In the continuing — and fascinating — saga of the Mid-Market resurrection (or gentrification, depending on your point of view), the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded $250,000 to the San Francisco Arts Commission to improve the area. Only four grants of this size were awarded nationally; Oakland got $200,000 as well.

There are four components to the proposed project, which includes a competition to design lighting installations at the district's gateways —UN Plaza and Sixth and Market intersections— and a biweekly arts market at UN Plaza to do site-specific performance installations. Also, in the spirit of the hugely successful Art in Storefronts project, vacant storefronts and open spaces will get the artistic treatment.

There is a tremendous amount of money pouring into the area, with the recently approved City Place mall, and arts organizations have been heavily incentivized to join the existing gallery presence in the area. Recently, for instance, the Intersection for the Arts opened the 5M gallery inside the synergistic Hub center, housed inside the SF Chronicle's mothership. Newsom, who announced his latest budget inside the Luggage Store Gallery, has championed an $11.5 million loan program to get businesses to move to Mid-Market.