Lured By Tax Breaks, Burning Man HQ Follows Twitter to SF Mid-Market
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – San Francisco's Mid-Market neighborhood has added a new tenant to its growing roster of businesses persuaded to relocate to the beleaguered stretch of Market Street: the Burning Man headquarters.
Burning Man/Black Rocks Arts Foundation LLC joins Twitter and Pearl's Deluxe Burgers as the fruits of the city's efforts to transform the drug and crime-ridden corridor into an arts and culture district.
KCBS' Bob Melrose Reports:
Burning Man will sign a lease for a space at Sixth and Market streets, several blocks from where Twitter is planning to move in at Ninth and Market streets, Mayor Ed Lee said Wednesday.
"We are building on the synergy of the creative arts and innovative technology to revive and transform our Central Market community," Lee said in a statement.
"Like Twitter, Burning Man embodies innovation and will lead to the creation of new jobs, a sense of community, and services to an under-served area," he said.
The Board of Supervisors took the first of two votes Tuesday to establish a payroll tax exclusion for certain businesses in the Central Market and Tenderloin neighborhoods.
Burning Man will sign a lease at 995 Market St. for 19,000 square feet of office space.
"Burning Man is thrilled to become a key player in the efforts to revitalize Central Market through arts, culture and the creative economy," Burning Man founder Larry Harvey said in a statement.
Burning Man has already been working with the city to install public art projects along Market Street, according to the mayor's office. Two 15-foot metal flowers will be unveiled in May.
The group was recruited by the Central Market Partnership, a public/private effort to revitalize the neighborhood through business and arts venue development, safety enhancements and financial incentives.
Pearl's Deluxe Burgers will open at Sixth and Market streets this summer.
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