San Francisco Flower Market to Bloom Next Year

After a decade of evolving relocation plans and construction delays, the San Francisco Flower Market will open at its new Potrero Hill location the first half of 2024. The move has stirred diverse feelings and plans for new ways in which the Market may interact with its neighbors.

According to the California Historical Society, in 1884 the Domoto brothers opened a flower nursery in Oakland, which was incorporated as the San Francisco Flower Market in 1912.  Today the Market includes family-owned farming businesses that sell locally grown plants, as well as wholesalers which offer domestic and international products.  

Over the years the Market survived the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes, an ordinance banning street sales, two world wars, Japanese Internment camps, which affected Japanese American flower growers and managers, and two pandemics. The Flower Market also endured seven moves, including in 1956 from Fifth and Howard streets to 12th Street, and then to Sixth and Brannan streets. 

Kilroy Realty Group’s acquisition of the Sixth and Brannan streets site instigated plans for a new place for the Market. After it moves, its current location will be redeveloped into office and retail space, according to the San Francisco Flower Market project website, though the present state of the City’s commercial real estate market casts doubt on that plan. The initial idea was for the Flower Market to shift twice and end up back South-of-Market (SoMa), underground in a busy office area. Instead, operations are being transferred to 16th and Mississippi streets under a 27-year lease with Kilroy Realty, according to Jeanne Boes, the Market’s general manager and Chief Operating Officer.      

The Flower Market serves about 4,000 small Bay Area businesses, including retail flower shops, hotels, caterers, wedding planners, restaurants, and interior decorators, who purchase flowers, wreaths, pumpkins, Christmas trees, and such items as ribbons and planters. A committee of vendors is advising on the new space’s layout. A naturally lit mezzanine will house tropical plant vendors along with offices and a multi-purpose room to be used for education and design work, with vendors arrayed on the first floor. 

“Personally, I will cry like a baby when this place closes,” Boes said. “I grew up here and knew the old vendors…everyone who shops here and works here will hate it initially because change is hard for people.” 

Boes is working to ease the transition through communication and hands-on support, as well as a soft opening for the trade. She’s enthusiastic about being in a neighborhood known for boasting many creatives, in an area zoned Production, Distribution, and Repair (PDR). Inhabiting a PDR space that’s freeway accessible, with a loading dock, will allow for more efficient operations. She hopes that adjacent businesses will rely on Flower Market vendors for their supplies.

According to Boes, the Market consists of 40 vendors, most of whom have been tenants for 10 to 40 years. Of these, 27 will migrate to the new location. Some who declined to relocate feel that the new venue, roughly one-third the size of the SoMa facility, isn’t ideal for their operations and have chosen to retire.

Advocates for increased housing in Potrero Hill expressed concerns about the Flower Market’s arrival, as covered in the January 2020 issue of The Potrero View. Previously, Walden Development had proposed that Kaiser Permanente facilities, and, later, housing, some at below-market rates, be constructed at the 16th and Mississippi streets space before abandoning these plans after challenges arose. 

Former San Francisco Mayor and Connecticut Street resident, Art Agnos, said the “loss of affordable housing” was a disappointment for him, but that “as seen since then, housing has struggled because of interest rates, making this almost serendipitous… Now that the decision has been made, I welcome them.” 

According to Agnos, there’ll be challenges, particularly related to traffic and noise from flower delivery trucks arriving at 2 a.m., but these can be managed through collaborative approaches. He’s confident that the Market will help the neighborhood’s economy as clients visit other businesses and management engages with the community through art displays and events.

“The neighborhood is generally excited to keep the blue-collar jobs that the Market provides in the City,” said J.R. Eppler, Potrero Boosters president. “Really and truly, in respect to the neighborhood, it’s up to the Flower Market to determine if the neighborhood is the net winner or net loser.”

The Flower Market is in conversation with a group looking to celebrate the opening, according to Boes. Though she declined to provide a name it seems likely that the Potrero Hill Archives Project is involved.    

“Potrero Hill is lucky to have us,” she said. 

The San Francisco Flower Market will establish a nonprofit to support floral agriculture in Northern California as well as community initiatives, Boes said. She plans to develop a hands-on program for younger children and a mentorship initiative that connects high schoolers with experts to sow the seeds for youth to see the possibility of floral industry jobs in farming, logistics, wholesale, and art. She also may pursue a “block party with other PDR vendors” and “an art project blending the history of the buildings that we’re going to be coming into and the history of our market.”