The 5M Project is a creative development in downtown San Francisco designed to catalyze the innovative ideas that build our economy and strengthen our communities. It is a place that utilizes a collective need for innovation to encourage shared resources and ideas across traditional boundaries. Where artists, makers, students, changemakers, entrepreneurs, local food, and technology are coming together day and night. A place designed for people to be creative.

ABOUT 5M PLACEWORKS

Forest City and Intersection for the Arts (IFTA) are co-creating 5M PlaceWorks – a pioneering organization working to make the innovation-focused resources at 5M into an asset that strengthens our local neighborhoods and creates economic opportunity for economically challenged communities. PlaceWorks is removing barriers and building bridges between non-profit and for-profit; urban development and community service; social and economic growth. It aims to connect the collaborative power of more than 2,000 diverse organizations and individuals linked at the 5M Project with the surrounding neighborhoods through two primary levers – PLACEMAKING and ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY.

PLACEMAKING + ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY = 5M PLACEWORKS

Placemaking is a process led by IFTA where people come together to create temporary and/or permanent experiences at 5M and within the surrounding neighborhoods to cultivate inspiration, connection, and opportunity. Working examples include street markets, neighborhood festivals, school volunteer and youth art programs, community resource tools, and installations such as landscaping, street furniture, murals, pop-up stores, and more. Placemaking at 5M aims to lay the groundwork for trust to grow between communities typically not in connection with each other.

Economic Opportunity will unlock resources and networks at and around 5M to local disadvantaged communities. New partnerships and related programs will provide access to tech academies, training, education, technology, tools, and experience that result in internships, jobs, new businesses/orgs, and overall economic growth. Our 5M partners include Intersection, Hub, TechShop, SFMade, SFDigital, along with myriad neighborhood companies and CBOs focused on local economic development

Overall, PlaceWorks will weave Placemaking and Economic Opportunity programs together – working to overcome language barriers, class divides, funding restraints, politics, and information/digital gaps that commonly exist between “disadvantaged” and “innovation-focused” communities. New models, ways of thinking, collaboration and networking, open sourcing, social technology, shared value creation, participatory art, cultural and innovation events, entrepreneurship and job training, public markets, and more will become accessible to our neighbors through PlaceWorks, readying them for the emerging economy. Over the next several years, 5M will emerge into a combined development project and community asset centered on innovation.