It's no secret that SF’s Mid-Market home to many Broadway theaters and concert venues can be a little rough around the edges, so the district's Supervisor Bilal Mahmood hopes to jazz it up as a “theater arts district.”

It is a rather unfortunate thing for theater-goers that many of SF’s biggest Broadway-type show venues are in the Mid-Market part of town that some might describe as a sort of skid row. Though this is great for the panhandlers, and in turn, that may be good for the drug dealers.

But that district’s Supervisor Bilal Mahmood thinks he has an idea to disinfect that blight for not only the theater crowd that hits the Orpheum, Golden Gate, and ACT Strand theaters, but also the concert-going set rolling up to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium or The Warfield. NBC Bay Area reports that Mahmood is proposing to establish a theater arts district on Market Street between Fifth and Ninth streets.

“The idea basically is that if you walk down Market Street, it is the economic engine of for the city arts and culture, now there is a lot of focus on downtown and office and tech, but really not enough focus on the arts and culture which has been the beating heart of our city for so long,” Mahmood told NBC Bay Area. “So imagine art-filled crosswalks that actually feature your favorite plays and musicals, interactive imagery and lighting and LED lighting and billboards that actually indicate with San Francisco character,” Mahmood said.

Mahmood’s tweet above also references “street performances and small business activations to bring energy and foot traffic,” which sounds a lot like the seasonal Unstaged block parties that started in 2024 as a First Thursday party, and in 2025 moved to being a Third Thursday party.

Of course, anyone can tell you that spillover Tenderloin sketchiness is basically the whole problem with Mid-Market, so any revival of the neighborhood would have to address that. Mahmood insists his plan will, with existing increased SFPD foot patrols, the nearly three-year-old Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, and some new small business grants going out from the  Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

Mahmood estimates the plan would cost $5 million, most of which he hopes to round up through private philanthropic donations. And tellingly, his tweet declares that anyone who is “interested in helping, please reach out and let's partner to create the Theater Arts District together.”

Related: Mid-Market Block Party ‘Unstaged’ Returns Thursday, This Time With To-Go Cocktails [SFist]

Image: Helen L via Yelp