Orange tier raises hopes for ailing S.F. downtown
San Francisco lifted a handful of coronavirus restrictions Tuesday as cases continued to drop, and allowed offices to partially reopen for the first time since a brief period in the fall.
“Downtown is going to start to come alive again,” Mayor London Breed said Tuesday, celebrating the city’s advance to the orange tier of the state’s reopening plan that loosened some restrictions on business and other activities.
Breed, in an orange dress to mark the occasion, held a news briefing in the city’s desolate downtown to herald the move to the second restrictive level in the state’s reopening plan. Two more Bay Area counties, Santa Clara and Marin, also achieved the same benchmark Tuesday, while San Mateo County moved into the orange tier earlier this month.
Relaxed restrictions will start Wednesday.
As part of the changes announced Tuesday, bars, breweries, wineries and distilleries that don’t serve food can open for outdoor table service Wednesday. Other indoor activities, like dining and shopping, may increase to 50% capacity.
Downtown San Francisco was hit particularly hard by shelterinplace rules put in place more than a year ago, missing its typical daily buzz of office workers.
While employees are still encouraged to work from home, the orange tier will allow San Francisco offices to reopen at up to 25%. Conference and meeting rooms must also maintain 25% capacity.
But even with a green light to reopen, it’s unclear how many companies will immediately bring back employees. Many tech companies, like Salesforce and Facebook, have said their employees can work remotely until at least the summer. Others, like Twitter, have said their employees can work from home indefinitely.
Breed, speaking outside the global headquarters of Twilio, a San Francisco tech company working remotely for the past year, said she is hopeful returning workers will bring life back to downtown.
“I’m tired of working from home,” Breed said. “I think most people can agree, working from home is boring.”
The Twilio offices were a symbolic backdrop, as CEO Jeff Lawson has promised to keep his company and family in the city, even as many highprofile tech titans have fled during the pandemic.
“It’s so exciting to be entering the orange tier because it’s an opportunity to start rebuilding and start coming together,” Lawson said Tuesday. “We have employees all around the world. But San Francisco is our headquarters. And San Francisco is our home.”
As the officials spoke Tuesday at an empty Rincon Center, one customer sat inside of Hair Shaper, a salon just a few feet away.
Prepandemic, hairstylist Holly Vo said nearly every chair would be full, and people would be sitting in the waiting area. She said she is looking forward to the offices opening again.
“We have been waiting for them,” she said.
Fast, an online checkout tech company in San Francisco, said it would welcome employees back in its Ninth Street offices Wednesday for the first time since November, when the city went back into a strict lockdown.
Chief Communications Officer Jason Alderman said among the company’s 56 employees, about 10 to 14 people “can’t wait to get in.” No one will be forced to go back to the office.
He said the company will have an internal signup sheet to control how many people can come into the office on a given day. The company has placed hand sanitizer throughout the building and removed some desks to enforce 6foot distancing. It will also require workers to wear masks.
Alderman said he was eager to go back to the office, mainly because he missed his coworkers and the creativity and collaboration of inperson work. Alderman said he even missed his commute on BART from the East Bay.
“That’s the last thing I thought I’d ever say,” he said.
Breed said the city is also in discussions with the Giants and Warriors to determine how to reopen Oracle Park and the Chase Center. The orange tier guidelines allow liveaudience sports only in outdoor settings, at 20% capacity, but the mayor’s office said the discussions relating to the indoor Chase Center are in the nature of longterm exploration for the day when indoor spectators again are allowed.
“We’re working out the specifics in terms of the capacity and what the requirements will be for testing and those who are vaccinated,” Breed said. “Once we finalize those plans, they will be made public.”
San Francisco is being slightly more conservative than what the state allows in its reopening plan.
“We’re proceeding with caution,” Breed said. “Because we don’t want to slide backward.”
For example, while the state suggests offices and retail can reopen with modifications in the orange tier, it doesn’t specify what those capacity limits should be. But San Francisco is allowing offices to reopen at only 25% capacity and indoor retail at 50%.
Santa Clara County is going with the state guidelines, but health director Dr. Sara Cody warned Tuesday that momentum on the improving trends is slowing.
“We should take a moment to celebrate and feel good,” she told the county supervisors, but she advised them, “Marry that celebratory mood with caution. We are beginning to see signs that we are stalling out.” Cody said indicator numbers are flattening at fairly high levels instead of the lower plateaus that would indicate safety.
Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s health director, said city COVID19 data has been encouraging. On Tuesday, he said, 35 COVID19 patients were in hospitals across San Francisco — the lowest number in four months. He said the city is averaging 31 new coronavirus cases a day, compared to more than 370 a day during the winter surge.
About 40% of S.F. residents over 16 have been vaccinated, officials said. At least 50% of those over 65 have been fully vaccinated, with close to 80% of them having received at least their first dose of the twodose regimens.
“We’re ready to be done,” Colfax said. “We’re not there yet.”
The slight hope that downtown San Francisco may start coming back to life was welcome news for Gary Thorn, owner of Rincon Flowers, who said his business has been impacted “big time” over the past year.
Much of his money at the corner of Mission and Spear used to be made from people grabbing a bouquet for a coworker on their way to work, or for a spouse on their way home. Now, only a few people stop by each day.
But, he said, he’s confident the area — and the city as a whole — will eventually come back to life.
“There’s a lot of offices that are gone, but people are going to come back,” he said. “It’s San Francisco!”