BART’s plans for Civic Center Station worries patrons of the arts

Pedestrians walk over a metal grate that covers a closed entrance for Civic Center Station on Thursday, February 28, 2018 in San Francisco, California. Pedestrians walk over a metal grate that covers a closed entrance for Civic Center Station on Thursday, February 28, 2018 in San Francisco, California. Photo: Amy Osborne / Special To The Chronicle Photo: Amy Osborne / Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close BART’s plans for Civic Center Station worries patrons of the arts 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

BART’s intimidating Civic Center Station, where passengers are forced to walk past drug users, dealers and grime, may soon shrink, losing a long hallway and a couple of entrances.

Within months, a temporary closure of a station entrance in front of Burger King on Grove, Hyde and Market streets probably will become permanent, and another entrance outside the front doors of the Hotel Whitcomb probably will be closed, too.

BART officials expect to barricade the western entries and the corridor that connects them to the station’s main concourse to clear the way for a new power substation needed to ensure there’s enough electricity when the transit agency fulfills its plan to run 25 percent more trains through the Transbay Tube and beneath downtown by 2025.

Closing down a hallway and entrances frequented by malingerers would seem to benefit BART riders not only by providing a new power station but by eliminating a dirty and sometimes scary hallway.

But administrators of nearby arts organizations fret that the closures will make it tougher and more frightening for their patrons to take BART to the Symphony, Ballet, Opera and theater.

Civic Center is home to not only a BART station, government edifices and abundant drug activity, but to San Francisco’s best known performing-arts venues. They include Davies Symphony Hall, where the San Francisco Symphony plays, the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, where the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet perform, and Herbst Theatre, where many lectures and smaller concerts take place. The Orpheum Theatre sits right outside Civic Center Station, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium is just up Grove Street, and the ACT’s Strand Theater is nearby on Mid-Market.

The station traditionally has one of BART’s highest crime rates. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, it had the second-most calls to police, with 2,285, behind only Powell Street Station with 2,934. Calls for police at Civic Center surged by 63 percent from 2016 to 2017 as the area became notorious for drug dealers and users, many of whom inject heroin in and around the station.

Closing the western entrances to Civic Center BART will force cultural arts attendees to take unfamiliar and less direct routes through those problem areas.

“We’re sending the message to people ‘Please come, and please use public transportation, but it’s a little scary,’” said Jennifer Norris, who runs the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center.

BART board Director Bevan Dufty, whose district includes Civic Center Station, said BART has little choice.

“What I regret is we are in a situation with no viable alternative than to close these two entrances,” he said. He said he opposed the closures until he realized the need to use that location for a substation.

BART was eyeing the area for a potential substation when the agency had to close the so-called Burger King entrance, at the northwest corner of Hyde, Market and Grove streets, in August after first one escalator, then a second, stopped working and a water pipe exploded. With a decision on the substation site expected before the end of 2018, agency officials decided to keep it closed.

Maintenance crews removed the walls on each side for the entryway and placed steel plates over the wide opening and the broken escalators near the entry.

“It doesn’t make sense to do millions of dollars in repairs if we’re going to close the entrance,” said Tim Chan, BART’s acting station planning manager.

But that’s when the arts community began registering concerns.

Photo: Amy Osborne, Special To The Chronicle An entrance leading to Civic Center Station in front of the Hotel...

The Burger King entrance, with two escalators, provided the most direct route to arts venues along Van Ness Avenue, and it was the easiest way for people with mobility issues to get to the street. The nearest entrance, across Hyde Street in front of the Orpheum Theatre, has only stairs, and the closest escalator is across Market Street at Eighth Street.

Melanie Smith, president of San Francisco Performances, said the arts institutions have talked with BART for years about the need to improve Civic Center Station. She knows the problem extends well beyond the station’s walls but said the conditions inside are far from welcoming.

“They’re disgusting,” she said. “It’s tragic, it’s part of a bigger problem in the city, I understand that. But that said, the stations are filthy, it feels dangerous.”

Many patrons of the arts come from the suburbs and are older and less comfortable with the grit, grime and crime of the Civic Center area, Smith said.

“We hear from them that they don’t want to drive because parking and traffic are a nightmare,” she said. “So the fact that BART is so unpleasant means they just don’t come.”

Tracy Everwine, executive director of the Civic Center and Central Market community benefit districts, raised another issue.

“The area between Eighth and Van Ness is really going places now,” she said, citing the opening of Dolby Laboratories, the popularity of the Market on Market and plans for the Hub housing plan for Market and Van Ness. Closing the two entrances also seems like the wrong thing to do when the area west of the station is growing, she said.

Management of the Hotel Whitcomb did not return calls, but Everwine and Dufty said they’ve been outspoken about their preference to keep open the entrance that deposits guests at their doorstep.

“The Hotel Whitcomb is certainly not looking forward to their customers having to lug their luggage farther,” Everwine said, “and they don’t want them to have to climb across drug users, either.”

BART officials said they plan to meet with the arts organizations, merchants and neighbors, explain why they’re closing those entrances, and try to figure out how they can ease the critics’ concerns.

“If we need to close it permanently,” Chan said, “what can BART do to make pedestrian street experiences better?”