SF supervisors panel backs LGBTQ museum project

  • by Matthew S. Bajko, Assistant Editor
  • Wednesday October 23, 2024
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Supervisor Rafael Mandelman spoke outside the 2280 Market Street site of the proposed LGBTQ history museum September 27. The board's budget committee on October 23 recommended approval of the city purchasing the building. Photo: Bill Wilson
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman spoke outside the 2280 Market Street site of the proposed LGBTQ history museum September 27. The board's budget committee on October 23 recommended approval of the city purchasing the building. Photo: Bill Wilson

The city's plan to purchase a building in the Castro district for an LGBTQ history museum survived its first bureaucratic hurdle Wednesday. It is set to be taken up by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors next week.

At its October 23 meeting, the supervisors' Budget and Finance Committee members Chair District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, Vice Chair gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman and District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar unanimously voted to recommend that their colleagues sign off on the city's purchase of 2280 Market Street at Noe Street on behalf of the GLBT Historical Society. As the Bay Area Reporter was first to report last month, the city is paying $11.6 million for what is known as the Market & Noe Center and needs to finalize the sale by November 30.

"The rationale for a great queer history museum in San Francisco might seem self-evident, but I am going to run through it. San Francisco is arguably the queerest city in the world," said Mandelman, who represents the Castro at City Hall and for years has worked with city officials to find a property to buy for what is set to become the country's first free-standing LGBTQ history museum and archival center.

Noting some of the earliest LGBTQ rights groups, such as the Daughters of Bilitis in the 1950s, got their start in San Francisco to the election and assassination of its first gay supervisor Harvey Milk to the model set for the rest of the world by the city's response to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s, there are ample arguments for why city funds should be used toward creating a world-class institution to tell those stories and many others within the local LGBTQ community, contended Mandelman.

"There is a story to be told here and it deserves a first-class, world-class building," said Mandelman.

For two decades city officials and leaders of the preservationist nonprofit have sought a site in the LGBTQ Castro district to house both an LGBTQ museum and the historical society's growing archival collection. During that time, it has operated smaller exhibition spaces, whether in the downtown buildings it has leased space in for its administrative offices or storefronts in the Castro.

It is currently leasing a commercial space on 18th Street for its jewel box of a museum. Despite the constraints on the amount of its archival collection it can put on public view, the GLBT Historical Society Museum draws thousands of visitors each year from school groups to visiting dignitaries and celebrities.

"There has been agitation in the community for a long time to do something bigger and better to present that history," noted Mandelman.

Many sites looked at

Mayor London Breed's allocating $12.5 million in city funds toward the museum project in her 2021 budget proposal kicked into high gear the effort to secure a location. It also led to gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) securing $5.5 million in state funds for the project.

Numerous sites were looked at, some outside of the Castro area, but the hope had long been to see a lasting home for the GLBT Historical Society be secured in the city's main LGBTQ neighborhood. When Kent Jeffrey and his family lowered the price they were seeking for the two-level shopping center with rooftop parking from the $17 million they had initially listed it at in 2021, it opened the door to the negotiated sale price now before the supervisors to approve.

"We had a very hard time finding a building that met all of our criteria. Not least of which, a seller willing to sell for our appraised value," recalled Mandelman.

Historical society board chair Ben Chavez Gilliam quipped the city has a chance to acquire a property that had a "Neiman Marcus price" at that of a "Ross price," referring respectively to the high-end and bargain basement retailers.

"It is the right time to buy," said Gilliam, a gay man who is Coldwell Banker Commercial NRT's managing principal and national market leader overseeing acquisitions, dispositions and global corporate services for its parent company, Realogy Holdings Corporation.

Once home to Finnila's Finnish Baths, the existing 30,000 square foot commercial building was built in 1987. 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.

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.)

"We can make history together," historical society board member Ani Rivera, a queer Xicana who is executive director of Galería de la Raza, told the supervisors' panel in urging them to support the purchase of the building. "Please, please support this endeavor and think about the many generations to come who will call this place home."

Roberto Ordeñana, a gay man who is executive director of the LGBTQ preservationist nonprofit, said it is "undertaking an important capital campaign to ensure we have the financial resources" it needs to relocate its operations into the building and install the museum exhibits into the new space, which is 10 times larger than its current museum.

"I cannot emphasize enough the important signal that San Francisco's investment is going to make for the rest of the world," said Ordeñana, particularly with transgender individuals, especially gender-nonconforming youth, currently under attack and seeing their rights be legislated away even in certain parts of California.

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 combined $58,000 in monthly 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.

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. While many are eager to see the new museum open as soon as possible, at Wednesday's hearing it was stated that it is likely to open sometime in 2027.

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