San Francisco sees T-Mobile leave as the city faces a corporate exodus

T-Mobile is the latest major retailer to close a flagship store in San Francisco as the city faces an exodus of businesses due to “rampant criminal activity.”

The telecom giant’s decision to close its Union Square facility follows similar announcements made last week by Saks Off 5th and Nordstrom.

T-Mobile said closing its two-story, 17,000-square-foot building in the heart of San Francisco was part of its “nationwide retail strategy to better care for customers.”

It’s the latest in a series of closures devastating the tech haven, which has been ravaged by rising crime and an epidemic of homelessness.

Billionaire Elon Musk called downtown San Francisco “post-apocalyptic” last week.

The T-Mobile building was previously home to Apple’s flagship store before the tech giant moved to its current location on Post Street.

The Union Square store was sold to Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation for $50 million in 2013, records show.

It comes after luxury department store Nordstrom said it would close both downtown San Francisco locations in the coming months, after serving the area for 35 years.

The 40,000-square-foot Nordstrom Rack store on Market Street will close on July 1, while one of its flagship units — the 30,000-square-foot Nordstrom in Westfield San Francisco Center — will close at the end of August.

Explaining the decision, Chief Stores Officer Jamie Nordstrom said: “The dynamics of the market in downtown San Francisco have changed dramatically in recent years, impacting the number of customers visiting our stores and our ability to operate successfully. ‘.

A spokesman for Westfield said the move underscored “the deteriorating situation” in the district.

“A growing number of retailers and businesses are leaving the area because of the unsafe conditions for customers, retailers and employees, coupled with the fact that these key issues are preventing an economic recovery in the area,” said Westfield and owner’s statement. , Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield [URW]said.

“URW has been actively working with city officials for many years to raise our serious concerns, which are shared by our customers and retailers.

“We have urged the city to address key issues and lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity.

“The current environment is not sustainable for the community or businesses, and we are hopeful that the city will make the changes it so desperately needs.”

It came just a day after Saks Off 5th said it expected to close its downtown store in the fall, after eight years in the city.

Whole Foods temporarily closed a flagship location in the city last month over staff safety fears — just a year after the unit opened.

The organic food giant opened a new “flagship” location on Trinity Place in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood in March 2022, hoping to revive visitor numbers after two years of draconian COVID restrictions that have placed area businesses seriously affected.

But a Whole Foods spokesperson said the store would close “for now” and only reopen “if we feel we can ensure the safety of our team members.”

This is reported by a source at City Hall the company cited deteriorating street conditions surrounding drug use and crime near the store as the driving factors behind the closure, The San Francisco standard reported.

The Trinity Place Whole Foods store has been in trouble since it opened its doors in March 2022, with managers cutting back hours in October due to “high levels of theft” and hostile visitors.

A month later, the store announced that customers would only be able to access the restrooms with a valid QR code after syringes and pipes were found on the bathroom floor.

Meanwhile, San Francisco supervisor Matt Dorsey claimed a Whole Foods employee told him that baskets were no longer available to shoppers because all 250 had been stolen.

Last month, it emerged that a Target store in San Francisco had locked up its entire product range over concerns of “organized retail crime.”

A video posted to TikTok on April 20 shows all of the items pinned behind glass.

According to geotagged images, some products at the Folsom Street store had been locked and keyed since at least October last year, WNCT reported.

California’s Proposition 47, which downgraded crimes such as drug possession and theft of property under $950 from misdemeanor to misdemeanor, was previously accused of disrupting public order in cities across the state, displacing businesses.

San Francisco’s homeless number reached 8,000 last year, figures show, the second highest number since 2005, only in 2019, when the pandemic was at its peak.

Devastating footage captured last summer showed rows of tents lined up in front of businesses, with homeless people openly smoking illegal drugs outside people’s front doors and passing out on the asphalt in the middle of the day.

Small businesses trying to recover from the pandemic have lashed out at city officials for failing to address the problem, which they say is hurting revenue.

The Castro Merchants Association said some homeless people were harassing customers on the street outside their stores and needing help.

About 50 percent of small businesses in San Francisco remained closed last year, according to Forbes.

Meanwhile, San Francisco had the highest overall crime rate of the 20 largest cities in the United States, with 6,917 crimes per 100,000 residents in 2019, according to the latest available FBI Unified Crime Report.

That was more than double the crime rate in New York and Los Angeles, and well above the rates in the next largest U.S. cities: Chicago, Houston and Phoenix.