Of a major city failing…
An iconic mall foreclosed for a fraction of the billion-dollar valuation it once commanded as Covid shutdowns and out-of-control crime left the seven-story behemoth a shell of its former self.
Valued at $1.2 billion nearly a decade ago, the San Francisco Centre Mall, previously known as the Westfield Emporium, was sold at an auction on Wednesday to lenders Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the mall served as a shopping hub in San Francisco, with residents and tourists flocking to its vibrant energy and big-name brands.
An appraisal at the end of 2022 valued the property at only $290 million, a 76 percent drop from its height before the pandemic.
Full article, HERE from the Daily Mail. h/t Stretch
I can remember when it first opened in the late 80s, and people flocked to the Nordstrom and Bloomingdales stores. We went down there just to wander around, not that we could afford anything they had…sigh…
This really hasn’t been covered by the US media, probably for a lot of reasons. NYC, DC, Seattle, and Portland are following similar trends, mostly with office buildings going for cheap prices as companies downsize, or move elsewhere.
The other thing that happens is the loss of tax revenue, which is critical to these cities maintaining services. As those services go away, the downward spiral just escalates. And what happens with those ‘service’ workers??? Where do they go, how do they afford to live?
I know in the DC area, most people in the service side of things couldn’t/didn’t live anywhere close to their work, because they could not afford it, unless they went into the really bad areas or racked and stacked way too many people in a house or apartment.
And don’t get me started on parking (lack of), or the cost of parking (through the roof)!
Friends in Philly don’t even own a car. They have no place to park one where they live in the Italian section, They either walk to shopping, or take the bus or transit if they need to get somewhere else in Philly. When they go on vacation, they rent a car for the vacation! They also told me about a friend who paid over $100,000 for a parking space in NYC! For a @#$%@! parking space!!!
I know SFO, Seattle, DC, LA, and Philly all suck for parking. BTDT… sigh
What happens next? Do they become the next Detroit? Or Cleveland? Or do they clean up their mess and reverse the losses? I don’t have any idea.
Your thoughts?
Those cities and others go the way of Detroit or worse. Throughout history there have been many large urban areas (at least large for the time) that have even disappeared only to become archeological digs in the present era. They may not go that far but they could become ghosts of their present selves.
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More like Flint, really.
But at the end of it, crime kills the shopping/entertainment districts….which is where the smarter, better, more wealthy people spend their extra money, creating jobs and taxes for the less well off.
Destroying that money funnel destroys the property values and the people simply go elsewhere to sped their money. It doesn’t matter if crime is really that bad or just appears bad, the fear is the same and people go shop and eat somewhere else where they feel safe.
Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile” is going that way rapidly.
Part of it is just that Malls have gone out of favor. Not sure which happened first, them starting to go downhill, causing them to attract the wrong people, or attracting the wrong people causing them to go downhill, but it’s pretty common even among cities who haven’t wholeheartedly embraced leftist ideology.
In my town…Norfolk, VA, they opened a multistory, high end mall probably 25 years ago or so. MacArthur mall named after the General and right next to a longstanding memorial to him. Nordstrom and Dillards were the anchors.
Not in a particularly high crime area in a not particularly high crime city. No homeless encampments, no rampant panhandlers and decent security.
But it came to be the hangout place of teens with nowhere in particular to be. They didn’t necessarily engage in criminal activity, but they were there in numbers, could get rowdy at times and made families uneasy. The kids weren’t buying anything, just hanging out, and were chasing away people who might spend money there.
The mall actually instituted a rule that no unaccompanied minors could be in the mall for a while. That was highly controversial and annoyed a lot of people who liked their kids to have a place to hang out that wasn’t at home, but wasn’t “on the street”.
Anyway, those factors and the advent of online shopping killed it. Stores started closing and the mall started losing money.
The city bought it a few years ago and is planning to either turn the building into something else, or knock it down completely…I don’t think they’ve made up their mind yet. In the meantime, it’s still technically open, but the only things left in there are the movie theater, a couple joints in the food court and maybe a dozen stores.
The parking decks still get good use…mainly for people going to court or city hall, which are both just a couple blocks away.
Anyway, my point is that San Francisco’s poorly run city government surely had a big impact on the mall, but other factors have played a role in the failures of other such ventures as well.
All these cities are blue cities usually in blue states run by blue Mayors. They have high taxes, high crime, Left DAs, less police, Judges that let criminal out on no or low bail and short sentences, and high costs for rent or property close to high centers. Homeless and drug users flood these areas.
Now illegal aliens are big in these areas and pushing out lower class Americans. ICE and other Federal Government agencies are working to remove illegals and straighten out the areas. The Blue areas are run by Dems and the MSM are locked with the Dems lying about the way blue areas and their politicians operate and how illegal aliens are arrested. ANTIFA and other Dem groups attack ICE and other Federal agencies arresting illegals.
Left Federal Judges are going against the law and placing Temp Removal Orders against ICE but then these are removed as they go to Appeal, so it is all about slowing things down. Many of these Judges also have issued orders against Trump even though they have no right. I am upset Congress has not started impeachment on these Judges.
The once “Magnificent Mile” of Chicago now admits to a 28% vacancy rate. The reality could be higher. Water Tower Place is a shell of what it was in the year 2000. Smash and grabs are overnight commonplaces on Michigan Ave. I’m afraid Chicago is failing fast, so fast it might reach the “all at once” phase in the next year. “San Francisco, hold my beer.”
Shopping malls in general are going the way of the Dodo. For a variety of reasons with internet shopping probably the number one cause.
You should walk around downtown Detroit (when it warms up again).
Surprising.
While this is overly simplistic, WalMart and especially Amazon have played a big part in the death of many shopping malls. Then add to that the crime in the bigger cities and voila, no more mall.
Looks like that PANDER TO PARASITES thingy didn’t work out. Portland’s Lloyd Center is either dead or dying. It’s a magnet to criminals and those who contribute nothing to society.
Malls seemed to be a thing of the past. A few years ago I visited, on business, Montgomery, AL frequently. Going East from the Interstate on the Atlanta Highway was one closed mall after another.
All- Good points, and I didn’t think about Chicago’s Magic Mile. Curt- I wasn’t aware of the demise of MacArthur Mall either. I remember when it was really nice!