The Fillmore Heritage Center that was home to the former Yoshi’s has been a bust, and its latest disappointment is a mere $100,000 settlement payment from a developer who got a city loan on the place for $5.5 million.  

Way back in 2007, the jazz nightclub and sister to the popular Oakland club Yoshi’s opened at Fillmore and Ellis streets, to great fanfare at the new city-owned Fillmore Heritage Center. But the club and sushi restaurant was not a success, and was sold off in 2014. It later became a club and venue called The Addition, which also bombed, and closed just months after opening. The restaurant 1300 on Filllmore that anchored the other end of the block closed its doors in 2017. And, this all happened after Fillmore Heritage Center developer Michael Johnson got a $5.5 million loan, among other help, from the city to revitalize the place.

So in 2018, when London Breed was mayor, Vallie Brown was the district’s supervisor, and Dennis Herrera was City Attorney, Herrera sued Johnson to reclaim the $5.5 million. Johnson promptly sued the city right back, saying it was the city that mismanaged the project. And now seven years after these lawsuits, it might appear that Johnson had a point. Because today, KQED is reporting that Johnson will only have to pay a $100,000 settlement on the lost $5.5 million.

Though as part of the settlement, Johnson is barred from doing any business with the city for a period of five years.

“We believe the proposed settlement is the best outcome for the city,” City Attorney spokesperson Jen Kwart told KQED. “We are pleased the defendants and their affiliated businesses have agreed not to do business with the city for five years.”

To point out the obvious, that statement does not acknowledge why the city accepted such a paltry sum for the settlement. And the full text of the settlement document does not acknowledge any of this either. KQED also notes that Johnson got a $4.8 million loan from the city's erstwhile Redevelopment Agency two decades ago to kickstart this project, and that loan was written off when the agency disbanded in 2011.

Either way, the proposed settlement goes before the SF Board of Supervisors’ Government Audit and Oversight Committee on Thursday March 20, before being up for approval by the full Board of Supervisors, likely on March 25 or April 1.

And the city-owned Fillmore Heritage Center has struck out on a few new attempted reincarnations over the ten years since The Addition bombed out. There was grand talk in 2023 for a new jazz hall and a restaurant from Marcus Samuelsson of Harlem’s Red Rooster fame. That proposal fell through, but a few nonprofits like the SF Housing and Development Corporation stepped up with a scaled-back plan for a food hall in February 2024. At the time, we were told it could open “by the fall 2024.”

But once Fall 2024 got here, the Chronicle reported how that deal had pretty much fallen through as well. And in early December, SF Housing and Development Corporation program director Pia Harris died from pancreatic disease complications.

Related: The Former Yoshi’s in the Fillmore Could Be Reborn as a New Food Hall Sometime This Year [SFist]

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