Lost Businesses in South Park

  Local businesses are what define a neighborhood.  Taking out-of-town visitors to your favorite neighborhood restaurant or running errands close to home are literally what define a neighborhood. 

It is for this reason we are so pained to see local businesses close-up shop, and unfortunately, we have seen a spate of these in South Park as of late. 

Late last year we saw the close of The Sauna Lab and Athlete Within (Urban Med).  While Urban Med stayed in the neighborhood with a new location on Olive there is no word as to the future of The Sauna Lab.  These small businesses add variety and visitors to our neighborhood and an empty retail location brings the opposite: crime and loitering.

To add to the issue, we also saw several restaurants close doors; The Palm at Flower and 11th(their last California location), Dreads Caribbean Cuisine (I will greatly miss their amazing breakfast sandwich) and a hopefully an only temporary closure of the Art Room on Olive.

And, we have empty retail spaces that have been empty way too long – the old Bottle Rock space in The Met Lofts, former home to Barcito at Grand and 12th, Pizza Social space on Olympic between Grand and Olive, and then there are first-floor retail spaces that have never been occupied.

While some of the spaces are being actively pitched to other restauranteurs, this outcome hurts the neighborhood in the short and long-term vibrance and feasibility of the neighborhood.  Some restaurants thrive with support of the neighborhood (Prank, Pine & Crane, Muffin Can Stop Us) and we have some very cool new places coming (Javier’s and Wine Station) but it makes us wonder what more can be done to encourage businesses to set-up shop here in South Park and what more can be done to encourage residents to support them.

San Francisco’s “Vacant to Vibrant” program comes to mind as it helps fill empty storefronts with entrepreneurial ventures.  Economic development in our neighborhood falls under the purview of the South Park Business Improvement District (aka SPBID or now going by Social District BID). It would be great for them to launch a similar initiative.

We have seen some additions to our local restaurant line up.  Culturas, Gallery by Horizon have been great additions.  Have you been?  Later this spring we should see the opening of Wine Station at Hope + Flower and the launch of the highly anticipated Javier’s at Circa.  With Onni finishing their latest tower at Olive and Olympic, the ground floor retail is already being toured which will bring new businesses, but we should not lose sight of the vacant established spots. Landlords should be getting pressure to get spots filled and this is something I believe South Park BID should be spearheading. 

  What do you think about our landscape for new business? Would you open a business in South Park? If not, why?

By Michael Robleto