San Francisco LGBT Center

Project Description

The San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center provides a comprehensive array of direct services and community development programs, primarily serving low to moderate income individuals and families.

The Center is also a nexus for the LGBT community to gather, organize, and celebrate, where it hosts over 200 programs and welcomes more than 9,000 individuals each month, in addition to providing affordable office space to nonprofits that would otherwise be priced out of San Francisco.

ECB was the Development Project Manager and Financing Advisor for the tenant improvements and enhancements. Working with Equity Community Builders and Jane Cee Architects, the Center developed a plan to significantly remodel its existing building. The plan consolidated the Center’s meeting rooms and internal staff offices/programs on the first two floors of the building, and turned the top two floors into under market rental offices for nonprofit agencies.

The consolidated and more efficient space allowed the Center to continue previous operations and expand programming, while also ensuring a consistent revenue stream from rentals. Now, for the first time in its history, the building is a revenue generator for the Center, rather than a liability, allowing the Center to focus on its core mission.

By leveraging a combination of loans, grants and New Market Tax Credits, the Center was able to finance the project, significantly improving its tenant/community spaces, and putting into place a more robust operations.