New owner could return a restaurant to Empress of China building

The new owner of shuttered Chinatown landmark restaurant Empress of China is looking opening a restaurant on the ground floor of the building and using the top two floors for either office space or a hotel.



Since hitting the market, the Empress of China building has been a key focus of groups trying to preserve Chinatown as an affordable and historic neighborhood.

Originally, the brokers listing the property raised concerns by marketing it as suitable for creative office space in an effort to lure one of the companies that have made San Francisco’s economy one of the hottest in the world.

[...] the neighborhood’s zoning, the Chinatown Visitor Retail District, allows for professional service offices — things like insurance sales or accounting firms — but bars what is classified as administrative offices, which would include the city’s hot tech sector.

Chinatown community groups have been protective of the neighborhood’s strict zoning and have fought proposals from office developers seeking to spread into the area from the adjacent Financial District.