The Central American Resource Center of Northern California has moved downtown for the first time since 1986, vacating 3101 Mission Street. The same week, SFMTA commissioners unanimously extended the bollard program on Capp and Shotwell streets for another 18 months.

The awning at 3101 Mission St., at Cesar Chavez, has been dark since May 15. CARECEN — the Central American Resource Center of Northern California — packed out of the building that had been its address for nearly 20 years and headed north on the 14-Mission to a new office at 1117 Market St., across the street from the Civic Center BART station. It is the first time the organization has operated outside the Mission since it opened in 1986.

CARECEN resumed services at the new location June 8, according to Mission Local, which first reported the move. Executive director Lariza Duran-Cuadra cited practical pressures: "We didn't have enough office spaces for our team. The general physical landscape in the old office wasn't meeting our programmatic needs." The new address, she said, improves access for clients who live in SoMa and the Tenderloin as well as the Mission. "We have the BART station in front of the building and access to all the public transportation lines," she told Mission Local. The organization says it will continue to staff the Niños Unidos Playground Clubhouse and run family workshops at its old site — the address changes, the work doesn't.

Two dozen or so blocks north of the old office, Capp Street between 18th and 22nd streets is staying closed. The SFMTA commission voted unanimously last week to extend the bollard program on Capp — first installed in February 2023 to reduce traffic associated with street-level sex work — for another 18 months. The extension also covers Shotwell Street between 19th and 21st streets, where bollards and turn restrictions were added in summer 2024 after neighbors threatened to sue the city over displacement effects from the Capp closure. The San Francisco Police Department recommended both renewals.

The extension came despite a procedural stumble: SFMTA had previously committed to a six-month performance evaluation and never delivered it. Viktoriya Wise, the agency's street division director, promised commissioners the evaluation would happen this time. Roughly a dozen neighbors appeared in support; others pushed back on spillover effects on adjacent blocks. Thirty-three eviction notices have been filed in the Mission in the past 90 days, and the neighborhood logged 2,327 311 requests in the past week — baseline numbers for a stretch of the city under persistent pressure.

Elsewhere in the neighborhood: Stray Dog, a cocktail bar and coffee shop from owner Angela Cao (also of Blackwood in the Marina and Lost Cat near Union Square), soft-opened this week at 2545 24th St. at Utah Street, in the space formerly occupied by Junior, which closed in late 2024. The official opening party is July 3. And Valencia Table, a breakfast and brunch spot with Mediterranean lunch options, opened at 510 Valencia St. near 16th Street — seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

On 3101 Mission, whoever's next gets one of the corridor's larger storefronts.