Challenges in Ground Floor Retail

When new apartment and office buildings are built, Bay Area cities often require developers to include retail space on the ground floor. The goal s to create vibrant neighborhoods by encouraging foot traffic and what urban planners call street “activation.” And yet, many of these spaces are vacant all over the region from downtown San Francisco to Concord. We’ll talk about the challenges of filling up ground-floor retail, and if we should be changing the way we design buildings and neighborhoods.

Guests:

Sujata Srivastava, chief policy officer, SPUR - a nonprofit public policy organization in the San Francisco Bay Area

Alex Sagues, commercial real estate broker specializing in retail; senior vice president, CRBE

Dr. Daniel G. Chatman, professor and chair of the department of city and regional planning in the college of environmental design, UC Berkeley

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