Festival Districts

The Market Street Prototyping Festival builds upon a larger effort to redesign Market Street. Over the past several years, the City’s Better Market Street project has gathered extensive community feedback, with a clear response that the public wants a more vibrant and positive experience on Market Street. The City has responded with a commitment to redesigned sidewalks and “Street Life Zones” that make our public space more active, vibrant and engaging. These are the zones we asked the community to reimagine and activate during the Festival.

Design Captains

Each festival district is overseen by a local design expert organization who’s role is to advise the prototyper teams within their associated district from concept to design to construction to help each team realize a well-crafted, durable, and beautiful prototype.

Central Market

7th Street to Mason Street

The face of the Tenderloin on Market Street, this district is experiencing the most dynamic changes of all of the Market Street districts. It is home to an array of artistic and cultural places, performance venues, public spaces, housing and a noticeable civic presence.

Historic theaters like the Orpheum and the Warfield are reminders of this district’s history in the entertainment circuit.Currently, there are many exciting plans underway to bring this identity back to life. At the same time, many new companies are making the diverse and culturally rich Central Market their new home, paving the way for much change in the near future.

District Captain

David Baker Architects

Retail Heart

5th Street to 3rd Street

The main shopping district of the city, this area attracts locals and visitors alike to the myriad shops, hotels, and offices. The district is home to large and medium-scale retail and commercial buildings and hotels, many built in the early 20th century and retaining their historic character.

The district is the central nexus between Union Square to the north, the heart of the retail district, the Westfield San Francisco Center, Hallidie Plaza, Moscone Center and the Yerba Buena Arts District. Within a stone’s throw of this area is a mix of world-class museums, convention space, hotels, community social service organizations, senior housing, below market rate housing, luxury condos and diverse small businesses.

District Captain

California College of the Arts

Embarcadero

Fremont Street to Embarcadero

With a rich maritime history, the waterfront terminus of Market Street is celebrated by bringing urban activity to the water, and bringing the unique character of the Ferry Building and water’s edge back to the city.

The tall commercial buildings of the Financial District give way to plazas, parks and urban recreation along the waterfront, inviting tourists and locals alike to experience the bustling Ferry Building, which opened in 1898 as the wooden Ferry House, the focal point for anyone arriving by train from the East, or workers coming to the city by ferry from Marin or the East Bay. Today the ferry building is not only a transportation hub, but is a farm-to-table, made-in-San Francisco marketplace.

District Captain

Autodesk