{"id":392337,"date":"2026-07-09T18:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392337\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T18:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:32:12","slug":"san-franciscos-fillmore-district-looks-towards-its-next-heyday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392337\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco\u2019s Fillmore District Looks Towards Its Next Heyday"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sun was out in San Francisco on the Fourth of July, and the corner of Fillmore and Eddy was alive. People danced in the street as DJs spun; the Church of St. John Coltrane Band filled the air with spiritual jazz; and vendors lined the block.<\/p>\n

Inside the Fillmore Heritage Center<\/a>, a sound healing session, film screening and a fireside chat about building bridges across race unfolded simultaneously. Volunteers kept everything moving. Ace Washington, the Fillmore\u2019s longtime corridor ambassador, worked the crowd, moving between the street and the building. Entrepreneur and community organizer Linda Parker Pennington greeted guests as they arrived. It felt less like a reopening and more like a family reunion.<\/p>\n

\"\"Austyn Johnson, 20, right, and brother Ashton Johnson, 15, do the Cupid Shuffle during the Fillmore Jazz Festival in San Francisco on Saturday, July 4, 2026. The pair flew in from Tennessee with their family for the festival.<\/p>\n

Some people brought lawn chairs, and you don\u2019t bring a lawn chair to a ribbon-cutting. You bring one to a place you intend to stay a while. For the first time in years, the Fillmore Heritage Center wasn\u2019t simply open. It seemed to belong to the neighborhood again, if only for an afternoon. On a corridor where so much has been lost, the Fillmore\u2019s Black community was unmistakably still present.<\/p>\n

The weekend marked a new phase in the Heritage Center\u2019s reactivation. The July 4 programming was not a one-off, nor was it a permanent reopening. It was part of a temporary activation period: Through December, community organizations and artists will be invited to propose public-facing events as the city assesses the building and develops options for its long-term future. What remains unsettled is who will shape what comes next.<\/p>\n

\nThe Fillmore\u2019s deep cultural legacy\n<\/p>\n

The Fillmore has had an outsized impact on San Francisco\u2019s culture, but the neighborhood has also faced major challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ask anyone who has loved the Fillmore long enough, and they\u2019ll name a different heyday: the Harlem of the West years<\/a>, when Billie Holiday and John Coltrane performed in its jazz clubs; the 1990s, when \u201cFillmoe\u201d artists<\/a> like San Quinn, JT the Bigga Figga and Rappin\u2019 4-Tay built a hip-hop legacy<\/a>; or the 2000s, when Yoshi\u2019s and 1300 on Fillmore made the corridor buzz with concert- and restaurant-goers.<\/p>\n

The danger is letting those memories become a ceiling, turning a neighborhood into a museum instead of a community. The advocates working to bring the Heritage Center back aren\u2019t trying to recreate 1958, 1998 or 2008. They\u2019re trying to build a version of the Fillmore that they hope will one day become someone else\u2019s favorite era.<\/p>\n

\"\"Fernay McPherson, chef and owner of Minnie Bell\u2019s Soul Movement, said she wants to see the city implement community input for the Fillmore Heritage Center \u201cso that residents \u2026 don\u2019t feel let down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chef and business owner Fernay McPherson, who runs Minnie Bell\u2019s Soul Movement and serves on the Fillmore Community Action Plan committee<\/a>, sees that future already taking shape. \u201cWe are definitely working on the new heyday, and it will happen,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to say what was here, because we\u2019re still here. We\u2019re just fighting to make our presence known.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fillmore Heritage Center opened in 2007 as an attempt at restitution in concrete and steel. The complex, which cost more than $80 million, was built on land shaped by urban renewal, which displaced thousands of Black residents and hundreds of businesses beginning in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

\"\"People walk past the Fillmore Heritage Center on Fillmore Street in San Francisco on Saturday, July 4, 2026.<\/p>\n

For a moment, it was the cultural and economic anchor the neighborhood had been promised. Then the unraveling came in stages: Yoshi\u2019s San Francisco filed for bankruptcy reorganization in 2012 and closed in 2014. Its replacement, The Addition, closed within months of opening \u2014 and the city took over the building\u2019s commercial spaces in 2015, after developer Michael Johnson<\/a> defaulted on a $5.5 million city loan. By 2017, 1300 on Fillmore, the last holdout, was gone too \u2014 tenants worn down by the building\u2019s high operating costs and the weight of a neighborhood\u2019s expectations.<\/p>\n

For years afterward, the building sat at the center of a long, unresolved dispute. A 2017 attempt to sell it collapsed when no bidder met the community standards<\/a> attached to the sale. Proposals came and went, and COVID consumed what remained of the momentum.<\/p>\n

\nBringing life back to the Fillmore Heritage Center\n<\/p>\n

This June, the Heritage Center\u2019s doors began to crack open during Juneteenth celebrations, offering festival support space and a venue for the Wesley Johnson White Horse Awards honoring Black community leaders. Then, over the Fourth of July weekend, came the Dream Center \u2014 the first full weekend of public-facing programming in the building\u2019s current activation period.<\/p>\n

Organized by Linda Parker Pennington, an early investor in Yoshi\u2019s and former board chair of the Jazz Heritage Center nonprofit, the weekend brought together wellness workshops, art, youth media, a reparations panel, a genealogy workshop and a screening of filmmaker Jalila Bell\u2019s documentary Culture Connects Us. \u201cI want people to walk in and feel like they\u2019ve arrived at an oasis,\u201d she said. \u201cRegardless of their background. Regardless of their age.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Linda Parker Pennington speaks during the Power of Interracial Sisterhood workshop at the Fillmore Heritage Center in San Francisco on Saturday, July 4, 2026.<\/p>\n

Among the community stakeholders who have consistently stepped up to steward the building\u2019s future is Fillmore Rising, a collective co-led by Majeid Crawford, executive director of the New Community Leadership Foundation, and Ericka Scott, the founder of Honey Art Studio who grew up in the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s vision wasn\u2019t drafted in a city office. It grew out of weekly community mapping sessions at Third Baptist Church, where local leaders dreamt up ideas for the space: a curated gallery, an African diaspora restaurant, a 39-seat screening room for independent film and youth programming and a sliding-scale rental model designed to give local event organizers a real path into the building for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an opportunity for us to see this space again, filled with life,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n

Crawford has spent years working to bring vibrancy back to the building. After watching proposal after proposal fall apart, he said he has been explicit with the city about what community stewardship requires: a transparent, open application process, not one where proximity to power determines who gets through the door first.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a fair, open process cannot be established for all,\u201d Crawford said, \u201cthen no one should have access to avoid the appearance of favoritism.\u201d<\/p>\n

City leaders have said they are listening. On May 28, Mayor Daniel Lurie joined Supervisor Bilal Mahmood and community leaders at the Heritage Center to announce a package of new investments in the Fillmore, including $230,000 in SF Thrives grants for 23 small businesses in the area. The ribbon-cutting came days after the launch of Fillmore After Dark<\/a>, a new yearlong night market series. And over Fourth of July weekend, the new Lower Fillmore Entertainment Zone<\/a> allowed participating businesses to sell alcoholic beverages to-go during the Fillmore Jazz Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"Niecey Livingsingle performs on the John Coltrane Stage located next to the Fillmore Heritage Center during the Fillmore Jazz Festival in San Francisco on Saturday, July 4, 2026.<\/p>\n

Diana Ponce de Le\u00f3n, director of community economic development at the Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD), acknowledges why many residents remain skeptical after decades of stalled promises.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe desire has always been there,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are just restarting that process again.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is equally clear about where the current momentum originated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t come up with these at all,\u201d she said of the first activations. \u201cThe community did, and they\u2019re leveraging their partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n

OEWD is preparing a formal application process for public-facing, one-day events, with availability for up to eight activations a month through December. For now, programming is limited to the lobby, screening room and gallery while the city assesses the building\u2019s condition, needed repairs and possible future uses. By the end of the calendar year, staff will use that work and ongoing community input to develop options for the Fillmore Heritage Center\u2019s next steps.<\/p>\n

\"\"Thousands of people line the streets during the Fillmore Jazz Festival in San Francisco on Saturday, July 4, 2026.<\/p>\n

\nA community that refuses to give up\n<\/p>\n

The question of who shapes what comes next surfaced in nearly every conversation on the corridor. Not everyone is ready to call this a resurgence, including some of the people doing the work.<\/p>\n

Ashley Smiley, senior programs coordinator at the African American Art & Culture Complex, sees the Fillmore Heritage Center\u2019s reopening with both optimism and caution. As one Black cultural institution begins a new chapter, another is preparing to pause its own. The African American Art & Culture Complex is expected to suspend programming this fall while its building undergoes a seismic retrofit, and Smiley still doesn\u2019t know where the organization will land in the meantime.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack spaces are very fractured right now,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m 100% optimistic that it can be done. But in that optimism, I also want to acknowledge the things that can be adjusted, because we want sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Ashley Smiley poses for a portrait outside of the Fillmore Heritage Center during the Fillmore Jazz Festival in San Francisco on Saturday, July 4, 2026.<\/p>\n

For Smiley, the Heritage Center\u2019s reopening matters because it represents more than a single building. San Francisco\u2019s future, she argues, depends on investing in the neighborhoods where culture is created, not simply where it is presented.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe art and culture of the city that makes it important isn\u2019t just downtown,\u201d she said. \u201cIt grows here. It grows in the Fillmore, it grows in the Bayview, it grows in the Mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stakes beneath her warning are demographic as much as cultural. San Francisco\u2019s Black population has declined from 13.5% in 1970 to roughly 5% today, according to census data. Yet in interviews, many residents reached instinctively for an even smaller number: \u201c3%.\u201d It wasn\u2019t a statistic so much as a feeling, shorthand for what many believe the neighborhood has lost.<\/p>\n

\"\"Cherronda G performs on the John Coltrane Stage located next to the Fillmore Heritage Center during the Fillmore Jazz Festival in San Francisco on Saturday, July 4, 2026.<\/p>\n

Paulette Brown has spent years advocating for families affected by violence, work shaped by the loss of her son, Aubrey Abrakasa Jr., in 2006. On Saturday, she was back at 1330 Fillmore, still showing up for the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at the Heritage Center,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s open. People are having hope again. We\u2019re coming together and sticking together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked why she keeps showing up, she answered simply.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe hope will prevail,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we will all come together as one, and help each other and love on each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The people who filled this building in its first life built a neighborhood.<\/p>\n

The people filling it now are building one too.<\/p>\n

For updates on the Fillmore Heritage Center, visit the Fillmore Community Action Plan website<\/a>. The next Fillmore After Dark <\/a>night market takes place Aug. 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sun was out in San Francisco on the Fourth of July, and the corner of Fillmore and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-392337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}