What’s NEW in San Francisco (April/May 2026)

A landmark Pacific Heights mansion has just been transformed into one of the most important design events in the entire country. A brand new food hall is about to open at the best new park in San Francisco. A top-tier university is exploring a potential satellite campus in the city. One of the most important and iconic tourist destinations in San Francisco just sold to new investors. And one of the largest mixed-use developments in San Francisco's history might finally be moving forward after years of delays and lawsuits. This is Austin Klar, your lawyer and real estate agent in San Francisco, and there can be zero debate that San Francisco has exited its doom loop and is back on a positive trajectory. There are so many incredible events, restaurants, retail spaces, and real estate ventures breaking ground all over the city. And in this video, I'm breaking down the biggest news stories you might have missed last month, each of which show how different facets of San Francisco's economy are trending up after several tough years. Let's get right to it and start with the most insane renovation you'll probably ever see in a single-family home with the 47th Annual Decorator Showcase. A 130-year-old Pacific Heights mansion has been turned into a living, breathing museum of interior design Every year, a prestigious San Francisco mansion is chosen to be the site of the decorator showcase, where a different designer reimagines a different room in the house. One designer gets the foyer, one designer gets the living room, one designer gets the dining room, one designer gets the kitchen, one designer gets the backyard, and so on. And the result is easily one of the most spectacular residences and design experiences you'll get to see this year. And if you can believe it, after 47 years of doing this, this year's showcase at 2315 Broadway in Pacific Heights is the showcase's first ever Queen Anne style Victorian home. The Over 9,300-square-foot house was originally built in 1897, designed by architect Moses J. Lyon. It has 9 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms, views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Presidio, and the bay from multiple levels. The incredible scale you'd expect from classic San Francisco architecture, gorgeously preserved century-plus-old details throughout, stunning molding, fireplaces, original stained glass, beautiful grand staircases, and a south-facing yard off the main living space that makes for perfect indoor-outdoor flow. And the best part The best part about the Showcase is that you can actually go see it in person and experience it for yourself. The Showcase was established in the 1970s when Nan Rosenblatt, a parent of a San Francisco University High School student, and Philip Fernandez, the first president of the school's parent association, put together a design-focused event that brought the design community together with education. The public can buy tickets to access the house, and it runs through May 25th, 2026. The tickets don't designate a specific day. You just buy a ticket and you can go anytime it's open until it closes on May 25th. And proceeds from the event go to benefit the San Francisco University High School's financial aid program. It's been wildly successful since its inception. They've raised over $20 million, so it's a great cause and you can easily turn it into an all-day event. This year's house is located off Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights, which is one of the area's commercial corridors with great food, great bars, great shopping, and it's a few blocks away from Union Street, just a few minutes to Alta Plaza Park, Lafayette Park, and the Presidio. And if you happen to love the house so much that you want to buy it, well, you can do that too because it's on the market for $25 million. $1 million, a chance to buy something that is truly one of one in a very special part of a very special neighborhood in San Francisco. I've put a link in the description below if you want to buy tickets, and there's even a discount code in there. It's 100% worth it, and I promise I'm not affiliated with this place in any way. I don't see a dime from any sales of tickets for this event. All the proceeds, like I said, go to benefit a local school, so it's just a great cause, and I think it's a great house and a great way to learn about our local design community. So I hope you go check it out, and if you could do me a huge favor as well, if you like videos about current events, new developments, San Francisco lifestyle, real estate, or its incredible history, subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you're thinking about buying or selling a place in San Francisco and have questions about how all the changes we've been seeing are impacting the local real estate market, reach out to me. I was a lawyer at one of the biggest law firms in the world before getting into real estate, and I've helped numerous people buy and sell places in the city. My contact info is in the description below. Reach out anytime. Now back to the biggest news stories you might have missed last month, and this next one is about the most anticipated food opening happening this year in San Francisco, the Mess Hall at Presidio Tunnel Tops. If you weren't already aware, the Presidio Tunnel Tops opened in 2022 on top of the Presidio Parkway tunnels connecting the main post of the Presidio with Crissy Field and the waterfront. And it's easily one of the most successful new parks to open in San Francisco in recent memory, with millions of visitors every single year. Incredible play area, open green space, great picnic space, iconic architecture, and incredible views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay. And it's about to get even better with a brand new new food hall called the Mess Hall opening in June of 2026 at 201 Halleck Street. The Mess Hall will be an all-day food and beverage destination spread across a 6,200-square-foot interior dining space in an historic building and about 2,700-square-foot patio space. There'll be a full cocktail, wine, and beer bar, a 3-concept food hall with Korean cuisine from Boda, seafood from Day Boat Seafood, and sandwiches and burgers from Breadwinner. There'll also be a retail market and a cafe serving Wrecking Ball Coffee, and it's all in an historic building with views of the bay. According to the Presidio Trust, James Beard awarded chef Peter Serpico will be helming the culinary aspect of the food hall, and Zach Negan, who has opened several successful bars throughout California, will be helming the beverage concepts at the mess hall. So you've got some real heavy hitters in the industry who are going to make sure that this is one of the best new food and beverage concepts in all of San Francisco. The Presidio is already a great food destination with several great options like Dolita, Pechino, El Parco, and Colibri. So this is just icing on the cake and a great new amenity for residents and visitors. I'm definitely looking forward to trying it out, and we'll keep you posted when we have official opening timing. The next story in this video is perhaps one of the more interesting signals about the future trajectory of the city. It's been reported that Yale University has been exploring potentially opening a satellite campus right in San Francisco. Public records reportedly show that officials from Yale, including in particular the Dean of the Engineering and Applied Sciences Department, have been in discussions with the mayor's office since at least last December about a possible satellite campus. It's not a done deal. There's nothing official yet that we know about, but the fact That one of the most prestigious universities in the entire world is looking at San Francisco as a potential landing spot for a new campus is huge news. San Francisco is undoubtedly a hotspot for innovation in AI, biotech, climate technology, engineering. We have the largest share of venture capital investment of any major city in the country. We have so much technological talent concentrated here. So it makes sense that if you're an elite university and you're trying to prepare your student body for jobs in those spaces, that you want to be where the action is right near San Francisco and Yale isn't the pioneer of this. There are other elite universities who have already done this. Wharton has had an Executive MBA program in San Francisco for years, serving as a connection for its student body to the San Francisco and Silicon Valley ecosystem. Wharton's current campus occupies about 37,000 square feet at Hills Brothers Plaza, and they've recently expanded into new space at the Cube at the base of the Bank of America building off Montgomery and California Street. Then there's Vanderbilt University, who recently announced plans to establish a full-time campus right in San Francisco. Not just an executive MBA program or a part-time program, it's a full-time campus. Subject to regulatory approvals, they'll be taking over the College of the Arts campus in Showplace Square near Potrero Hill in Mission Bay. So when you put all of this together, Wharton already here, Vanderbilt probably coming, Yale in discussions to come here, you start to see a pattern emerge. San Francisco's becoming a more important higher education outpost for elite universities. So across the country. And that would be incredible for San Francisco's economy. That would bring students, faculty, researchers, alumni, donors, and more programming into the city. It would create more demand for housing, more events, more office demand, more lab space demand, and more community partnerships. And it would bolster local businesses near all of these campuses. And it would help transition downtown away from its dependency solely or principally on office. So I think it's awesome to see places like this think about SF as a possible landing spot. I'm 100% here for it, but would love to know what you think about it in the comments. My Next story is also a signal about different facets of San Francisco's economy, the commercial office and retail sectors. And it's the sale of one of San Francisco's most recognizable famous landmarks, Ghirardelli Square. The landmark sits at the base of Russian Hill next to Aquatic Park and has its origins in the late 1800s when Domenico Ghirardelli purchased the entire city block it sits on to make the first headquarters of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company. In the 1960s, after the chocolate company headquarters were moved to San Leandro, The Roth family purchased the property to prevent it from being turned into an apartment complex and hired an architect to turn it into the mixed-use community that we know and love there today. It's been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982, and it's become one of the most iconic landmarks in the city. And there's so many different uses at Ghirardelli Square: office space, restaurant space, retail space, hotels, and iconic landmarks like the Ghirardelli sign and clock tower. And the latest owners just sold it to a partnership between Embrace Real Estate and 1823 Partners for around $75 to $80 million. Why did they do that? Well, the previous owners, a company called Jamestown, had bought the property out of foreclosure in 2013 for a little over $50 million, stabilized the space, got new tenants there, and shepherded it through the pandemic. And as the market for a commercial property started to improve in the city, they saw it as a chance to capitalize on all the work that they've done. We all saw commercial markets get wrecked during the pandemic as office vacancies rose, crime and homelessness rose, and conventions and tourism fell. But all of those those trends have reversed course and are heading in the right direction again. In the acquisition announcement, Embrace Real Estate said that it intended to elevate the merchandising, elevate the tenant experiences, elevate the spaces while still maintaining it as a world-class destination for visitors and for the local community. And the sale demonstrates that experiential retail in irreplaceable or, you know, unrepeatable locations like Ghirardelli Square are incredibly valuable. Few destinations have the views and the history that Ghirardelli have. Places that come to mind are like the Ferry Building and the Presidio, and those places are becoming increasingly important to San Francisco's economy and forward trajectory. I think it's a great bet on the future of San Francisco's waterfront, but again, let me know what you think in the comments. And last but not least is an update on one of the most delayed, complicated, and most closely watched redevelopments in San Francisco's history at the site of former Candlestick Park. For years, people have asked basically the same question: why is there still almost nothing built at Candlestick Park? The stadium was demolished years ago, the 49ers left for Santa Clara years ago, the site has been talked about, planned, redesigned, entitled, criticized, and re-announced so many times that I think people have just stopped believing anything else would happen there. But there are real signs that the project is actually moving forward to the next phase. FivePoint, the master developer, recently announced that it is targeting the commencement of infrastructure work for Phase 2 of the development later in 2026. There's so much infrastructure work required to transform what was industrial space into a brand new mixed-use community like the one contemplated at Candlestick. It all starts with a lot of the non-sexy stuff— street sewers, water, utilities, grading, stormwater, climate change resilience, transit connections. Basically, you have to build the bones of the neighborhood before you can build the neighborhood itself. And Candlestick is not a normal infill project. It is a massive redevelopment of an entire waterfront space. The broader Candlestick and Hunters Point Shipyard Phase 2 development is a nearly 700-acre master plan project that, as entitled, includes 2 brand new waterfront neighborhoods, over 10,000 new housing units, millions of square feet of commercial, retail, office, and gigantic new parks and open spaces. So it is truly gargantuan, and if it ever finally comes together, it'll be one of the largest redevelopments ever in San Francisco's history. The nearby related Hunters Point Shipyard development has been embroiled in controversy surrounding environmental cleanup at the site. There have been ongoing concerns and litigation about contamination and regulatory issues, and while that redevelopment has largely been put on pause until those issues are resolved, the developer has been able to sever the Candlestick development and push that forward. And doing it with Perkins Will, assisting with the master design for the overall development. So don't write off Candlestick just yet. I don't think we've seen the end of it. Every major player in the city's administration and on the developer side wants to see this move forward, and I think we're actually going to start seeing it this year. Well, there you have it. Those are the biggest news stories you might have missed from April of 2026. If you like videos like this or about San Francisco lifestyle, current events, new developments, real estate, or its incredible history, subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you're thinking about buying or selling a place in the city, and have questions about what all the changes we've been seeing mean for our local real estate market, reach out to me. I've lived in San Francisco for nearly 14 years, and I've helped numerous people relocate here from all over the country. Happy to be a resource for you. My contact info is in the description below. Reach out anytime. I hope you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you in the next one. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]