San Francisco’s dying downtown mall loses its FIFTH store in a month: Madewell exit follows recent Adidas, J. Crew, Lucky Brand and Aldo closings, with half-empty shopping center’s value plunging from $1.2BN to $290M in eight years

The San Francisco Center has lost its fifth store in less than a month, after Madewell announced they would be closing their store in the dying mall.

The clothing and accessories store announced on their website that they would close the location on Monday.

Madewell follows Adidas, J. Crew, Lucky Brand and Aldo, which have all closed or plan to do so in the coming week.

The mall has lost as much as $1 billion in value since 2016, as the beleaguered city struggles with rampant homelessness and escalating criminal activity.

Nordstrom was the mall’s anchor tenant and occupied a large department store before the company closed the store last year.

Since then, stores have quickly left the failing mall, with companies citing weak sales, declining foot traffic and crime as reasons.

The mall is located in the city’s troubled Union Square area, which has seen businesses and tourists flee since the pandemic hit, with groups citing crime, homelessness and work-from-home policies.

Photos and videos taken inside the once bustling mall show it empty, with shuttered stores and few to no customers.

Occupancy is now down to about 25 percent after Nordstrom, its largest tenant, left its 312,000-square-foot store last year.

Owners Westfield and partner Brookfield Properties lost control of the 5 million-square-foot retail and office complex to lenders in June last year, defaulting on a $558 million loan.

“For more than two decades, Westfield has proudly and successfully operated the San Francisco Center and during that time has made significant investments in the vitality of the property,” the company said at the time.

“Given the challenging operating conditions in downtown San Francisco, which have resulted in declines in revenue, occupancy and visitor traffic, we have made the difficult decision to begin the process of transitioning management of the mall to our lender, so that they have a recipient to operate the property in the future.’

Gregg Williams of Trident Pacific, an Orange County real estate firm, was appointed receiver with the ability to collect rent and sell or liquidate the property.

According to the Real Deal, the property’s lenders have since advised the trustee to sell the mall to pay off the debt.

The mall’s collapse is part of a broader disaster affecting retailers in that part of the city.

Nearly 100 retailers in downtown San Francisco have closed since the pandemic began, a drop of more than 50 percent.

One of the high-profile closures concerns the accounting firm KPMG, which is about to move from the $400 million building of the same name.

The consulting and accounting giant first leased space in the 25-story office tower when the building opened in 2002. The name hangs above the entrance to the skyscraper where the company currently occupies more than 100,000 square meters.

KPMG originally took 90,000 square feet at 55 Second St. in a 10-year lease, marking the second-largest office deal of 2003.

Since then, its footprint has grown to nearly a third of the 380,000-square-foot building, making it commonly known as “The KPMG Building.”

The company is now considering ending its twenty-year relationship with the building. according to the San Francisco Chronicle. It is the latest tenant to leave the city center.

Preliminary reports show that there were 346 overdose deaths in the city in the first five months of 2023 – an increase of more than 40 percent from the same period in 2022.

Economists have warned that the city is entering an ‘urban doom loop’: a vicious circle of interconnected trends and forces that are plunging cities into economic and social ruin.

Large-scale theft has proven to be a problem in the area recently, with a Walgreens in the city center deciding to link their freezers together to deter shoplifters.

Retail stalwart Old Navy announced last month that they would be closing their flagship store in the area.

Anthropologie and Office Depot have made the same decisions.

These stores joined the growing list of stores that have left the coastal city, including H&M, Marshall’s, Gap and Banana Republic.

A troubling recent report found that 95 retailers in downtown San Francisco have closed their doors since the start of the COVID pandemic, a drop of more than 50 percent.

Of the 203 retailers that opened in the city’s Union Square area in 2019, only 107 are still operating, a 47 percent drop in just a few pandemic-affected years.