Thursday's Hotels of SOMA

SOMA is not only the population-controlling drug from Aldus Huxley's Brave New World, but is one of San Francisco's highly sought after destination neighborhoods. Like West Hollywood (WEHO) in Los Angels, SOMA stands for SOuth MArket, as in south-of-Market Street. It is also home to many of San Francisco's top hotels, with names like the W and the Four Seasons. Once more, some of the most renowned boutique hotels can also be found in the neighborhood.

The SOMA District of San Francisco

SOMA is a dynamic neighborhood. Equal parts industrial, commercial, residential, and historic with one foot in the future. Since its inception, the area has been constantly changing and evolving. First Street is five blocks from the waterfront, and not next to it. Until the 1870s, Much of SOMA was underwater as most of the district was filled in years later, creating a whole new neighborhood. With that extension, SOMA continued to change from a more residential area into an industrial one.

The area was once known as "South of the Slot." The slot being the space between the cable car track along the city's main thoroughfare, Market Street. If you lived "South of the Slot," you lived on the wrong side of the tracks.

Local author Jack London, whose books we all had to read in high school, was born at Third and Brannan Streets, south of the slot. His original home is long gone, but the site is commemorated on a plaque with his namesake. For a century SOMA was mostly warehouses and light industrial facilities.

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Hotels in the SOMA were not the upscale lodging we find today. As the area abuts the waterfront, many of the businesses there catered to the maritime trade, including hotels. Many of those were SRO’s (Single Room Occupancy) little more than flop houses, renting rooms to sailors and stevedores for short one to two days stays.

In fact, the SOMA YMCA used to rent rooms as late as the 1990s. They don't provide that serve anymore, but the building is still there - amongst the million-dollar condos that that now populate the area. For a sense of what the area looked like in those days, watch Bullitt starring Steve McQueen. In the beginning of the film, Lt. Bullitt and his partner investigate a murder in a room at a rundown hotel. Outside of the window is literally a freeway. That's what hotels were like in SOMA until well into the 20th century.

The Hyatt Regency Embarcadero opened in 1973 at the foot of Market and California Streets, and established a beachhead for the type of hotels soon to dominate SOMA. No longer for Maritimers, new hotels were going to appeal to post-war, post-industrial, white-collar workers. In fact, one hotel on the Embarcadero easily transitioned from one which accepted guests with duffle bags, to ones that travel with Gucci luggage sets.

In the 1970s, artists started to live in former industrial spaces and utilize them as studios. The idea caught on, and developers exploited it. Have you ever seen luxury apartments advertised as "Lofts" or “Live/Work" spaces? That term and concept was invented in SOMA.

With the opening of the Moscone Convention Center in 1981, San Francisco became a major destination for large conventions and trade shows, and the neighborhood evolved once again. This time from one dominated by what planners called PDR (Production, Distribution, and Repair) with a light industrial infrastructure, to one more focused on tech and finance.

Little start-ups you may of heard of like LinkedIn and Twitter got their start in SOMA, and as the prestige of the conventions increased, so too did the hotels. Ironically scheduled to open one day before the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake (though they didn't know it), the Marriott's flagship property the Marriott Marquis and its Juk Box-motif was strategically located across the street from the Moscone Convention Center.

As you descend into the bowls of the hotel, you come across meeting rooms and a corridor running under the street separating them. In the decades following the opening of the Marriott came many other high-end brand name hotels. The W, the St. Regis, and the Four Seasons hotels all opened within walking distance of the Moscone Center. SOMA is not just a destination for the top hotels, but also unique boutique hotels as well. The Via Hotel by the ballpark, and the Canopy Hotel by the convention center have upscale accoutrements and even rooftop restaurants

Because of the Tech Boom, in only the last fifteen years (and at only .635 square miles), SOMA is now home to eight of San Francisco's 16 tallest skyscrapers. And more are planned despite the sluggish economy. So, as the SOMA skyscrapers ascend to the sky, and their share of business travelers increase, so will a commiserate number of hotels as well.

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