The proposed Showplace Square Heavy Timber and Steel-frame Brick Warehouse and Factory District is a discontiguous historic district consisting of three separate clusters of large heavy timber and steel-frame brick industrial buildings, most of which are designed in the American Commercial style. Cumulatively the district includes 16 buildings constructed between 1894 and 1929 that are located within the boundaries of the Showplace Square survey area, which includes parts of the Potrero and Mission districts as well as the southwest corner of the South of Market Area. Although it began to emerge before the quake, the New Wholesale District blossomed after 1906 as local industries relocated from the congested and largely destroyed South of Market Area to the northern Potrero and Mission districts, where large parcels of open land remained available and three national railroads had installed a superior network of railroad tracksThe westernmost section of the historic district comprises a cluster of three large buildings along Bryant Street between Division and 15th Streets. The actual period of significance is 1893 to 1929, bracketing the dates of construction of the oldest and the newest district contributors.