Downtown San Francisco’s ghostly retail strips may finally be getting a shot of adrenaline, thanks to a new $25 million package backed by the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation and several major banks. The cash is earmarked for some of the city’s emptiest blocks, particularly Powell Street and the streets around the Moscone Center, the lure new tenants and bring everyday foot traffic back to Union Square and nearby corridors.
According to the San Francisco Business Journal, the Downtown Development Corp. is pulling together roughly $25 million with a group of participating banks. The fund is slated to bankroll tenant recruitment, support interior buildouts and test storefront activations along key stretches like Powell Street between Union Square and Market Street and the Moscone convention corridor. The nonprofit is already hunting for tenants to fill long-empty spaces and says it will focus its dollars where it believes street life can rebound fastest.
Part Of A Broader Fundraising Push
This new Downtown Business Fund is just one slice of a larger fundraising effort the DDC rolled out late last year, after lining up more than $60 million in early contributions for a slate of downtown priorities. Those range from expanded clean-and-safe services to spruced-up public spaces, according to a DDC press release cited by PR Newswire. The broader pool is meant to give the DDC room to test different approaches and see what actually pulls people back onto downtown sidewalks.
Who’s Backing It
Organizers say early Downtown Business Fund partners include Bank of America, Citizens and JPMorgan Chase, with a longer list of corporate and philanthropic donors attached to the wider DDC campaign, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. The basic strategy pairs big anchor gifts with bank commitments and smaller, targeted grants that can help pay for tenant buildouts and short-term activations.
Why Powell Street And Moscone
Downtown retail is still a very different animal than it was before the pandemic. Union Square’s retail vacancy rate was about 21.2% at the end of 2025, and Powell Street has cycled through rounds of closures and pop-ups. A recent market report from Cushman & Wakefield, along with a city announcement about targeted corridor upgrades, helps explain why the DDC is zeroing in on these blocks first.
How The Fund Will Work
DDC leaders say the Downtown Business Fund will blend tenant recruitment, leasing incentives and focused marketing in order to lower the bar for entrepreneurs and brands that might otherwise steer clear of downtown storefronts. In a Q&A with SPUR, CEO Shola Olatoye described the fund as a summer launch that will lean on evidence-based activations and partnerships with local organizations and property owners.
Can Seed Money Solve Structural Issues?
Real estate analysts caution that $25 million can go a long way on pop-ups and pilot projects, but it is not the kind of money that typically pays for major building acquisitions, big public-space overhauls or full-scale storefront renovations. As The Real Deal has pointed out, the DDC will likely need significantly more capital if it wants to reshape downtown at a truly large scale.
Even so, founding supporters are already coming in with targeted checks. Citizens, for instance, has announced a $250,000 grant as an inaugural supporter of the Downtown Business Fund. The DDC says tenant recruitment and pilot activations are set to roll out in the coming months. For downtown merchants and property owners, the next stretch will show whether a coordinated push by private funders and local partners can turn all those dark display windows back into working storefronts.
