Yea that's why building the warriors stadium there was a great idea, it will bring the much needed foot traffic during games or concerts for more business to open up.
Is this sarcastic? Stadiums are dead zones. During the game everybody is in the stadium. When there's no game you have a completely empty block. Before and after games you have huge crowds coming and going.
Basketball (41 home games + playoffs) and baseball (81 + playoffs) are much better attractors than football (8 games + playoffs). Football stadiums are also much larger. The Staples Center in LA, Camden Yards in Baltimore, Wrigley in Chicago, and Fenway in Boston are all great in this regard.
Not to mention at ~18,000 seats and enclosed, it should be able to host tons of other events. So you'll have 41 NBA games during the year but also dozens of attractions -- they're planning on ~200 events per year.
This helps, but it's still kind of a problem if you have an "event space" that nobody ever visits outside of events. Portland's Rose Quarter is like this, for instance - in theory it's an entertainment district, but literally all that happens there is (a) scheduled events and (b) people crossing between transit lines, so most of the time most of the area is just a big expanse of empty unused concrete.
It may take more than just the event space. The grandparent gives good examples and notes basketball and baseball are better attractors.
My town, Indianapolis, manages to integrate most events right into the downtown along with the convention center, hotels, and the financial district. Lucas Oil Field and Victory Field are around the corner on the edge of downtown; that section feels slightly more dead. But Banker's Life Fieldhouse is right there in walking distance and hosts concerts, circuses, Disney on Ice, etc., in addition to the main draw of NBA and WNBA games. So there are multiple events per week, plus conferences and conventions during the week. Plus youth sports events. When you add up the hustle and bustle of weekday office business, restaurants, and all the events, it feels like there's always something going on. Somehow all that fits in a relatively small downtown. There are no expansive parking lots like one might expect for a football stadium outside the city, so that helps the feel; I don't know where people park when Lucas Oil is full but somehow they get there.
No I wasn't trying to be sarcastic, I really think its a good idea. San Francisco is not like any other typical American city, any big singer/artist on tour will come to San Francisco and this will be the only big event arena in the City. Owners are expecting 200 events/year.. That's a lot days when the streets of mission bay will be filled with 20k people.
I lived by a stadium (where the Sonics used to play), and let me tell you, it sucked. Either the neighborhood was dead or it was crammed with cars and people just passing through. It was never fun.
To echo your thoughts, I lived in Cow Hollow and on the days of big events (blue angels, union street festival) I stayed inside. I don't mind tourists, and I love busy streets, but I'll pass on the traffic and asshats, that generally don't care about the neighborhood, that large events like these invite.
+1. Someone mentioned the Los Angeles Staples Center elsewhere in this thread as a positive example. I live in South Park (the neighborhood that Staples Center is part of) and it is either empty or gridlocked. Same thing with the Coliseum, Forum, and Dodger Stadium.
I used to live at 3rd & Mariposa, right at the edge of the Dog Patch and Mission Bay and ball game days were awful. My commute would be awful especially on public transit; going out would be impossible.
I totally agree with you. It took years for South Beach / Ballpark in SF to become anything that remotely resembles a neighborhood. I remember considering it, briefly in 2008, but my gf decided it wasn't safe enough for her. I didn't like the lack of city amenities.
There is more now, but that's been driven by nightlife chasing after post-work startup people, presumably needing to find somewhere to drink after a rough day :-)
