Vacant store in Noe Valley on the market
After 14 years, the hole in the heart of Noe Valley may finally be filled.
HGGC, the private equity group co-founded by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young, is putting the vacant former home of Real Food at 3861 24th St. on the market and plans to sell it to a housing developer.
The news comes less than a week after HGGC closed on the acquisition of Nutraceutical International, a health supplements company in Park City, Utah, that closed the store on Labor Day 2003, after the 30 employees at the organic grocer started to unionize.
In a statement Young said his group is “al-
ready moving forward with plans to sell the property so that it can be redeveloped for the good of the community.” HGGC bought Nutraceutical for its primary health supplement business and is not in the business of developing real estate.
“We are optimistic that we will find a buyer with ties to Noe Valley and we are working hard to achieve the best outcome, as we know that the property is highly valued by local residents,” said Young, a Hall of Fame quarterback and managing director of of the Palo Alto private equity group.
The store’s closure, which was done without notice, was the start of a long, acrimonious battle between Real Food workers and Nutraceutical, which in 2009 was ordered by the National Labor Relations Board to pay the workers $371,219.
San Francisco resident Kimball Allen opened the Noe Valley store in 1970, and Nutraceutical bought that location and two more Real Food stores in 2002.
Former Supervisors Scott Wiener and Bevan Dufty spent years pressuring Nutraceutical to either develop or sell the Noe Valley property. Wiener even flew to Park City to meet with the owners and was told the site would be developed. But not much progress was made toward redeveloping the property.
“It’s a real blight on the neighborhood,” said Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, who represents the neighborhood. “It’s central and it’s been sitting empty for a long time. It’s great we finally have some movement on this.”
The sale comes at a time when Noe Valley’s commercial strip is riddled with about 15 vacancies. Businesses that have recently closed or have announced plans to shutter include Good News, Radio Shack, See Jane Run, La PanotiQ, Cask House, and the Mill.
“All these empty storefronts are not helping anybody,” said Rachel Swann, president of Noe Valley Merchants. “I know development takes time, but I would challenge the Planning Department and Mayor Ed Lee to move quickly. We don’t have two years. We need people in these spaces now.”
Both Swann and Debra Niemann, executive director of the Noe Valley Association community benefits district, are pushing a market hall concept with multiple small mom-and-pop food outlets.
Todd David, a Noe Valley resident who is executive director of the Housing Action Coalition, said his group will pressure the eventual developer to consider a project under Home-SF, the city’s new housing density program that gives builders an extra two floors of height in exchange for making 30 percent of the units affordable to households with low and moderate incomes.
“This would be a perfect location for Home-SF,” he said. J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen