When you mention the Fillmore Heritage Center to Michael Johnson, he smiles as he reflects on the development he helped to create. The almost one-year-old $102 million project is a mixed use housing development, which features condominiums, a parking garage, the restaurant 1300 On Fillmore, a jazz music and education non-profit organization (the Jazz Heritage Center), and Yoshi's new San Francisco location.
This complex is located in the heart of San Francisco’s Western Addition on Fillmore Street.
"The Fillmore Heritage Center has become a legacy project for me and our company," said Johnson. "It combines a lot of things that are important for community development in African American neighborhoods such as mixed use housing and commercial space."
The project has helped to signal the rebirth of the Western Addition area, and is the latest urban development project in the city of San Francisco.
"This would not have happened without the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and the Western Addition community," continued Johnson. "Everyone believed that if we did not get the project built on that site that it would not happen."
But it did, after years of project proposals and disappointments. The Fillmore Heritage Center is one of the largest projects developed by an African American developer in California.
Johnson, president and founder of EM Johnson Interest, Inc. has over 20 years of experience in urban real estate development around the country. A native of Philadelphia, Johnson studied architecture at the University of Maryland and then went on to Georgia Tech, where he got a Masters Degree in Real Estate Development.
After graduating from Georgia Tech, Johnson stayed in the Atlanta area where he worked at the Community Design Center of Atlanta, which offered free architecture services for community organizations. He then went into private business with Ron Wilson - a real estate salesman, and Richard Dagenhart - an architect, to form Wilson, Dagenhart, and Johnson, a firm that focused on urban and economic development in minority communities.
"We were together for 11 years and we worked throughout the country in Birmingham, Memphis, Dallas - with most of the focus on urban redevelopment," says Johnson. "We worked on the Martin Luther King Historical District in Atlanta, which includes Ebenezer Baptist Church. We helped to create what is now a national park."
After being in Atlanta for a number of years, Johnson wanted a change of pace and in 1989 began looking at various cities to move to. He decided to move to the Bay Area, where he went to work with the Neighborhood Housing Services of America, based in Oakland, which provides funding for other non-profits that develop affordable housing.
He stayed out of development for a few years, but he got back into it in1993, founding EM Johnson Interest, Inc. He would begin working on projects in various states including Oregon, Idaho, and Georgia. He did not enter the San Francisco market until 1998, when he decided to bid on the St. Regis project on Third and Mission Streets, a mixed use, housing, hotel and open space, which would eventually become the Museum of African Diaspora.
Various community groups from across the country lobbied for this project which ultimately went to an outside developer from Boston, Massachusetts. While that decision disappointed Johnson it did not deter him with regard to his plans to work on projects in San Francisco.
"San Francisco had not had a history of having a lot of African American developers," said Johnson. "But the one thing I got from the development competition for the St. Regis project was that I (met) many community leaders from throughout the city."
He was later successful in his bid to develop the public housing project near Fisherman's Wharf. The structure was demolished and 329 housing units were built in its place. The $102 million dollar project was his signature project in San Francisco.
"This helped to show people what we were capable of doing as a development group," said Johnson. "This project has received numerous awards for urban development."
As he was in the middle of completing the North Beach redevelopment he was approached by members of the African American community about developing the plot of land on Fillmore and Eddy Streets, which would ultimately become the Fillmore Heritage Center.
"We responded to the redevelopment bid, got a lot of community support behind us, and we got selected."
Completed in May of 2007, there has been an increase in foot traffic in and around the condominiums, the various restaurants, and Yoshi's. The development has helped to revitalize the Western Addition community. Johnson also is part owner of the development.
"I am very happy with the end result," continued Johnson. "We have sold 80 percent of the units in the building. Yoshi's had been an institutional space for jazz in the Bay Area in Oakland and I always wanted to be in the music business (and) own a performance space; and I do now in - San Francisco."
Johnson has recently taken on other development projects and is in the process of beginning work on Westside Courts public housing in the Western Addition. The project will replace 136 housing units and add 84 more new market-rate units to the development, which is just up the street from the Fillmore Heritage Center.
He is also in the process of working on a development in Mission Bay, a development in the Bay View Hunters Point area, and constructing a 36-story building in San Diego. Johnson says he is motivated to do good work within urban areas and communities.
"I am motivated by the opportunity to demonstrate I can succeed in an area that not that many African American's are participating in."
