Goodwill headquarters will move to Tenderloin
Days after its former campus on Mission Street was demolished and a year after it relocated to North Beach, Goodwill Industries is on the move again.
The nonprofit organization has paid $8.3 million for 750 Post St., a 25,000-square-foot building on the northern edge of the Tenderloin. The facility, a three-story, 1914 Spanish revival structure mid-block between Leavenworth and Jones streets, will house Goodwill’s administrative offices, a 6,000-squarefoot retail store and a training center. The building most recently housed an art gallery.
“I believe we need to be closer to both the people we serve and the organizations we partner with,” Goodwill CEO William Rogers said. “For Goodwill, it’s coming home. It’s coming back to where we belong.”
Goodwill plans to sell its current home at 295 Bay St., which it bought in March 2015
for $16 million. The organization moved into the Bay Street building, which also has a small store, a year ago.
The organization hopes to open a store at the new location next spring, followed by its offices later in 2018.
News of the building acquisition caps a confusing series of moves for the San Francisco chapter of the national organization, which started locally in 1916 at 16th and Mission streets.
For decades, Goodwill had a sprawling campus at 1500-1580 Mission St. at the corner of South Van Ness Avenue that included a store, donation site, truck yard, warehouse and workforce development center.
In 2014, Goodwill sold the 2.5-acre property for $65 million to Related California. That company is developing a 39story apartment tower and a 16-story office tower, which will be owned by the city and house the Department of Public Works along with the Planning Department and Department of Building Inspection.
The Mission Street building was knocked down over the weekend, prompting a series of critical Tweets from residents who claimed the transformation of the block, and the departure of Goodwill, symbolized the gentrification transforming much of the city.
Rogers, who took over as CEO in September 2016, stopped short of criticizing the sale of the Mission Street campus, but made it clear he wants Goodwill’s various businesses to be located in “neighborhoods where we have the most impact.”
“It’s hard for me to speak to why the decision was made, but we are where we are. I’m looking forward,” he said. “I have no qualms selling that (Bay Street) building and getting us back on the track I think we need to be on. I’m a big believer that if things are not as we want them to be, we have to move very quickly to change them.”
In addition to the 750 Post St. building, Goodwill is looking to purchase a warehouse, possibly in the Bayview.
Goodwill Industries, which covers San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties, has 605 employees, including 200 retail workers in 19 stores, 160 warehouse workers, 50 in transportation and 50 in workforce training, plus others.
Rogers said the real estate moves are aimed at improving and expanding Goodwill’s mission of training a workforce that has been left out of the economic boom that has made the Bay Area among the most expensive places to live in the United States. Those people include nonviolent felons, addicts in recovery, nonEnglish speakers and those who lack training in the various technologies that are part of nearly all workplace environments.
“Every job has tech embedded in it. To pretend that people don’t need technological skills is crazy,” Rogers said. “We have an obligation and responsibility to help people catch up so they can be part of the wave of new jobs coming forward.”
The new headquarters will include a Goodwill University, where employees get training in areas including technology, retail, facilities management and warehousing.
Goodwill also recently leased 7,000 square feet in South of Market at 99 Kissling St. at 11th Street, where a training center has been established. Graduates of Goodwill’s training programs either stay with the nonprofit or land jobs with groups such as Amazon, Mollie Stone’s, and Crate & Barrel.
Rogers said the search for property was competitive. The building at 750 Post St. was marketed as a site that could be redeveloped into an 80-foot-tall mid-rise with 70 housing units.
Chris Blazer, a 28year-old Goodwill tech specialist who has been with the organization for about five years, said the move back toward the heart of the city makes sense. Blazer, who grew up in the Fillmore, was just out of jail when he went through a Goodwill jobs readiness program. Now, he helps install and maintain Goodwill’s tech platforms, from work stations to retail payment systems.
“The Tenderloin makes a lot of sense when you consider the demographic we serve,” he said. “We kind of moved away from that when we went to North Beach, although there are people here who need our help, too.”
Deborah Bouck, Goodwill’s vice president of marketing, said it’s been painful to hear criticism that has come with the razing of the iconic building at Mission and South Van Ness.
“It’s important that people know that we haven’t left — the need for our services is greater than ever,” she said.
Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. President Don Falk said he is hopeful the move into the Tenderloin will create job opportunities for the low-income residents who live in the apartments his group manages.
“I’m enthused about the prospect of Goodwill’s coming to the edge of the Tenderloin both because of the lowercost retail goods that will be more readily available to residents and because of the proximity of employment training and opportunities,” he said.