The curtain rises on the Embarcadero Navigation Center this week. And standing at center stage is Mayor London Breed, who’s staking a lot of her credibility on what is likely to be the most watched homeless center on the West Coast.

And she knows it.

“We have to take bold action in order to address the homeless problem, and that includes doing something that might make people uncomfortable,” Breed said when asked about putting a homeless shelter in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city.

Built at cost of $4 million, the 200-bed Embarcadero Navigation Center takes about up half of a 2.4-acre parking lot along the city’s picturesque waterfront near Beale and Bryant streets.

Unlike the city’s other Navigation Centers, which are in mixed-use areas, the Embarcadero shelter sits next to some condominium buildings where units start at $1 million each.

Breed will conduct an invited tour Tuesday, with cameras in tow, and the first residents will start arriving by the end of the month.

“We are all holding our breath and hoping it works out,” neighborhood resident Wallace Lee said.

Lee leads Safe Embarcadero for All, a homeowners group that has spent more than $250,000 in an ongoing court fight to try to keep the center from opening.

Neighborhood concerns were heightened in August after a woman entering a nearby residential building was attacked by a man who said he was trying to protect her from robots.

The alleged attacker has nothing to do with the Navigation Center, but when security video of the assault went viral, it stoked concerns about safety in the area.

“Given the level of engagement, the city knows that it is going to be closely watched,” Lee said.

Breed, who pushed hard for the center, is well aware that both her reputation and the reputation of the city’s shelter program is on the line, especially if she wants to open more Navigation Centers in other residential areas.

“We are committed to making this work,” Breed said.

In addition to sending more Homeless Outreach Teams into the area, police are setting up a two-block “safety zone” around the center. The SFPD has also committed four beat cops — probably two at time — to the safety zone seven days a week to deal with loitering, drug use and sales, and keeping campsites out of the zone.

“We like to keep it focused on a small area so that we have the physical presence that the public is looking for,” said Deputy Chief Greg McEachern.

Police plan to monitor the area’s crime stats and revisit the safety plan if the number of incidents rises.

Unlike at other Navigation Centers, which contract with private security companies, charter school operator and site manager Five Keys Schools and Programs will handle security and be in charge of keeping the surrounding neighborhood clean.

“This is a very important point,” Five Keys Executive Director Steve Good said. “Having our staff who know the residents and understand their problems are far better at handling issues that a security guard whose only contact with residents is checking them for weapons as they come and go.”

Good said the goal is to create a community that will self-police the center and keep an eye on other homeless people in the area.

“The message from residents to others would be, ‘Hey don’t ruin this for us,’” Good said.

Whether the plan works remains to be seen. The city has made commitments to clean up areas in the past, with mixed results.

But this time, it’s all in the mayor’s court because it was her call in the first place.

“Go big, or go home,” Breed said.

Oracle aftershock: Oracle’s decision to move its annual giant OpenWorld conference to Las Vegas next year sent a $64 million shock wave through the city’s tourism circles, but insiders say they’d seen it coming for some time.

The software giant cited San Francisco’s high costs and poor street conditions — a polite way of saying bad behavior by sidewalk residents — as the reason behind the exit.

It’s not the first time Oracle raised the issues.

“The afternoon (before) Mayor Ed Lee passed away, representatives from Oracle were in his office expressing some of the same concerns,” San Francisco Travel CEO Joe D’Alessandro said. “The mayor committed to help clean up and improve security” around Moscone Center.

But it wasn’t just the scary nature of San Francisco’s streets that led to Oracle’s exit. The rising cost of holding a convention in the city was also a factor.

For example, the average cost of a San Francisco hotel room this year is $254, compared with $129 in Las Vegas, according the hotel brokerage firm Atlas Hospitality Group.

“Our hotels are not overcharging,” D’Alessandro said. “It’s that the cost for everything is higher here than other cities, so they have to charge more.”

City Hall insiders say another factor may have been the rise of Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce gathering, which with 171,000 attendees draws more than twice as many people as Oracle’s 60,000.

Whatever the reasons, D’Alessandro said Oracle’s exit was in some ways inevitable.

“After 20 years here, there may have been the feeling that they needed something new and someplace new,” D’Alessandro said.

There is some good news. The medical association that pulled out of the city last year, in part over concerns about street safety, has agreed to return in 2023.

“We do surveys after every convention, and 94% of the guests still say they want to come back to San Francisco,” D’Alessandro said.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KGO-TV morning and evening news and can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email pmatier@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier