Longtime Market Street art supply store Flax moving to Oakland

An athletic artist's manikin dribbles a basketball at the Flax art supply store at Valencia and Market streets in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016. Flax is being forced out of its longtime San Francisco location to make room for a 162-unit residential development. less An athletic artist's manikin dribbles a basketball at the Flax art supply store at Valencia and Market streets in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016. Flax is being forced out of its longtime San ... more Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Longtime Market Street art supply store Flax moving to Oakland 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

Before deciding to move to downtown Oakland, the longtime San Francisco art supply store Flax scoured the city for a new location.

It toured warehouses and former auto repair shops in the Mission District and on the central waterfront. It looked at the vacant Fresh & Easy grocery store in the Bayview and a former O’Reilly Auto Parts on Mission at Cesar Chavez.

But nothing quite worked. Some places were too small; others offered little or no parking. Still others were isolated and lacked access to public transit. Several of the best options were zoned “PDR” — production, distribution and repair — and would have required a six-month process to gain planning approvals.

With its store at Market and Valencia streets closing this month, Flax didn’t have the luxury of time.

“We exhausted every possibility we could in San Francisco, but it didn’t work out,” said Howard Flax, the store’s third-generation owner.

So the store is shifting its main operation to Oakland, where it will take 14,500 square feet at 1501 Martin Luther King Way, a former automotive repair shop and indoor soccer facility on the outskirts of downtown. The store will open in February.

Flax, with its signature retro, tilted-letter sign, has anchored the corner of Market and Valencia for 37 years. But it’s being forced from that location because the building will be razed to make way for 162 condominiums, part of a housing boom that is transforming Market Street from Powell Street all the way to the Castro.

The move is sure to bolster the argument that Oakland’s arts scene is benefiting from San Francisco’s astronomical rents and a development boom that is swallowing up land and warehouses across the city.

Supe laments loss

“I’m heartbroken that they are leaving the city,” said Supervisor Scott Wiener, whose district borders Flax’s current location. “Flax is one of the most unique and interesting businesses around. I’m not an artist, but I just loved walking through there and feeling the energy.”

The store isn’t leaving the city completely, however. In November, Flax opened a 5,000-square-foot store at the Fort Mason Center. Flax said that store — which caters mostly to the art students, actors, musicians and workers who staff the many cultural nonprofits at that waterfront arts campus — has been busy.

But for the main store, Flax said he was drawn to the 1922 Oakland building’s architectural features — soaring ceilings and an exposed truss system — and its location in an up-and-coming neighborhood.

“There is drama in the interior space that spoke to us and played into the decision,” he said. “The Martin Luther King building had more of a wow factor than our current building on Market Street.”

The Oakland building is a block or two from the cafes and restaurants popping up in the neighborhood, but there are plans to develop housing across the street.

“In some respects, it’s not unlike when we moved to Market Street 37 years ago,” he said. “It’s a little pioneering.”

The city of Oakland also offered Flax a $99,000 grant for interior improvements, and the property owner received $30,000 for facade improvements, according to Brian Kendall, who works on downtown development for the city of Oakland. Flax is also eligible for grant money to help pay for signage.

Downtown ‘anchor’

“What is great about this is that it’s a couple of blocks off the main drag. It will be a great anchor for that area, which doesn’t have a lot of retail,” Kendall said.

Of the San Francisco sites, only the Fresh & Easy store in the Bayview would have been eligible for public grant money because of its location. “They were very interested in having us as tenants, but we felt it was a bit too far out of our market,” Flax said.

Todd Rufo, who heads San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, said he was happy that Flax was able to plant a flag at Fort Mason and that his office spent more than a year working to find Flax a new headquarters in the city.

“Unfortunately, we just weren’t able to find the site that fit their unique needs for a space that mirrored the facility on Market Street,” he said.

Much-needed retail

For Oakland, which does not have nearly as strong a retail base as San Francisco, the arrival of Flax could be a watershed event. While 300 restaurants, bars and cafes have opened in greater downtown Oakland since 2004, very little of the new business has been retail, Kendall added.

“Flax is a perfect use for downtown,” he said. “And art supplies is a niche that has not been met at all.”

Flax will help attract shoppers back to downtown Oakland, said Keira Williams, a retail specialist for the city.

“For many years, Oakland has not been the retail powerhouse it should be for a city its size,” she said. “Flax is a destination that will add a lot of strength. ... It’s a name with great brand recognition. It will bring people to Oakland, and hopefully they will stay awhile and discover the other things that are here.”

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jdineen@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @sfjkdineen