The stretch of Market Street between Powell Street and Civic Center has long been the subject of great hope for city officials, and those hopes have been raised and dashed many times over the years.

Since at least 2007 or so, San Francisco officials have said that change was coming to Mid-Market, and that change has come in the form of the Twitter Building renovation (and the infamous Twitter tax break), the opening of the Proper Hotel, that six-story mall that sat empty for most of a decade before IKEA took it over last year, and the LINE Hotel/Serif condos building that just opened in 2022.

The recent revamp of UN Plaza into a skate park also counts toward the city's efforts to "clean up" the area, which has for many years been an extension of the open-air drug markets of the Tenderloin and Sixth Street.

The latest proposal, as the Chronicle reports today, is a monthly closure of Market Street to create a block party between Fifth and Sixth streets — to coincide with Downtown First Thursdays, the so-far successful activation effort on several blocks of Second Street the first Thursday of every month this summer and fall.

The group behind the proposal is the Mid-Market Business Association, whose executive director Steve Gibson admits to the Chronicle that the area "still has a long ways to go."

Noting things like the opening of IKEA's food hall, Saluhal, Gibson says, "The momentum has turned and is going the right direction. You can feel it even as you walk down the sidewalk. There are more people."

Gibson also notes to the Chronicle that a new bar has applied for a liquor license for the space at 992 Market Street in the Warfield Building, which was formerly occupied by wine bar Waystone.

The business association wants to get a permit for an "entertainment zone," like the one being used on Second Street, and one that's happening on Front Street in the Financial District as well. This would allow people to carry alcoholic drinks outside within the zone, and create the ability to have nighttime events and music that would draw new crowds to the area.

Marisa Rodriguez, CEO of the Union Square Alliance, tells the Chronicle that her group is also looking to apply for one of these "entertainment zone" permits, and they are meeting to discuss what the boundaries of it might be around Union Square.

As for the Mid-Market effort, that group has apparently already received $400,000 from the city to get the block party off the ground.

It's not clear when the first event would happen.

Related: Civic Joy Fund Hopes to Liven Up SF's Downtown With Launch of Downtown First Thursdays