Shape-Up on the Waterfront

Another example of urban negligence has long been the waterfront, the city's forgotten edge where old warehouses and factories stand abandoned and dis integrating. But lately across the U.S., the waterfront has begun to shape up. Architects always realized that the aging brick warehouses had character. Now planners and investors are taking advantage of their no-nonsense style and vast space and are remodeling them --rather than tearing them down--to make roomy apartments and lively shopping areas.

Boston has already revitalized much of its wharf area. In St. Louis, preservationists have presented plans to save from urban removal several cast-ironfront buildings north of the Jefferson Memorial Gateway Arch. And in Seattle, a vociferous citizens' group called "Friends of the Market" is winning its fight to resuscitate the flavorful but financially fading Farmer's Market on Puget Sound as an area for art galleries, shops and boutiques.

Out of the Chocolate Factory. No city has put more new life in the old waterfront than San Francisco. The move started in 1958, when a little-known import store called Cost Plus rented 4,000 sq. ft. of warehouse space next to Fisherman's Wharf to sell off its large inventory of rattan furniture. Shoppers were so charmed that the "sale" is still going on. Today, Cost Plus stocks 12,500 items (from Portuguese glass to South Pacific whale meat) from 47 countries, draws 25,000 customers weekly--and has spread out into six remodeled buildings, including a former glue factory, ship chandlery and marble works.

Just up the hill from Cost Plus is Ghirardelli Square, a festive complex of shops and restaurants carved out of an old chocolate factory by Architects Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons. Matson Line Heirs Mrs. William P. Roth and her son have spent $10 million on the project, lured such prestige tenants as Design Research and Trader Vic Bergeron, who put in a Mexican restaurant called Senor Pico's. Now the Roths are expanding further into an adjacent woolen mill.

Closed in Self-Defense. Newest element in San Francisco's revitalized waterfront is The Cannery, another lively block of shops and restaurants across the street from Fisherman's Wharf. "I had a sense of smell," explains Leonard V. Martin, 47, a wealthy Manchurian-born lawyer, who bought the abandoned Del Monte peach cannery in 1963. Martin's nose told him that what San Francisco needed was sidewalk cafes and more offbeat shops, and, with Architect Joseph Esherick, he set out to provide them.

"Old buildings should be approached with a sense of humor," says Esherick. For fun, he split the massive factory in two with a zigzagging Italianate alley, designed a mysterious maze of stairways and pedestrian bridges. Martin, an unabashed eclectic, has refurbished an old Fifth Avenue double-decker bus for neighborhood excursions, is leasing a 13th century Moorish ceiling to one of the ladies' specialty shops. From the estate of William Randolph Hearst, he has purchased a 95-ft.-long oak-paneled gallery, said to have been designed by Inigo Jones and built by Queen Elizabeth I for her Ambassador to France, and installed it in The Cannery's English Pub.

Martin keeps The Cannery open seven days a week. And he has something for everyone, including a side show, the Penguin Stadium, where for 750 a visitor can watch a troupe of Humboldt penguins from Peru play at baseball to the tune of Bach's Brandenburg concertos. It all works. After scarcely a month in business, The Cannery has become such an attraction that, with weekend customers swarming through 20,000 strong, the Splendiferous boutique has decided to close Sundays in self-defense, and Martin is planning to triple the size of the parking lot.

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