Ocean Avenue Association Boss Christian Martin Shares The Organization's Growth Playbook

On the heels of a rigorous audit, the Ocean Avenue Association is now tackling its next challenge: its renewal as a community benefit district.

Executive Director Christian Martin joined OAA in 2023 to lead the nonprofit organization charged by City Hall to clean and maintain the retail district with funds collected through a special assessment of properties. It formed in 2010 with a 15-year term and had been preparing to renew when Martin jumped in to guide the board of directors and staff through internal reforms such as revamping its accounting system, board training and development, forming an ambassadors program and securing outside grant funding from the Civic Joy Fund for art installations, hanging flower basket planters and string lights among other projects.

“There were pockets of resistance but for the most part we've come together as a board really nicely and I'm proud of that,” said Martin, who is also the current executive director for the SoMa West CBD and has been led similar organizations elsewhere including the Trenton Downtown Association in New Jersey.

While he doesn’t know if he’ll stay on as the boss if renewed, Martin is looking forward to the organization's future.

The three-step process includes sending a petition to all residential and commercial property owners within OAA’s district boundary that make up at least 30% of the total weighted assessment in Spring 2025, going before the Board of Supervisors for approval and sending a ballot to all property owners, who will have 45 days to respond. The Department of Elections will certify the results and a public hearing for property owners to voice their opinions will be held.

“It's an exciting time and a new day on Ocean Avenue,” Martin said. “We're looking forward to helping this community be all that it can be.”

The Ingleside Light caught up with Martin to discuss the renewal process and his experience in the CBD business.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why should property owners support the renewal and expansion of the Ocean Avenue community benefit district?

It's in their own best interest. Studies show that properties within district boundaries appreciate at a higher rate, have lower vacancies [and] have businesses with higher receipts. It's pretty much a financial best-interest decision for the most part. It’s basically pooling resources in order to leverage them to do more as a community. It’s a great value for the ratepayers. Obviously, someone's going to clean up your trash. Most people don't realize the city considers the sidewalk the responsibility of the property owner, so it’s nice to have some help, to not have to worry about that and then somebody you can call when something happens. Inevitably there's going to be graffiti or the "code browns" (feces) that pop up that if you don't have a district, your options are to handle it yourself or go try to find somebody and pay them to do it and then you're going to obviously pay more for that emergency type of service. Then the community events that make the corridor more vibrant and attract foot traffic to the businesses and just generally support economic growth are the reasons why folks should support it.

What will the new district look like and how will it serve the area?

If all goes well, it'll be a little larger and expand hopefully to 280 and Lakeside in the west.

This will somewhat be determined by what level we go for but at the very least, a continuation of what's been happening for the last year, which will require a modest increase. If the neighborhood has the appetite to do more, then we can do more like more business services, more cleaning and maintenance, so Roland can have some help or maybe even like a little pickup truck to get from one end to the other and you can just do more do more work throw some cans of paint and bags of trash and do what you need to. I think in addition to being an expanded area geographically, we'd like to expand our services: More cleaning and maintenance, business support, events and placemaking.

"We have a variety of tools in our toolkit that have been developed over the years in SoMa that we're going to break out here."

How will you use your experience working at SoMa West for OAA’s renewal?

You know, that's funny because I've never been through a renewal anywhere before so I'm getting experience here but I mean some things are pretty universal. We have obviously a different cleaning challenge in the South of Market by far so that knowledge is well used here because we've seen it all down there so we can apply that knowledge up here in meaningful ways. For example, the day before yesterday I met with Copy Edge and they showed me around that Westwood Park side sign that there was some feces that somebody sleeping back there had left and we started thinking about how we can change the muscle memory of that because we've cleaned that area a few times so now it's like alright this is obviously a popular spot for people to thrive in, they've got somewhere to lean. We have a variety of tools in our toolkit that have been developed over the years in SoMa that we're going to break out here to kind of do that. Those targeted interventions change how people are using public space so obviously there's that experience. There's also just a number of different businesses that we've communicated with. That CBD [SoMa West] is early in its life so we had to go about making the case and then proving the case like right off the bat so that is still a fresh experience that I can apply here like okay we have a year to renew like how can we show impact right away and just get the support of the community in short order. I think that's pretty applicable.

What do you want the public to know about the renewal process?

There are going to be opportunities for them to get involved and get any questions answered. There is a petition that has to be met, a certain threshold and a ballot phase that has to be met. It's very involved but we're chunking it out into pretty clear next steps and goals that the entire community is welcome to participate in and be involved in. We'll be reaching out to kind of share those opportunities, those events that we're going to be tabling at, any marketing materials that we want to get to the property owners, making the case. What I want them to know is it’s a community effort and this is their CBD and we invite them to help and volunteer and support where they can.