI which run ChatGPT are leasing new buildings in the city

The city’s longstanding tech reputation, proximity to renowned universities for engineering talent and a recent AI boom are all factors drawing people back

Rabois, now at Khosla Ventures, but who has had significant success with Airbnb and DoorDash, described San Francisco as ‘miserable on every dimension’ in a tweet.

But now that strategy has changed and it appears the tide is turning with several of the startups he supported now relocating or establishing offices back in San Francisco in order to improve their  ability to attract engineering talent. 

Rabois, an early executive at PayPal recognized in Silicon Valley for both his outspoken opinions and successful investments, relocated to Miami a year after joining Founders Fund. 

In Miami, he purchased a $29 million waterfront property and established a new office for the firm. 

This move coincided with a period of low-interest rates, fostering a surge in startup funding and prompting various venture firms to expand their presence nationwide.

Miami’s mayor, Francis X. Suarez, even declared the city as the world’s crypto capital.

But last year, venture investment in Miami saw a massive 70 percent plunge with just $2 billion invested last year.

Keith Rabois, now at Khosla Ventures, but who has had significant success with Airbnb and DoorDash, had previously described San Francisco as ‘miserable on every dimension’ 

Howie Liu, CEO of enterprise startup Airtable, has increased his time in San Francisco to meet with sales customers after spending a significant part of the pandemic in Los Angeles

Henrique Dubugras, co-founders of the fintech startup Brex, returned to San Francisco 

One AI startup, Delphi, secured funding from Rabois in Miami and has moved the HQ to San Francisco.

Traba, a contracting startup also initially backed by Rabois three years ago, opted to open an office in New York, where a majority of its employees now operate. 

Similarly, OpenStore, an e-commerce venture co-founded by Rabois in 2021, established a new engineering hub in the Bay Area last year, although Rabois notes the  majority of the startup’s workforce remains based in Miami.

Nevertheless, Silicon Valley leaders are beginning to engage in local politics once again and looking out for the safety of families and businesses moving back to the area.

Despite a 12 percent decline in investment for Bay Area startups to $63.4 billion last year, San Francisco has demonstrated resilience compared to smaller tech hubs like Austin (27 percent decrease) and Los Angeles (42 percent decrease).

Plenty of others are also returning. Mo Koyfman, the founder of venture firm Shine Capital, believes San Francisco has staying power having had its tech businesses built over the last several decades with the pandemic being a mere blip in terms of time. 

Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, chose to reside in Las Vegas during the pandemic, where he continues to live

Peter Thiel, a billionaire investor and founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and the Founders Fund, has made Los Angeles his home

Erik Torenberg, an investor in startups Scale AI and Figma, recently moved from Miami to San Francisco, where he is working on a new media company

Last year, Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, left, co-founders of the fintech startup Brex, returned to San Francisco after coming under investor pressure

Prestigious universities such as Stanford are a key reason as any why top-tier venture firms must maintain a presence in the Bay Area, Koyfman believes.

Shine opened an office in San Francisco this January despite its HQ being in New York City.

Last year, Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, co-founders of the fintech startup Brex, returned to San Francisco under investor pressure after relocating to Los Angeles, New York City, and then Miami during the pandemic. 

Despite the company’s valuation soaring to $12 billion, Brex laid off 20 percent of its workforce earlier this year.

Howie Liu, CEO of enterprise startup Airtable, has increased his time in San Francisco to meet with sales customers after spending a significant part of the pandemic in Los Angeles. 

Erik Torenberg, an investor in startups Scale AI and Figma, recently moved from Miami to San Francisco, where he is working on a new media company.

Elon Musk temporarily moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin from northern California during the pandemic but he has been spending time in the city overseeing X and xAI, the artificial intelligence startup incorporated last year.

Max Gazor, a general partner at venture firm CRV and board member at Airtable, emphasized that the intellectual talent in San Francisco remains unparalleled, particularly in the field of AI, where companies have innovated at lightning speed.

In recent weeks, Bay Area tech companies have been enforcing return-to-office mandates with stricter measures. 

Trading app Robinhood Markets announced in January that managers would monitor employees’ office attendance based on badge swipes after an earlier policy failed. 

Fintech company Chime also implemented return-to-work policies, requiring local employees to come in two days a week.

But not all tech leaders who left San Francisco in recent years have returned. 

Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, chose to reside in Las Vegas during the pandemic, where he continues to live. 

Peter Thiel, a billionaire investor and founder of Founders Fund, has made Los Angeles his home.

San Francisco owns one of the worst crime rates in the nation, and is ranked as safer than just 1 percent of US neighborhoods, according to crime tracker Neighborhood Scout 

San Francisco is reeling from soaring crime, an emptying downtown, and residents moving away to safer, cheaper areas 

Despite CEO’s and investors showing they’re open to return, it is a different story when it comes to retail.

One recent snap, taken in the heart of the city’s famed shopping district earlier this month shows tourists wandering down a gutted Powell Street.

Instead of being graced with an array of shops, cafés, bars, and restaurants, the party is seen encountering countless shuttered storefronts.

More shots from photographer Erica Sandberg show more of the same, and how the thoroughfare that runs adjacent to the city’s Downtown, all the way from Market to Fisherman’s Wharf, has become a shell of its former self.

The sights, while startling, should come as no great surprise to anyone keeping up with the now-years-long saga of the crime-ridden, homeless-overrun city, which recently had two nets installed around its seminal bridge to prevent suicides.

One snap, taken in the heart of the city’s famed shopping district , shows a group of tourists wandering down a gutted Powell St – a way once bustling with businesses.

Instead of being graced with an array of shops, cafés, bars, and restaurants, the party is seen encountering countless shuttered storefronts

‘This pic infuriates me,’ wrote Sandberg, a self-employed San Francisco correspondent, in an impassioned post to X that laid bare the city’s current state

‘Tourists, who do a little thing called SPEND MONEY, walking down a gutted Powell St.’, she continued.  

‘[It] should be buzzing with shops, cafes, bars, restaurants, theaters, venues.’

Sandberg, in turn, categorized the fruits of her effort as both ‘depressing [and] embarrassing’ – not to mention a blow to the city’s still-struggling shopping scene.

A homeless camp is pictured in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district in December 2023

More shots from independent commentator Erica Sandberg show more of the same, and how the thoroughfare that runs adjacent to the city’s Downtown has become a shell of its former self

The sights, while startling, should come as no great surprise to anyone keeping up with the now-years-long saga of the crime-ridden, homeless-overrun city, which recently had two nets installed on both sides of its seminal bridge to stop suicides.

A short walk through the area will reveal how there are more closed storefronts than open ones, as businesses continue to flee due to high rents and diminished foot traffic

As mentioned, the 1.4 mile thoroughfare connects Market Street (seen here in this map of store closures) – once one of the most photographed spots Downtown – to Union Square, North Beach, Nob Hill, and Russian Hill before ending at the bay

That said, the district is merely one of many left a husk by the city’s continued homeless and crime crises, which took a turn during the pandemic and have since persisted.

The 1.4 mile thoroughfare connects Market Street – once one of the most photographed spots Downtown – to Union Square, North Beach, Nob Hill, and Russian Hill before ending at the bay, making it a prime destination.

Moreover, its southernmost point is only a stone’s throw from another famed shopping area, the Bay Area’s Mission District, which was recently rocked by a slew of restaurant closures on the equally iconic Valencia Street.

The roadway, located right on the cusp of the city’s embattled Downtown, was once considered one of the most sought-after strips of real estate, but today, like Powell, is reeling from store closures brought on by high rents and diminished foot traffic.

In comments to the San Francisco Chronicle, restaurant owner Rafik Bouzidi explained how he had seen a seemingly endless stream of terminations since opening his eatery in April. 

‘If you took me back before I signed the lease, I would have opened somewhere else,’ he told the paper in a recent interview.

‘Before COVID there was no way in hell you could find an available space on Valencia Street. Now, it seems like another restaurant shuts down every week.’

A few blocks away, restaurants on one of San Francisco’s Valencia Street, also one of the most storied in the country, are closing at an alarming rate – and owners say it’s because of crime

In comments to the San Francisco Chronicle, business owners recently explained how high rents and high rates of homelessness have led to a seemingly endless stream of terminations 

Homeless are seen returning to the streets in the Tenderloins district close to San Francisco’s Moscone Center where the APEC conference was recently held

A homeless encampment is seen along Leavenworth Street in the Tenderloin district, only a few blocks from Powell

Headlines featuring the phrases ‘garbage city, ‘ruined city’ and ‘fallen city’ capture how crippling drug issues and widespread homeless problems continue to remain an issue for residents.

The street then runs more than a mile north along some of the city’s most problem areas, which, as the photos of the stripped storefronts show, are continuing to affect businesses

There, right outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building, drug dealers set up shop in full view of the public on a daily basis, with users injecting and smoking with no interference from law enforcement 

The famous thoroughfare runs for more than mile along the city’s embattled Downtown, where open-air drug use is rife

Meanwhile, the situation at Powell – set on one of the stops of the so-called ‘Doom Loop’ of Union Square, City Hall, and Tenderloin and Mid Market – is even worse, with Union currently serving a hive of unsavory, post-pandemic activity, particularly on the street’s terminus on Market Street.

There, right outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building, drug dealers set up shop in full view of the public on a daily basis, with users injecting and smoking with no interference from law enforcement.

The street then runs more than a mile north along some of the city’s most problem areas, which, as the photos of the stripped storefronts show, are continuing to affect businesses.

Crimes like robberies and homicides, meanwhile, are on the rise, statistics show – and the city stands to lose $200 million a year in revenue through its business exodus – which has seen major hotels and retailers flee the city center.

Retail stalwart Old Navy announced they would be shuttering their flagship store in the area In October, after Nordstrom also announced they would be closing all of their locations in the city. 

Last April, Whole Foods announced it was closing all their locations, with Anthropologie and Office Depot having also made the same decisions leading some analysts to predict that the city has entered a ‘doom-loop’ of permanent decline.

The situation at Powell – set on one of the stops of the so-called ‘Doom Loop’ of Union Square, City Hall, and Tenderloin and Mid Market – is indicative of the current state of the city, with Union serving a hive of unsavory post-pandemic activity on the street’s terminus on Market

Late last year, the city was widely mocked by Chinese media as it prepared to host its President Xi Jinpingat the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit – spurring it to clear out its encampments in the notorious Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods.

US Chinese Radio used the headline ‘Ghost town San Francisco to have major blood exchange as APEC will bring the safest week in history to the city.’

Other headlines featuring the phrases ‘garbage city, ‘ruined city’ and ‘fallen city’ capture how crippling drug issues and widespread homeless problems continue to remain an issue for residents.

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With the introduction of more climate protection regulations, ClimateTech companies can more easily get the green light for their innovative products and solutions. We are entering an era of complete modernization of HVAC systems (heating, ventilation and air conditioning).

The North American market for HVAC systems was valued at nearly $44 billion in 2022, and it is projected Grow to over $62 billion by 2029 at a compound annual growth rate of 5.2%. Demand will remain strong due to climate change with its extreme temperatures, the growing real estate market and companies’ efforts to reduce costs through energy-efficient appliances. If you are building an HVAC business, now is the time. Here are just a few market niches that you may be able to fill.

Refrigerants need to be replaced

The refrigerants currently used are harmful to the environment. Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are potent greenhouse gases used in refrigeration and air conditioning that are thousands of times more harmful than carbon dioxide. The good news for the HVAC industry is that a global agreement dictates that all refrigerants with GWP – the global warming potential – must be replaced by 2030, a very ambitious target.

HFCs are detrimental to the ozone layer and are considered the main contributors to global warming. And they are used by every air conditioner manufacturer. In the future, companies will have to adapt to new requirements.

In October 2022, President Joe Biden signed an international agreement committing the US and more than 130 nations to reduce the production and use of HFCs by 85% over the next 14 years. According to scientists, the measure will help at least partially mitigate the upcoming increase in global temperatures.

It’s time to save energy and costs

Existing HVAC systems consume too much energy and, what is worse, they work non-stop. I’m a big advocate of cost efficiency and the right insulation process could help many companies and manufacturing facilities. I recently visited a factory that was using an HVAC system that I helped develop. But they had a cavity in the wall through which air could easily flow, so they lost a lot of energy. Basically, the cooling process never stopped.

You cannot save energy by leaving the air conditioner on all day. HVAC systems are not designed to work 24/7 – they should not run more than 8 hours a day. The same goes for our homes and office buildings, as well as the data centers of big tech companies like Google and Apple.

In New York, most greenhouse gas emissions come from city buildings, as many of them are old. In Arizona and Texas, where temperatures reach over 100°F, the need for energy savings is enormous. It opens up a window of opportunity for new business areas, for example for insulating materials.

According to the current status reportsThe demand for energy efficient solutions in buildings will fuel the growth of the insulation market, which is expected to reach US$42.5 billion in 2029.

Alternative energy HVAC solutions

The resources of our planet are not unlimited. According to some estimates, we will run out of fossil fuels this century. Electricity prices will also rise due to the increasing load on the electricity grid. The development of entirely new alternative energy based HVAC systems is critical for both business and the planet.

We also need to lower the cost of food production: most agribusinesses use technology that leaves a large carbon footprint. New HVAC systems could use solar power, ice-powered air conditioners, geothermal heat pumps, and possibly technologies we haven’t developed yet. This is all a great opportunity for entrepreneurs looking for their “next big thing” and a market with potential for exponential growth.

Latiful Kabir is an advanced manufacturing engineer and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) expert based in Clarksville, Tennessee.

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Two-and-a-half years after the start of the Covid pandemic, San Francisco’s downtown is still a shell of what it once was, and the economic outlook, for the short term at least, is ominous.

But just a few miles south, business is back. In South San Francisco, a self-styled “industrial city” that shares little of the glamor of its northern neighbor, restaurants and coffee shops along main thoroughfare Grand Avenue are abuzz with customers. Construction cranes dot the landscape, and east of Highway 101, the city’s corporate campuses and industrial hubs hum with activity. A few storefronts downtown are shuttered, and small business owners say they’ve been through the wringer, but the city’s economy has proven far more resilient than that of SF.

A big part of the secret sauce for South City is its standing as the “birthplace of biotech.” Unlike the software business, which today accounts for about 30% of San Francisco’s office market, biotech relies heavily on in-person work, making it a far more durable local industry in the Covid era. Genentech, South City’s largest employer by far, was considered an “essential business” with 3,000 to 4,000 people still in-office during the pandemic, and today it averages around 9,000 people on-site each week.

But there are other factors, too. Companies cite the relative ease of navigating the city’s bureaucracy and a welcoming approach to new development which, together with assets like proximity to major transit hubs, has helped the city build on its strength as a center for biotech and manufacturing. Tech firms such as payment leader Stripe, which decamped from San Francisco in 2019, now also find it a welcoming home.

Pedestrians walk up Grand Avenue in South San Francisco on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. The town’s downtown area was buzzing with street traffic and groups grabbing lunch at local restaurants. | Benjamin Fanjoy/The Standard

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week celebrating a new lab built by Amgen, the global pharma giant, South San Francisco Mayor Mark Nagales touted some 9 million square feet of new research and development space that’s in the pipeline. South San Francisco has issued over 2,000 commercial building permits and around 3,000 residential permits since the start of 2019, totaling $3 billion worth of construction, according to the city.

“You are right where you belong,” Nagales told a boisterous crowd of Amgen employees on Thursday, including CEO Bob Bradway, who flew in for the event from Switzerland.

Comparing San Francisco and its southern neighbor is not entirely fair: With a budget of just $122 million, it’s a veritable small town next to San Francisco, whose annual spending nears $14 billion. Even compared with other cities on the Peninsula, its downtown is quaint, with a historic City Hall and library and ample dining but only a modest retail scene.

Still, its pandemic-era resilience and can-do approach may hold some lessons for its bigger and more famous neighbors.

“South San Francisco—they didn’t close their doors,” said Rosanne Foust, president and CEO of the San Mateo County Economic Development Association. “They stepped up.”

Leave it to Biotech

South San Francisco, like many other cities on the Peninsula, got its modern start as a transportation and manufacturing hub. The industrial parks on the eastern side of the city were occupied first by meat-packing and steel companies in the 1920s, followed by shipbuilding in the ’30s. In the 1950s, freight and distribution of various types began to thrive as its marshlands were converted into even more industrial land to support the San Francisco International Airport.

The game-changer came in 1976 when Genentech chose South City as its home because of its proximity to both SF’s industry and the Peninsula’s academia. The company proved to be a seminal force in the creation of the biotechnology industry, pioneering both scientific and business advancements in the field, and it stuck to its original home even after being acquired by Swiss pharma giant Roche in 2009.

Today, there are more than 200 biotech companies located in South San Francisco, accounting for about 30% of the city’s jobs, according to data from the city’s general plan. Genentech and fellow biotech giants Abbvie and InterVenn Biosciences have all expanded in South City or renewed their leases recently. Earlier this year, 23andMe and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine both announced plans to move their headquarters to South SF from Sunnyvale and Oakland, respectively. The latest rumor is that Eli Lilly and Co. is hunting for 300,000 square feet of additional space in the city.

South San Francisco had the “strongest submarket” among Peninsula cities for research and development space in the most recent quarter, according to data from real estate broker CBRE.

And it’s not just biotech. True to its famous hillside signage, “The Industrial City” has around 28% of its jobs in production, distribution and repair. Despite regional stagnation, South City’s industrial market logged four of the top five notable sales and leases in the area for the most recent quarter.

One major new development on the horizon is Southline, a 28.5-acre campus whose plans were unanimously approved by the South San Francisco City Council earlier this year. Marcus Gilmour, principal at Lane Partners, the developer on the project, said demolition and site work began this year and the group is in the process of getting foundation permits for the 2.8 million square feet of planned office and research and development space.

Gilmour said the process to get Southline through the city’s pipeline was “robust” but efficient.

“One of the things that stood out to me […] their team was very responsive,” Gilmour said. “The priority is protecting the city and understanding the impact but also wanting to see the project go forward if it was really the right fit, so it was really more of a partnership than what I’ve typically seen in the Bay Area.”

For the most part, South San Francisco has been accelerating its housing building on par with the rest of San Mateo County, especially for higher-density development, according to data from Jon Haveman, principal at Marin Economic Consulting.

New apartments and construction fill the view from a street in South San Francisco on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. | Benjamin Fanjoy/The Standard

Nell Selander, director of South San Francisco’s Economic and Community Development Department, said the city’s development pipeline didn’t slow down as much as other places during the pandemic because the city made a concerted effort to keep its planning and building offices up and running.

South San Francisco’s average of 342 days from submitting plans to getting the key approval known as entitlement is well below the 450 days it takes San Francisco, according to data from the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development.

“If you need or want to expand in South San Francisco, you’re going to get a pretty clear and straightforward process,” Selander said.

Like many other cities, South San Francisco does charge a number of impact fees for new development, totaling $134 million since the start of 2019. During the 2020-21 fiscal year alone, the city collected $21.5 million in impact fees across eight programs for things like childcare, arts, parks and libraries.

Included in that is a fee requiring commercial developers of office, research, development and medical space to pay $15 per square foot toward an affordable housing fund. The city expects to collect $85 million over the next four to five years just for housing in South City, according to reporting from The San Francisco Business Times, which includes $30 million over the next 15 years from Genentech as the company updates its campus.

While those same impact fees often scare away developers in San Francisco’s costly building market, Foust said they haven’t had the same effect in South City. While San Francisco does not charge an affordable housing fee for commercial development, it does have many other types of impact fees. SF’s affordability requirements for housing developments are modestly more stringent than in South City.

The midday sky reflects from a recently opened Amgen building in South San Francisco on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. | Benjamin Fanjoy/The Standard

Saptarsi Haldar, Amgen’s vice president of cardiometabolic research and the site head for the new South City location, said Amgen and other biotech companies continue to choose South San Francisco for a few reasons: It’s already a hub full of talent with world-class education institutions nearby; it’s surrounded by freeways, transit stops and an international airport; and unlike traditional tech, biotech and life sciences doesn’t up and leave so easily because of the complex and long-range nature of the work.

So see

The global biopharmaceutical company has been in South San Francisco since 2004 and signed a lease for a new facility in Oyster Point in 2019.

“Because companies have invested so heavily in the city, it makes sense for them to double down rather than to start over somewhere else,” said Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

Help From Above

The relative stability of the big biotech companies doesn’t mean the pandemic was easy for small businesses in South City.

Montserrat Mata, who co-owns Antigua Coffee Shop with her husband, said the downtown really only started coming back to life a couple of months ago. That coincided with companies like Genentech starting to bring back nonessential workers for more regular in-office work and the revival of its “Genentech Goes to Town” program, which gives every employee $25 to spend at local shops.

Like many other owners, Mata had plummeted to transform her business overnight, pivoting to delivery and outdoor dining as demand. Mata says her coffee’s reputation among locals is what kept Antigua alive, alongside relief funding and money for outdoor seating, like a grant from the city’s Chamber of Commerce that was funded by Genentech.

“We were struggling a lot,” Mata said.

Alongside the chamber, nonprofit Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center stepped out of its normal role helping to launch small businesses and got to work on relief, said Amanda Anthony, program manager for its north San Mateo County branch. And in 2021, the City Council dedicated $2 million of its federal relief funding to open an Economic Advancement Center, a physical space downtown for small business services and job training. The center also got support from the county, the San Mateo County Economic Development Association and money from Genentech and Lane Partners with programs run by Renaissance, the local YMCA and the nonprofit JobTrain.

Angel De Jesus works from the front desk at the Economic Advancement Center in South San Francisco on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. | Benjamin Fanjoy/The Standard

One county program in particular, Great Plates Delivered, connected struggling restaurants with homebound seniors who needed fresh food delivered. Participation in that program allowed food truck owner Feda Oweis, who often catered to biotech offices and events, to stay afloat during the early days of Covid.

Now, Oweis has moved his truck, called Beyond the Border, into a storefront on South Linden Avenue and is looking to buy a second truck to keep up with demand. As office work returned, so did his catering business.

Oweis crafted his menu at the new location to fit the customer base, offering quick lunch bites for workers in the surrounding factories and warehouses. He’s looking forward to when Southline, which is just down the road, gets built. He’s even partnering with the city to pass out fliers and appetizers to customers next week, saying, “It’s always busy year-round.”

As for the city’s culture, Mata said it might take a bit more time and effort to really bring back the feeling of the pre-pandemic days when Grand Avenue stayed open and bustling well into the night. But if it’s up to her, it won’t be long.

“We have a lot of plans,” Mata said. “In the end, this is a place open for the community.”

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“A lot of the blues legends were living here around that time,” Davies said. “Etta James, Charlie Musselwhite and Elvin Bishop were here. Bonnie Raitt was in Marin, and she did so much to help revive Charles Brown’s career.

“But it wasn’t just the scene here. Traveling was easier. When I started touring with Charles, we did a lot of concerts and festivals, and it seemed like there were three tiers. There were the stars who got paid the most. The middle tier — Charles was in that group. And the local artists. That middle tier is gone,” she said, along with the post-World War II generation of innovators. (Now 86, guitar legend Buddy Guy recently announced a farewell tour in 2023.)

A shifting center of gravity

The infrastructure that sustained the scene has also all but disappeared, with nothing arising to fill the void left by the end of the San Francisco Blues Festival, a major annual event that ran from 1973-2008. The city’s dwindling Black population is another challenge, but the story is similar all over the region. Oakland long boasted a more vital and influential blues scene than San Francisco, anchoring an East Bay soul archipelago that stretched from Richmond and Berkeley out to Camp Stoneman in Pittsburg, and almost all of the clubs and joints that once hosted the blues are gone.

Still, the music’s inextricable roots in Black culture continue to manifest in various guises. The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol provides an essential link to the glory days of the East Bay scenes wherever she performs (like her Black Women’s Roots Festival, Nov. 27 at Freight & Salvage). Oakland blues vocalist Terrie Odabi has carved out an international career over the past decade, and some of the Bay Area’s best jazz vocalists, like Kim Nalley and Tiffany Austin, make a point of including blues as an essential thread in jazz’s elastic fabric. The Little Village Foundation label, created by veteran blues keyboardist and John Lee Hooker sideman Jim Pugh, has boosted the careers of several Bay Area blues artists, like Mumbai-born harmonica player Aki Kumar.

Meanwhile, the music’s center of gravity continues to shift away from San Francisco. Yoshi’s keeps blues in the musical mix, with shows like the Nov. 21 Bay Area Harmonica Convergence. Norwegian-born San Jose guitarist and recording engineer Kid Andersen has turned his Greaseland Studios into the top spot for Bay Area blues acts to document their music (while working hand-in-hand with Little Village). San Jose’s Poor House Bistro just relocated — literally the entire building — to Little Italy, to make way for Google’s massive new downtown development. Blues great Angela Strehli’s Rancho Nicasio is an important outpost in the North Bay, while the biggest blues bills tend to take place at Vallejo’s Empress Theatre.

“It’s the same thing in Seattle,” Cray said. “There used to be a bunch of clubs in town. Now we always hit the outskirts, where there might be the theaters and some of the clubs. We’re not downtown in places where it used it happen.”

In San Francisco, Myron Mu has kept The Saloon in North Beach, the city’s oldest venue, in business presenting blues seven nights a week. The city’s premiere club, Biscuits & Blues, still hasn’t reopened since it was forced to shutter in 2019 by a persistent plumbing problem and an ensuing legal struggle with the neighboring Jack In the Box — but that might finally be coming to an end, said owner Steven Suen said. More than optimistic, he sounded downright philosophic about a musical tradition born out of a need to find solace and communal release in hard times.

“The blues as a form of music will never die,” said Suen, who was born in Hong Kong and ended up buying the club after he started managing the venue in 2006. “People keep going back to the roots, figuring out how that music comes about. It will always have a place. It’s not a popular thing, but once people experience it they’ll find something special.”

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Two-and-a-half years after the start of the Covid pandemic, San Francisco’s downtown is still a shell of what it once was, and the economic outlook, for the short term at least, is ominous.

But just a few miles south, business is back. In South San Francisco, a self-styled “industrial city” that shares little of the glamor of its northern neighbor, restaurants and coffee shops along main thoroughfare Grand Avenue are abuzz with customers. Construction cranes dot the landscape, and east of Highway 101, the city’s corporate campuses and industrial hubs hum with activity. A few storefronts downtown are shuttered, and small business owners say they’ve been through the wringer, but the city’s economy has proven far more resilient than that of SF.

A big part of the secret sauce for South City is its standing as the “birthplace of biotech.” Unlike the software business, which today accounts for about 30% of San Francisco’s office market, biotech relies heavily on in-person work, making it a far more durable local industry in the Covid era. Genentech, South City’s largest employer by far, was considered an “essential business” with 3,000 to 4,000 people still in-office during the pandemic and today averages around 9,000 people onsite each week.

But there are other factors, too. Companies cite the relative ease of navigating the city’s bureaucracy and a welcoming approach to new development which, together with assets like proximity to major transit hubs, has helped the city build on its strength as a center for biotech and manufacturing. Tech firms such as payment leader Stripe, which decamped from San Francisco in 2019, now also find it a welcoming home.

Pedestrians walk up Grand Avenue in South San Francisco Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. The town’s downtown area was buzzing with groups grabbing lunch at local restaurants and street traffic Thursday afternoon. | Benjamin Fanjoy/ The Standard

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week celebrating a new lab built by Amgen, the global pharma giant, South San Francisco Mayor Mark Nagales touted some 9 million square feet of new research and development space that’s in the pipeline. South San Francisco has issued over 2,000 commercial building permits and around 3,000 residential permits since the start of 2019, totaling $3 billion worth of construction, according to the city.

“You are right where you belong,” Nagales told a boisterous crowd of Amgen employees on Thursday, including CEO Bob Broadway, who flew in for the event from Switzerland.

Comparing San Francisco and its southern neighbor is not entirely fair: With a budget of just $122 million, it’s a veritable small town next to San Francisco, whose annual spending nears $14 billion. Even compared with other cities on the Peninsula, its downtown is quaint, with a historic City Hall and library and ample dining but only a modest retail scene.

Still, its pandemic-era resilience and can-do approach may hold some lessons for its bigger and more famous neighbors.

“South San Francisco—they didn’t close their doors,” said Rosanne Foust, president and CEO of the San Mateo County Economic Development Association. “They stepped up.”

Leave it to Biotech

South San Francisco, like many other cities on the Peninsula, got its modern start as a transportation and manufacturing hub. The industrial parks on the eastern side of the city were occupied first by meat-packing and steel companies in the 1920s, followed by shipbuilding in the ’30s. In the 1950s freight and distribution of various types began to thrive as its marshlands were converted into even more industrial land to support the San Francisco International Airport.

The game-changer came in 1976 when Genentech chose South City as its home because of its proximity to both SF’s industry and the Peninsula’s academia. The company proved to be a seminal force in the creation of the biotechnology industry, pioneering both scientific and business advancements in the field, and it stuck to its original home even after being acquired by Swiss pharma giant Roche in 2009.

Today, there are more than 200 biotech companies located in South San Francisco, accounting for about 30% of the city’s jobs, according to data from the city’s general plan. Genentech and fellow biotech giants Abbvie and InterVenn Biosciences have all expanded in South City or renewed their leases recently. Earlier this year, 23andMe and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine both announced plans to move their headquarters to South SF from Sunnyvale and Oakland, respectively. The latest rumor is that Eli Lilly and Co. is hunting for 300,000 square feet of additional space in the city.

South San Francisco had the “strongest submarket” among Peninsula cities for research and development space in the most recent quarter, according to data from real estate broker CBRE.

And it’s not just biotech. True to its famous hillside signage, “The Industrial City” has around 28% of its jobs in production, distribution and repair. Despite regional stagnation, South City’s industrial market logged four of the top five notable sales and leases in the area for the most recent quarter.

One major new development on the horizon is Southline, a 28.5-acre campus whose plans were unanimously approved by the City Council earlier this year. Marcus Gilmour, principal at Lane Partners, the developer on the project, said demolition and site work began this year and the group is in the process of getting foundation permits for the 2.8 million square feet of planned office and research and development space.

Gilmour said the process to get Southline through the city’s pipeline was “robust” but efficient.

“One of the things that stood out to me … was their team was very responsive,” Gilmour said. “The priority is protecting the city and understanding the impact but also wanting to see the project go forward if it was really the right fit, so it was really more of a partnership than what I’ve typically seen in the Bay Area.”

For the most part, South San Francisco has been accelerating its housing building on par with the rest of San Mateo County, especially for higher-density development, according to data from Jon Haveman, principal at Marin Economic Consulting.

New apartments and construction fill the view from a street in South San Francisco Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. | Benjamin Fanjoy/The Standard

Nell Selander, director of South San Francisco’s Economic and Community Development Department, said the city’s development pipeline didn’t slow down as much as other places during the pandemic because the city made a concerted effort to keep its planning and building offices up and running.

South San Francisco’s average of 342 days from submitting plans to getting the key approval known as entitlement is well below the 450 days it takes San Francisco, according to data from the state’s Office of Housing and Community Development.

“If you need or want to expand in South San Francisco, you’re going to get a pretty clear and straightforward process,” Selander said.

Like many other cities, South San Francisco does charge a number of impact fees for new development, totaling $134 million since the start of 2019. During the 2020-21 fiscal year alone, the city collected $21.5 million in impact fees across eight programs for things like childcare, arts, parks and libraries.

Included in that is a fee requiring commercial developers of office, research, development and medical space to pay $15 per square foot toward an affordable housing fund. The city expects to collect $85 million over the next four to five years just for housing in South City, according to reporting from The San Francisco Business Times, which includes $30 million over the next 15 years from Genentech as the company updates its campus.

While those same impact fees often scare away developers in San Francisco’s costly building market, Foust said they haven’t had the same effect in South City. While San Francisco does not charge an affordable housing fee for commercial development, it does have many other types of impact fees. SF’s affordability requirements for housing developments are modestly more stringent than in South City.

The mid-day sky reflects from a recently opened Amgen building in South San Francisco Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. | Benjamin Fanjoy/The Standard

Saptarsi Haldar, Amgen’s vice president of cardiometabolic research and the site head for the new South City location, said Amgen and other biotech companies continue to choose South San Francisco for a few reasons: It’s already a hub full of talent with world-class education institutions nearby; it’s surrounded by freeways, transit stops and an international airport; and unlike traditional tech, biotech and life sciences doesn’t up and leave so easily because of the complex and long-range nature of the work.

So see

The global biopharmaceutical company has been in South San Francisco since 2004 and signed a lease for a new facility in Oyster Point in 2019.

“Because companies have invested so heavily in the city, it makes sense for them to double down rather than to start over somewhere else,” said Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

Help From Above

The relative stability of the big biotech companies doesn’t mean the pandemic was easy for small businesses in South City.

Montserrat Mata, who co-owns Antigua Coffee Shop with her husband, said the downtown really only started coming back to life a couple of months ago. That coincided with companies like Genentech starting to bring back non-essential workers for more regular in-office work and the revival of its “Genentech Goes to Town” program, which gives every employee $25 to spend at local shops.

Like many other owners, Mata had plummeted to transform her business overnight, pivoting to delivery and outdoor dining as demand. Mata says her coffee’s reputation among locals is what kept Antigua alive, alongside relief funding and money for outdoor seating, like a grant from the city’s Chamber of Commerce that was funded by Genentech.

“We were struggling a lot,” Mata said.

Alongside the chamber, nonprofit Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center stepped out of its normal role helping to launch small businesses and got to work on relief, said Amanda Anthony, program manager for its north San Mateo County branch. And in 2021, the City Council dedicated $2 million of its federal relief funding to open an Economic Advancement Center, a physical space downtown for small business services and job training. The center also got support from the county, the San Mateo County Economic Development Association and money from Genentech and Lane Partners with programs run by Renaissance, the local YMCA and nonprofit JobTrain.

Angel De Jesus works from the front desk at the Economic Advancement Center in South San Francisco Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. | Benjamin Fanjoy/The Standard

One county program in particular, Great Plates Delivered, connected struggling restaurants with homebound seniors who needed fresh food delivered. Participation in that program allowed food truck owner Feda Oweis, who often catered to biotech offices and events, to stay afloat during the early days of Covid.

Now, Oweis has moved his truck, called Beyond the Border, into a storefront on South Linden Avenue and is looking to buy a second truck to keep up with demand. As office work returned, so did his catering business.

Oweis crafted his menu at the new location to fit the customer base, offering quick lunch bites for workers in the surrounding factories and warehouses. He’s looking forward to when Southline, which is just down the road, gets built. He’s even partnering with the city to pass out fliers and appetizers to customers next week, saying, “It’s always busy year-round.”

As for the city’s culture, Mata said it might take a bit more time and effort to really bring back the feeling of the pre-pandemic days when Grand Avenue stayed open and bustling well into the night. But if it’s up to her, it won’t be long.

“We have a lot of plans,” Mata said. “In the end, this is a place open for the community.”

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SAN FRANCISCO, July 7, 2021 / PRNewswire / – Elements Global Services, a technology company working to break the barriers to global expansion, today announced the opening of its regional office on the west coast in. known San Francisco, Californiato meet the growing demand for international expansion among tech companies and startups as hybrid and fully dismissed workforces continue to accelerate.

Elements offers global employment solutions in over 135 countries with 18 regional offices worldwide. The San Francisco The office is located at 235 Pine Street in the downtown financial district, an international business hub and home to many of North America most innovative technology companies and start-ups.

“Elements’ new San Francisco office provides a key HR tech partner and resource on the West Coast for companies that want to deploy a more dispersed workforce and expand globally, “said Rick Hammell, CEO and Founder of Elements Global Services. “Our technology simplifies global expansion by overcoming barriers to growth. Regardless of whether it is about overcoming the complexities of rapid staff growth or navigating local compliance worldwide, our ApprovPay and Expandopedia platforms complement our in-house legal, tax and employment advice to help your business move forward in more than 135 countries. ”

Technology and COVID-19 collided to create a new workforce model that would allow companies to expand their network without a typical office location. This has enabled companies to adopt remote or hybrid models and grow their business, which has led to more responsibility, value and demand for HR technology. Elements combines its cloud-based technology with its Direct Employer of Record (EOR) to eliminate the need for multiple providers and deliver a single, platform-based solution.

Elements global HR network knows what it takes to meet business goals while maintaining global compliance and attracting and retaining new top talent. Customers use Enterprise HR technology from Elements, ApprovPay and Expandopedia to simplify their global expansion and HR processes, gain access to new talent and reduce their time to market.

ApprovPay offers an integrated and mature platform fully equipped with the global payroll information and human capital management required throughout the employee lifecycle. Expandopedia streamlines global expansion processes by consolidating the information, tools and documents you need on a single platform.

Elements has a dedicated HR team of 50+ nationalities that can support over 135 countries. As a result, Elements is the only direct EOR provider that can fully engage employees, comply with country-specific laws and regulations, manage global mobility and visas, and pay globally through a single platform.

Elements also offers personalized solutions based on customer needs, including Administrative Services Outsourcing (ASO), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and international consulting solutions to support international payroll and HR compliance. Elements’ OSA provides complete transparency to ensure companies fully understand country-specific laws and regulations such as local taxes, statutory insurance, and minimum wage reforms. Companies seek Elements’ BPO solutions for their superior human capital management strategies and resources, ranging from employee manuals and agreements to leading global administrative tasks that enable them to perform international HR operations.

Elements is the leading provider of direct EOR technology and solutions to industries such as technology and startups, life sciences, nonprofits, government services, education, oil, gas and energy, and financial services.

“Our expansion on the west coast is an investment in our commitment to deliver a single HR technology solution to our customer partners,” said Hammell. “Companies using a single HR tech service provider can achieve measurable results by accelerating time to market and improving efficiency in management and hiring processes.”

Earlier this year, Elements Global Services announced the relocation of the headquarters of Barcelona, ​​Spain to Chicago, Illinois. With the opening of the San Francisco Elements has a physical presence across the West Coast, Midwest and East Coast. Further branches will be opened shortly.

About Elements Global Services
Elements Global Services is a global technology company focused on software that transcends national borders and simplifies a company’s ability to grow its business, engage employees, manage compliance, and pay globally. Headquarters in Chicago, Elements provides 100% direct Employer of Record services to clients in over 135 countries based on proprietary HR technology that simplifies everything from payroll, benefits and human capital management to HR outsourcing, local compliance and Visa & Mobility .

Visit www.elementsgs.com or connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Media contact information
Octavia Geraghty
[email protected]
415.385.2093

SOURCE Elements Global Services

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Air filters have become big business in the age of COVID-19 for the HVAC companies who can get their hands on them.

As indoor air quality becomes a major concern in businesses, HVAC companies struggle to keep up with the demand for high quality filtration systems.

It turns out that air filters are made from similar materials used in face masks and other personal protective equipment and are therefore in short supply, said Gregg Little, president of Springbank Mechanical Systems in southern Ontario.

“We work with dozens of different developers and they all look at this,” says Little.

Claudio Mastronardi, Toronto office manager at Carmichael Engineering Ltd., says his HVAC company is jumping into buying inventory of quality filters to discourage customers from facing four to six weeks turnaround time.

“The demand is very high right now. People put their health and safety above cost,” says Mastronardi.

The Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board identified “indoor air quality” as one of the major real estate trends emerging from the pandemic and noted that the pandemic “created greater demand for air purifiers, ranging from standalone models to sophisticated intelligent systems “. Portable air purifiers are also becoming increasingly difficult to find, notes Jeffrey Siegel, a Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering professor who studies indoor air quality.

That doesn’t mean business has been easy for HVAC companies, notes Little, who says many customers have cut their maintenance budgets because they can’t afford to stay open. The demand for a rollercoaster ride was high as some customers who had originally switched to fancier filters could not afford the cost, while dental and medical office purchases that went “crazy” this spring and bought air filters and have since calmed down.

Even so, HVAC operators have seen new recognition for their expertise in the light of COVID-19, Little says, and engineers have a choice between customers who may not have thought much before about the person turning their heating on, Mastronardi says.

Demand for HVAC companies has increased as local jurisdictions force tenants to look at their buildings’ HVAC systems. The Toronto Medical Officer of Health urged companies on Nov. 14 to check their HVAC systems to make sure they are working and air exchange settings are improved, using filters with the highest efficiency, and not blocking vents or placing furniture directly underneath .

However, the city’s health officials also note that “there is no evidence that air purifiers alone are effective at reducing the spread of COVID-19,” and that they may be useful to supplement HVAC ventilation or when it does is not an exchange of outside air. “

Little says he recommends steady HVAC maintenance schedules, but has spent a lot of time this year personally reviewing some of the newer air cleaner products on the market. Little says he’s still skeptical of some of them, such as dry hydrogen peroxide.

Another technology that is catching on, bipolar ionization, doesn’t have a lot of independent data to back it up, Siegel says. The process has been around for decades, but many of the studies are of “questionable independence,” says Siegel.

“I know they are being promoted very heavily. But the technology is an unproven technology. You want to be very, very careful when a manufacturer comes up with some reports and shows you that it works,” Siegel says. “It can play a role. It just hasn’t proven effective in the context of this.”

That hasn’t stopped some landlords from opting for air purification.

Brookfield says its offices in New York, Toronto and Calgary are testing advanced ventilation and filtration systems. The system is to be extended to all office properties. The Brookfield system, which uses bipolar ionization, was considered prior to the pandemic to reduce energy consumption and emissions. But the company is now betting that tenants will see buildings with older air systems as “obsolete,” Brian Kingston, managing director of Brookfield Property Partners, said at an investor event this fall.

Air filters can be used to slow the spread of COVID-19 and it is very important that buildings meet minimum ventilation standards set by professionals. However, Siegel cautions that adding better air filters isn’t a panacea.

“If an infected person and an uninfected person are close together, the virus will not be captured, even if there is a great filter system elsewhere,” says Siegel.

“I consider it a secondary measure. The primary measures are wearing masks, people who are physically so far apart, hand washing and surface cleaning ΓÇ, and making sure rooms are not poorly ventilated.”

A portable HEPA filter can be used in almost any room, Siegel says, as long as it’s the right size and isn’t positioned to spit unfiltered air onto a person or touch-sensitive surface. However, upgrading the filters of a centralized system can be more cost effective, Siegel says, if the system can handle it.

Proper installation is a breeze, according to Siegel, especially with thicker filters and more high-tech air cleaning technology like UV lamps. Little warns that builders should look for HVAC companies that can provide customer testimonials on air filtration.

“There are a lot of people who take advantage of bad situations,” says Little.

This Canadian press report was first published on November 22, 2020.

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