Proposal would move Hall of Justice to Mid-Market buildings

The real question is not whether San Francisco can shuffle another public building. It is whether moving the Hall of Justice and Police Academy into surplus Mid-Market offices would change what people see on the sidewalk outside, from more foot traffic and police presence to safer corners and busier storefronts.

That is the bet behind a proposal gaining traction from Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents District 6, including Mid-Market, SoMa and Civic Center. Dorsey has already pushed to keep other city offices in Mid-Market rather than see them drift toward the Financial District, casting city tenants as a way to anchor blocks that still feel the aftershock of COVID-era decline.

The timing is hard to miss. Downtown still has 18.4 million square feet of empty office space, and SF.gov says office vacancy remains a key measure of the city’s post-pandemic recovery. In June 2025, Mayor Daniel Lurie signed downtown revitalization financing legislation aimed at converting vacant and underused office and commercial buildings. City analysis said 50 properties in the new district could support more than 4,000 housing units, a sign of how much empty space remains in play.

Mid-Market has been through this before. The 2011 Twitter tax break was supposed to jump-start the corridor, and by 2019 the neighborhood had seen billions in investment, 10,000 new jobs and 4,000 new housing units. Yet business owners still described it as defined by crime, drugs, garbage, vacant storefronts and stalled development. Bringing the Hall of Justice closer to that street grid would make the government itself part of the neighborhood’s daily rhythm, not just another downtown landlord.

The Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant Street is no small piece of civic real estate. San Francisco Public Works says the building, built in 1958, is part of the Justice Facilities Improvement Program, the city’s long-term plan to replace it. City materials describe it as seismically vulnerable and functionally obsolete. In 2019, city officials announced a new police facility in the Bayview because the Traffic Company and several Forensic Services Division functions were still housed in the Hall of Justice, which the city said was not seismically safe.

Replacement plans have been moving slowly for years. Records show Hall of Justice replacement has been a priority in the city’s 10-Year Capital Plan since 2006, and a 2015 proposal for a replacement jail was rejected by the Board of Supervisors. That history makes the Mid-Market idea look like more than a property swap. It is a test of whether San Francisco wants its justice system, and the people who work in it, to help remake a neighborhood that has been waiting for a durable civic anchor.