University of California considers S.F. for expansion

The University of California is considering expanding its presence in San Francisco after Mayor London Breed reached out to persuade the university system to grow its footprint downtown. 

A spokesperson for the UC Office of the President — which serves as the Oakland-based headquarters for the university system’s 10 campuses, five medical centers and three affiliated national laboratories — said the system is “exploring opportunities to advance their research, public service, and education mission through an expanded presence in San Francisco.” 

UC Office of the President spokesperson Rachel Zaentz added that UC Berkeley is also involved in this effort. Both the president’s office and UC Berkeley are looking at options in response to a letter penned by Mayor London Breed in May to the UC Board of Regents requesting that it consider opening a new campus in downtown San Francisco. More than one-third of the space inside of the city’s office towers is sitting vacant due to increasing remote work in the wake of the pandemic.

It is unclear whether any specific downtown commercial properties have been pitched to UC Office of the president, though it is no secret that Breed has been eager to find viable reuse options for San Francisco’s largest shopping mall: the former Westfield San Francisco Centre at 865 Market St., which was seized by its lenders last year amid an exodus of its retail tenants. On Friday, new documents showed the value of the San Francisco Centre had plunged by nearly $1 billion.

In the letter to the regents, Breed said that “bringing students into the heart of San Francisco affords a set of remarkable opportunities” and it would give young people access to “a vibrant and world class metropolitan center, and could also serve to alleviate some of your critical student housing shortfalls at both UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco.”

UC Office of the President officials met Friday to discuss the possibility. Jeff Cretan, Breed’s spokesperson, said Friday that the parties are in “continuing conversations,” but that there are “no concrete proposals. We are exploring a lot of different options.”

“While we cannot discuss details of the conversations currently underway, as a powerful economic driver for the state, the University is committed to strategies that invigorate local economies and offer exciting educational and research opportunities for UC students and faculty,” the UC Office of the President spokesperson said in an email to the Chronicle this week.

Additionally, Dan Mogulof, a spokesperson for UC Berkeley, said on Thursday that the university is “always interested in options that are viable” for adding housing for its graduate students. 

The ongoing “exploratory discussions” also involve “potentially buildings for academic purposes,” Mogulof said. “The only thing that’s not on the table for us is undergraduate housing in San Francisco.”

UC Berkeley already has one campus extension in downtown San Francisco, where it occupies space inside of a 19-story office tower at 160 Spear St. for its art and design programs. No changes are planned to that location, Mogulof said.

UC Berkeley has for some time been advertising a “new off campus option” for graduates this fall in San Francisco at 198 McAllister, a recently developed residential building that is part of the UC College of the Law San Francisco’s — formerly UC Hastings — “academic village,” though officials at the law school have cited frustration with the area’s street conditions and safety. 

“Right now, there are several paths being considered,” Zaentz reiterated on Friday.

In July, UC Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti told the Chronicle that the idea of bringing a campus to downtown San Francisco “is one of the best directions I’ve heard recently for helping downtown. The potential economic benefits are substantial, locally and citywide, and regionally.”

Others cautioned that an ambitious project like opening a new campus downtown would be a challenge and take time. David Faigman, chancellor and dean at UC College of the Law San Francisco, told the Chronicle in July that if a new university started with a few buildings and gradually expanded, it might open within five years. “Anything less would be heroic and unlikely,” he said.