"Newsom came to us and said, 'Hey, I want to do this thing called CBDs. Can you convince property owners to vote to tax themselves?'" That's how Debra Niemann remembers the start of the Noe Valley Association, in a September 2026 Noe Valley Voice profile. At the time she was president of Friends of Noe Valley. Gavin Newsom was mayor, and a CBD, or community benefit district, was a new idea to almost everyone in the room.
Twenty years later, nearly everything on 24th Street that looks cared for traces back to that question. The sidewalks are swept every morning. Flower baskets hang from the poles, and the benches get their broken slats replaced. The Town Square at 3861 24th St. runs free concerts on Friday evenings. The city didn't hand any of this to the neighborhood. Property owners agreed to fund it, by a narrow vote, and a small nonprofit pays the Square's event bills before the city reimburses it.
On Saturday, Oct. 24, the Town Square's 10th anniversary and the Noe Valley Association's 20th get one shared party. Here's what the two groups actually built and how it gets paid for.
Fifty-two to forty-eight
Starting the district was hard. San Francisco forms a CBD through a weighted ballot, and only property owners inside the proposed boundaries vote. Niemann and a small group met for dinner every other month to work out the boundaries and figure out which owners they needed to bring along. The group included Carol Yenne of Small Frys, representing the Noe Valley Merchants Association. Robert Ramsey and David Eiland, founders of Just for Fun & Scribbledoodles, were there too. So were Paul Kantus of the East & West of Castro Street Improvement Club and Bob Roddick of Noe Valley Law.
Niemann told the Voice the pitch came down to "one-on-one conversations": owners were promised the first year would cost no more than $1,200. The proposal passed 52–48, and the Board of Supervisors approved it in the summer of 2005. When the district came up for renewal in January 2020, it passed 76–24, which extends it through 2035. Over 15 years, a coin-flip vote turned into a three-to-one margin. The district stays the same size. Niemann says it's the smallest geographically of San Francisco's 16 CBDs.
What the work covers came from residents. Niemann held community meetings where people got "fake money" and pictures of possible improvements, and were asked to spend it on what they wanted. That exercise produced a list of 12 priorities. She says the NVA has since done every one of them.
What the assessment pays for, by the numbers
Most of this work is easy to miss because it happens before the shops open. Here are the figures Niemann gave the Voice for the district today:
| Item | Scale |
|---|---|
| Sidewalk and gutter sweeping | Seven days a week |
| High-pressure sidewalk steam-cleaning | Nine times a year, March through November |
| Hanging flower baskets on 24th Street | 21, watered every day |
| Community benches | 28 |
| Street trees planted | 127 |
| Sidewalk gardens / public parklets / planters | 9 / 2 / 22 |
| Graffiti removed | More than 1,000 marks a year |
| Calls to 311 handled for trash and street issues | More than 1,000 a year |
A few details show how the NVA works. The four solar-powered Bigbelly trash cans installed in 2023 sit at 24th and Castro, 24th and Noe near the Town Square, and 24th and Church. The association also secured money to maintain its benches over time, and Niemann's rule for that is "You need to show that you can maintain what you put in." The banners showing Noe Valley homes came out of her advertising background. They're popular enough that she prints extras to sell.
The assessment is only part of the budget. Niemann says the NVA has received every city grant it has applied for. Those grants have paid for benches, recycling bins, tree planting and programming at the Town Square. Her pitch is that owners' assessment dollars give her the standing to bring in more money.
A former gas station that cost $4.2 million
The Town Square came out of a separate campaign that ended up depending on the same nonprofit. The site had been a gas station and later a parking lot owned by Noe Valley Ministry. Residents for Noe Valley Town Square formed in 2010 to try to buy it, with the San Francisco Parks Alliance as fiscal sponsor. Todd David was the group's spokesperson and Chris Keene was one of its organizers.
The money came in stages:
- Acquisition, 2013. The Recreation and Park Department bought the parcel in June 2013 for $4.2 million. The Rec and Park Commission's approval set aside $342,500 of that for environmental cleanup. The May 2013 Voice reported that the city purchase eliminated a $2 million fundraising need for the neighbors.
- State and federal grants, 2014. A Rec and Park capital report lists $567,030 from the state's Strategic Growth Urban Greening program and $743,543 from Land & Water Conservation.
- Neighbors. Todd David raised more than half a million dollars from residents. Building the plaza was reported to cost $2.8 million.
The ribbon was cut on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016, as Hoodline reported the next day.
How a free Friday concert gets paid for
The NVA comes back into the story here. As a 501(c)(3), it's the Town Square's fiscal sponsor. It pays for programming at the Square first and then gets the money back through city grants. The Square's own site credits its events to support from the SF Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the Noe Valley Association. An NVA CBD crew sets out the Square's furniture every morning. Moira Leslie Crawford, a co-founder of both the Square and the Noe Valley Farmers Market, credits Niemann with making that happen.
So the Square was bought with city money and built with grants and neighbors' donations. Its free events run because a property-owner-funded nonprofit fronts the money until the city reimburses it. Crawford is the "creative brains" behind those events, as Niemann puts it.
Neighbors still raise money directly too. This summer, Town Square co-founder Chris Keene started a GoFundMe with a $1,000 donation. The goal was an electric cooler for the truck that Herr Farms, a Saturday farmers market vendor, uses to bring its harvest to Noe Valley. Market customers gave more than $12,000. Farm owner Kua Herr told the Voice, "The people in this community have been very generous and have made my life a thousand times better."
October on the Square
The anniversary falls in a busy month. Here's what's still ahead on the Town Square's events page:
- Sundays, Oct. 11 and 25, 11 a.m. to noon: free community yoga with Yoga Flow SF. There's no class Oct. 18, and after this month classes return April 11, 2027.
- Sunday, Oct. 18, 10 a.m. to noon: S.T.E.A.M. in the Square, with hands-on projects for kids ages 2 to 6 from SF Tikes Academy and SF S.T.E.A.M. Academy.
- Friday, Oct. 23, 5 to 6 p.m.: Le Jazz Hot, with the Hot Club of San Francisco playing Manouche jazz. It's part of the Fridays at 5 series, and Haystack Pizza and the Vibe Truck are nearby for food and drinks. The series is a partnership with Noe Music, which runs Sunday afternoon concerts at the Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez.
- Saturday, Oct. 24, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.: the NVTS 10th and NVA 20th anniversary disco party. It doubles as a sendoff for Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who is finishing his final term as District 8 supervisor.
- Tuesday, Oct. 27, 4:30 to 8:30 p.m.: the Noe Valley Night Market, with more than 40 booths, face painting, a bounce house and music hosted by emcee Lambert Moss. It falls exactly ten years after the ribbon-cutting. At the August edition, SFGATE reported the street was closed between Sanchez and Vicksburg.
The farmers market runs every Saturday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The shops along the swept sidewalks
The assessment pays for the sidewalks. It doesn't pick the tenants. The Voice's September business column shows a corridor where some shops are leaving, some are reopening and some are returning, and one of the CBD's founders is in the middle of it.
Carol Yenne, who sat at those early organizing dinners, is moving Small Frys from 3985 24th St. back to 4066 24th St., where the children's clothing store opened 34 years ago. Moonshot Studio, the candle shop that has been there since 2018, planned to leave at the end of September. Yenne says she hopes to reopen in January after an extensive remodel, with more clothing for older kids.
Other changes from the same column:
- Fresca, the Peruvian restaurant at 3945 24th St., reopened Aug. 24 after almost eight years closed for remodeling.
- Pressed Juicery at 3901 24th St., at Sanchez, closed in mid-August. A Maven Commercial sign is out front looking for a tenant for the 1,000-square-foot space.
- Alice's Restaurant, at 1599 Sanchez at 29th Street, closed at the end of August when owners James and Sharon Sung retired after 30 years. The staff moved to Eric's Restaurant at 1500 Church, which shares many of Alice's dishes. A customer says Sharon Sung told him a Vietnamese restaurant would open in the space "in about four months."
- 4148 24th St., the building Persimmon Acupuncture occupies, is the site of a developer's planned five-story apartment building. The practice told the Voice it plans to relocate and hopes to stay in Noe Valley or nearby.
For the restaurant side of the corridor, see our earlier look at what's new to eat in Noe Valley. Through all of this turnover, the porters still sweep seven days a week and the 21 baskets still get watered every day. Bob Roddick, a former NVA president, told the Voice the district has built "a community that persists through economic uncertainty." The 2020 renewal keeps the assessment in place through 2035, so property owners won't vote on it again for about nine years.
If you own a home or a storefront near 24th Street and want to understand how the corridor's upkeep, turnover and new projects like 4148 24th St. affect your property, Level Up Group follows Noe Valley block by block. Schedule a consultation, and look at our Noe Valley neighborhood page before the party on the 24th.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
