The building at 933–949 Stockton, which housed 56 low-income residents, was acquired by eminent domain and demolished to make way for the new Chinatown Station. Prior to its demolition, the building was wrapped with a temporary art installation featuring a reproduction of James Leong's mural , originally commissioned for the Ping Yuenhousing project in 1952, on the south end. As required by law, the residents were relocated to a new building at Broadway and Sansome built with the help of city and state grants, including $8 million from the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency. The Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in October 2016 asking SFMTA to rename the station in honor of Rose Pak, but the SFMTA demurred, making an official policy in December 2016 to name stations after geographical destinations, not people. In July 2017, it was reported that delays on the construction schedule of Chinatown station associated with excavation techniques intended to permit Stockton Street to remain open during construction had propagated through the entire Central Subway construction schedule and the anticipated opening date for the system would slip by ten months. Although Stockton remained open since construction began in 2013, a half-block stretch of Washington Street has been closed, exacerbating existing traffic and parking issues and depressing local business revenues. The ten-month delay meant the anticipated completion date slipped from December 26, 2018 to November 14, 2019. A follow-up report noted the schedule had continued to slip to an anticipated completion date of December 10, 2019 and warned the schedule may continue to slip by several more months. In June, Mayor Ed Lee directed $500,000 to the Office of Economic and Workforce Development to aid Chinatown merchants whose business traffic had slowed from Central Subway construction. SFMTA announced that excavation for Chinatown station was complete in April 2018. With excavation complete, station construction was set to begin, and the estimated completion date was mid-2019 for a scheduled December 2019 start of revenue service., the Central Subway is planned to open in late 2021. On August 20, 2019, the SFMTA Board approved a proposal to rename the station "Chinatown Rose Pak station" by a 4–3 vote. Supporters cited Pak's influence over the Central Subway project, which was meant in part to bring traffic back to Chinatown that had been lost following the damage and eventual demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Opponents called Pak a spy for the Chinese government and an enemy of the Falun Gong movement.
Design
Chinatown Station was designed by Kwan Henmi and includes retail space at the ground level. The station structure extends below ground and required the deepest building excavation in the City of San Francisco. The underground station will feature a public plaza on its roof, only the fifth open space park in the Chinatown neighborhood. In 2016, the Chinatown Community Development Center held a contest to write a couplet to welcome visitors to Chinatown. The winning couplet would be written in calligraphy and printed on red opaque glass at the Chinatown Station plaza. Carin Mui submitted the winning entry,, which translates to "In the past we traveled across the Pacific to mine for gold; Now, we break through earth to form a silver dragon."
