Loading the cityReal streets of San Francisco
City & County of San Francisco · method
Every incoming record is matched to an official address and block / lot. We then look for independent evidence. OpenStreetMap tells us where the street is. It does not tell us if the storefront is empty.
Signals we reconcile: DBI registration or inspection, Commercial Vacancy Tax filing, active leasing listing, closed or inactive business registration, owner / OEWD / CBD confirmation, dated field observation, and permits that suggest construction, change of use, or reopening.
Interior condition — turnkey, modest work, or cold shell — cannot be read from public records alone. That gap is labeled, not guessed. Downtown large plates, Mission Street papered windows, and Excelsior grandfathered spaces fail for different reasons; the book keeps those workflows apart.
Two paths to a bay: pay a broker a fee, or do the research yourself. The DIY path is why people bounce. They Google the address, then PIM, then permits, then Yelp, then Maps, then Zillow, then a listing site — trying to reconstruct who was here and how to reach the owner. The records exist. They do not live in one place. Block Book is the aggregator — one case file, already searched to this lot.
If you need an answer today and you would rather pay: call a corridor broker, then walk into the Permit Center at 49 South Van Ness. The owner name is not posted online (California law). PIM has the parcel. The Recorder has the deed. A CBD or OSB intro is the free human path.
The problem · who · the idea · why · 90 days
The problem. Zoning is in PIM. The vacancy tax is on a map. Listings talk about the offices above. The history of the storefront is public — and scattered. Nobody has one file that says: is this bay empty, who was last here, and can a shop live on this sidewalk?
Who can use it. Someone opening a shop. Someone helping them find a bay. City staff who already pull the same address by hand. We do not replace the broker or PIM. We start the file so they are not starting from Google.
The idea. One case file per storefront: a graded vacancy claim, live city history already queried to this door, and a street read — spend, hours, and what the last tenant left. Interior stays unknown until someone walks it. This demo is a pilot, not a census.
Why it matters. Today you pay a fee, wait in a line, or walk every dark window. If the file exists, the next shop gets a shortlist, history already pulled, and a read that maps cannot write.
The next 90 days. One downtown corridor and one neighborhood corridor on real filings, with source badges. East Cut or Mid-Market, plus the Mission or Richmond. That inventory still does not exist in City Hall.