SF LGBT Center marks 15th anniversary with major renovation

People gather to watch the speakers on stage at the reopening of the LGBT Center in San Francisco. People gather to watch the speakers on stage at the reopening of the LGBT Center in San Francisco. Photo: Natasha Dangond, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Natasha Dangond, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 32 Caption Close SF LGBT Center marks 15th anniversary with major renovation 1 / 32 Back to Gallery

At the ribbon cutting of the newly renovated San Francisco LGBT Center on Sunday, a throng of supporters crowded the sidewalk in front of the distinctive turquoise-and-purple building at Market Street and Octavia Boulevard as the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band’s rendition of “Turn the Beat Around” carried down the block.

“It’s really a labor of love, and really about a community,” Executive Director Rebecca Rolfe said of the remodeled building.

The center, which was also celebrating its 15th anniversary over the weekend, serves more than 8,000 people a year, offering medical and legal services, youth programs and hundreds of events a month, Rolfe said.

The renovation cost $10 million, said center board of directors Chairman Rafael Mandelman. It triples the amount of affordable office space for nonprofits available in the building, bringing the total to 15,000 square feet.

“Importantly, it’s a completely financially sustainable building that can pay its own bills into the future,” Mandelman told the crowd.

The center rents space to organizations such as Bay Area Legal Aid and Aguilas, the largest gay Latino organization in the Bay Area.

On Monday, API Wellness, a health services and education organization founded in 1987 as a grassroots response to the AIDS crisis in the Asian community, will open the doors of a satellite health clinic with three exam rooms at the center.

“We’ve been in the Tenderloin for 30 years, and we’ve been partnering with the center for years. Now we’ll be in the building helping to ensure everyone has access to LGBTQ-focused primary care,” said Lance Toma, API’s chief executive.

The renovation will be accompanied by an expansion of the center’s youth programs, hours and staff. The center works to help young people in a broad range of circumstances, Rolfe said. “Whether they’re coming in looking for food, for clothing, for hygiene supplies — maybe they’re looking for a place to sit down and just be safe for a couple of hours.”

Although at times the messages were somber, the crowd was riotous with color. It was 10 days after the death of Gilbert Baker, creator of the rainbow flag, and his legacy was evident. The flag was everywhere — on ruffled leggings, bowling shirts, neckties, leis, a peace-sign necklace, the plumage of the marching band’s shako hats and a many-layered tutu donned by one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the self-described “leading-edge order of queer nuns.”

After singing Puccini’s “O Mio Babbino Caro,” Breanna Sinclairé, the first openly transgender student to study at the San Francisco Conservatory, told the crowd her story of being shut out from the support system in her community when she came out as transgender.

“It was my grandmother who saw fit to share with me that music was a way to deal with pain,” she said. “As a trans woman of color, people make it very hard for us. I have to work hard every day to be who I am.”

Rolfe said she wants the center’s young people to know that even after they age out of the youth programs, “they will still have a home here.”

That was certainly the case for Sinclairé. “You can imagine how I felt,” she said. “It was like coming home to a community that had been waiting for me.”

Filipa Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi