"has had many lives: valet parking for the now-shuttered Nordstrom, the site of a proposed development that would have provided 494 units of housing if the city hadn't rejected it in 2021 and, in the early months of the Lurie administration, a " triage center" that police hoped would serve as a one-stop shop for getting people into drug treatment, getting people bus tickets out of town or just getting them arrested more efficiently."
""A lot of people are angry," said Michèle Jones, a nearby resident. Jones, who was unhoused until recently, said she went to the "oasis" park "more than 100 times" before its closure. The coffee was good, she said, and the restrooms were clean. "People were getting things, they could sit down and actually relax," she said. " And now, not being able to, that's a hard thing for people to deal with.""
"It was modeled after a similar park at Turk and Hyde streets in the Tenderloin, which opened in 2022. That "oasis" continues to operate. Last summer, Lurie visited Sixth Street, along with his Instagram followers, and pointed out the parking lot "oasis" as one of the city's successes in the neighborhood. "We've got a long way to go, that's no question ... But it's looking better, at least at this moment, so we'll take it," he said in an Aug. 21 video."
The parking lot at 469 Stevenson St., near Sixth Street in SoMa, has served multiple uses: valet parking, a proposed 494-unit development rejected in 2021, a police "triage center" early in the Lurie administration, and an Urban Alchemy-run "oasis" where residents accessed coffee, restrooms and social space. The oasis closed in early January and the lot returned to parking. Longtime users and nearby residents, including Michèle Jones, expressed anger and loss after the closure. The oasis was part of a Sixth Street improvement effort modeled on a Tenderloin site, and city officials previously showcased it as a neighborhood success.
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