As Hoodline reported, an agent for the owner was in talks with Montiel about purchasing the property, but it's unclear where things stand. Once again, fear spread through the community and among fans of the bar when a for-sale sign went up on the Eagle's building last September. Landmark status was something that was batted around at the time, but did not come to fruition. Supervisors Scott Wiener and Jane Kim intervened to help get the place leased to new gay owners, Montiel and his late partner Mike Leon, who reopened it (only slightly scrubbed of some of its former character) in 2013. The Eagle has once before been the subject of City Hall's attention, when previous owners closed it and put it on the market in 2011 and it was in danger of disappearing at the hands of new straight owners. It was intended to be open by early 2020, but instead it has sat dormant - the BAR notes that a leather pride flag that was hoisted there had already grown frayed and tattered from the wind and was removed by year-end, "an apt symbol for the battering the area's Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District experienced itself in 2020."
Eagle Plaza, a streetscape feature that was meant to be a centerpiece of the new district, broke ground in mid-2019 with partial funding from developer Build Inc., who has been building a 136-unit residential complex across 12th Street from the bar for the last two years. Proponents of the nascent SoMa Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District say that landmarking the Eagle will be an important step in gaining legitimacy for the district, which like everything else has been negatively impacted by the pandemic. As a person and San Franciscan, I want to point out the importance of the bar and its mission." As the Bay Area Reporter tells us, bar owner Lex Montiel spoke at the virtual meeting and said, "We have endured through hard times and bringing the community back together.
On Monday, January 25, the board's Land Use and Transportation Committee unanimously voted 3-0 to forward the Eagle's petition for landmark status on to the Historic Preservation Commission. And earlier this week, a Board of Supervisors committee approved a first step toward getting there. The SF Eagle, the SoMa LGBTQ bar formerly known as the Eagle Tavern, is hoping to secure status as the third LGBTQ bar location to receive a landmark designation by the San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission.