Ending a two-decades-long search for a suitable site, city officials have landed on a massive two-story shopping center in San Francisco's Castro district as the permanent home for a LGBTQ history museum and archival center. The Board of Supervisors is expected to approve the $11.6 million purchase of the property in the coming weeks.
It will pave the way for the GLBT Historical Society to move into the vacant second floor of the Market & Noe Center at 2280 Market Street, likely sometime in 2025. The nonprofit currently rents a jewel box of a gallery space on 18th Street in the heart of the city's LGBTQ neighborhood and leases space for its archives and offices in a downtown office building.
"Today, San Francisco is yet again making history," stated Roberto Ordeñana, a gay man who is executive director of the LGBTQ preservationist nonprofit. "This investment is more than the purchase of a building; it is about creating a home to share the lessons of LGBTQ and allied history that will be housed inside, led by trailblazers before us, activists who are with us today, and the leaders of the future that will ensure our stories, our struggles, and our hopes for a better tomorrow are forever understood."
Ever since she allocated $12.5 million in city funds toward the project in her 2021 budget proposal, Mayor London Breed has made finding a lasting home for the GLBT Historical Society's museum a priority. Seeking reelection this November, Breed had hinted in a response on her questionnaire the Bay Area Reporter sent to the mayoral candidates that the securement of a site was imminent.
"The Castro is the heart of LGBTQ culture in this city and this country, and it is the perfect place for a museum that will preserve and celebrate LGBTQ history, culture, and arts for generations to come," said Breed in a statement shared exclusively with the B.A.R. "Finding this site took years of work and commitment, but we did not waver in finding a home that would honor San Francisco as a place that elevates our LGBTQ community and celebrates those who paved the way for us to have the freedoms we enjoy today."
Previous entreaties by the city to buy the vacant commercial building at 2390 Market Street at Castro Street that had housed a Pottery Barn were unsuccessful due to the asking price ranging from $15 to $18 million. It remains empty and for lease.
Negotiations ended up being fruitful with the local family that has owned the property near Market and Noe streets for nearly a century. Once home to Finnila's Finnish Baths, the existing 30,000 square foot commercial building with rooftop parking was built in 1987.
Kent Jeffrey and his family had put up the property for sale in 2021 with an asking price of $17 million and last year had lowered it to $14.5 million. With city officials able to come to an agreement to buy it for substantially less money, Breed and gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman will introduce legislation to the Board of Supervisors October 1 to finalize the sale. The deal needs to close by November 30.
A community celebration will be held at 10 a.m. Friday at the site with local leaders to mark finding a home for the LGBTQ history museum project. It comes just days prior to the start of LGBTQ History Month on October 1.
"I think it is great," said Mandelman, who represents the Castro at City Hall. "We looked at a number of sites. We toured a number of sites. We hoped for a number of sites. Our hopes were raised and dashed at different times along the process that led finally to this one. It works."
For the time being, the city's Real Estate Division will oversee the property as it works out a lease agreement with the GLBT Historical Society and the Community Arts Stabilization Trust. Known as CAST, the community-centered, arts and culture focused real estate organization works to secure and steward affordable spaces for nonprofit arts and culture organizations in San Francisco.
"We believe in the preservation of community histories and culture, and sustaining the legacies of the LGBTQ+ community through a home for the museum speaks to our mission and excitement today," stated CAST CEO Ken Ikeda.
Ground floor tenants
For years the location of a Tower Records after it opened, the shopping center today has two tenants in ground floor spaces. Barry's Bootcamp is subleasing its storefront from CVS and can remain through 2040, while Dignity Health-GoHealth Urgent Care has a lease for its clinic through 2036.
It is expected that the LGBTQ history museum will expand into those spaces when they become available. For now, it will be taking over the vacant second floor space that is a little over 11,000 square feet. (Its current museum is just shy of 1,700 square feet.)
The public-private partnership between the city, CAST, and historical society is being formed for the purposes of managing and operating the property, the assumed leases, and the museum. It is anticipated that the lease and sublease agreements will be introduced to the Board of Supervisors for approval in mid-2025.
Initially, the city will retain 10% of the monthly $58,000 in lease payments from the commercial tenants and put the rest of the money into a separate reserve account to be used by the historical society for capital improvements and possibly programming. Once the lease agreements with CAST and the historical society are approved, then CAST will receive the 10% for taking on the property manager role. The city's long-term goal is to eventually transfer ownership of the property to the GLBT Historical Society.
"It gives me hope that at some point the historical society will be able to exercise this option and acquire this property itself. It would be great for that organization and for the queer community," said Mandelman. "I think it is really important for maintaining the queer identity of the Castro."
As for the $5.5 million in state funds for the museum project obtained by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the city expects to grant out the funding to CAST and the historical society to help fund a remodel of the building for the museum's needs. A former District 8 supervisor who lives nearby the museum's new home, Wiener told the B.A.R. he is ecstatic that the city has been able to find a way to keep it in the historic LGBTQ neighborhood.
"To me, the two most important things are, number one, it is in the Castro, and number two, it is a large amount of space," said Wiener. "This satisfies both of those requirements. I am really happy that this worked."
As the B.A.R. reported in 2013 when CVS finalized the permitting process to move into the shopping center, the building at one point had been considered by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation to house its gay men's health center. Known now as Strut, it ended up taking over a commercial space on the 400 block of Castro Street.
When Wiener served on the board, he had attempted to secure approval for Trader Joe's to take over the location, since it comes with 33 parking spaces. But the grocery store walked away from it due to neighborhood objections about traffic the grocery chain would create.
"We were disappointed Trader Joe's didn't work out," recalled Wiener. "It is what it is, so now we get a LGBTQ history museum there, which is great."
Near Milk library branch
Coincidentally, the location is a block up from the Eureka Valley Harvey Milk Memorial Library on 16th Street where 20 years ago gay former District 8 supervisor Bevan Dufty had first proposed building the LGBTQ history museum on the branch library's parking lot. Dufty is now board president for BART, the regional transit agency that has a station at 16th and Mission streets, six blocks from the new home for the GLBT Historical Society.
"This is an exciting start to a new chapter," said Dufty. "It is something I wanted to see, placemaking and cultural institutions thriving in the neighborhood."
The Market & Noe Center was where Dufty had his campaign headquarters when he ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2011. The building also had housed the No on 8 campaign in 2008 when it came up short in trying to prevent California voters from passing that November the ban on same-sex marriage known as Proposition 8. (This November voters are being asked to excise Prop 8's language that remains embedded in the state's constitution even though federal courts ruled the ballot measure was unconstitutional.)
"It is a space I know very well," noted Dufty, who is attending a wedding in South Carolina this weekend and will miss the celebration Friday.
The deal to buy the property is coming "at the right time," he told the B.A.R. prior to leaving on his trip.
"We have to fight for the preservation of our history," said Dufty. "We also have to fight for our visibility, for our safety and for the members of our community just to live like everyone else in this country is supposed to be able to live."
He added that he is "appreciative" that the city has made the LGBTQ history museum possible. One of the reasons he had pressed for it during his time on the board was to have it drive tourism to the LGBTQ neighborhood.
"I think it is an exciting destination that will really add to people's experience visiting the Castro," said Dufty. "I always wanted it to tell our story and be meaningful to people from around the world, and the best is yet to come."
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