A pair of local developers, Presidio Bay and Prado Group, are the winning bidders to purchase the defunct former Westfield mall, and their redevelopment plans, which will hopefully be made public soon, include a mix of housing, office, and some retail.

The long and painful saga of San Francisco's dying and finally dead mall, the former SF Centre/Westfield mall, is coming to a close, and its next chapter will include some of what the city needs most, new housing.

As the Chronicle and others are reporting, the partnership of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, who purchased the mall property out of receivership in November and foreclosed on a $560 million outstanding loan tied to it, have selected Presidio Bay and Prado Group to take over the property for an undisclosed sum.

The Chronicle reported that the estimated winning bid amount was around $130 million.

Real estate firm CBRE, which was marketing the property, has not commented on the sale, and nor have the winning bidders. The SF Standard was first to the news of the sale, and had anonymous sources who said that the developers have plans for a mix of housing, office, and some retail space in the massive, 1.5 million-square-foot complex.

The mall, which occupies more than a city block starting at Fifth and Market and stretches back from Market Street to Mission Street, encompasses two main components — the original Nordstrom-anchored shopping center at Fifth, and the mid-block former Emporium building and a new structure attached to it that opened in 2006 as the Westfield SF Centre, with interior connections to the older mall.

Originally home to a 9-screen Century cinema on its top floor and a Bloomingdale's, the mall's overall occupancy slowly dwindled over the last three years after owners Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and Brookfield Properties handed the keys back to their lender in 2023. All but one of the tenants were evicted in January and early February, and the subsequent bidding process was unusually quick, according to real estate experts consulted by the Chronicle.

The tenant that remains in operation, and who continues challenging their eviction, is the bar Executive Order on the street-facing, Mission Street side of the building. Owner John Eric Sanchez posted a crowdfunding campaign to cover legal expenses on Monday, saying in an Instagram post, "I take pride in being a hands-on operator who honors commitments and believes in strong landlord partnerships. This chapter has been incredibly difficult, but my goal remains the same as it has always been: operate responsibly, create value, and build something sustainable for the long term."

One major question about the future of the mall building will be how and to what extent the developers plan to preserve the soaring former Emporium rotunda, which was painstakingly preserved and refurbished in the rebuild two decades ago. In that last reconsutrction, it was propped up on the building's framing as virtually everything beneath it, apart from the Market Street facade, was gutted and replaced.

Prado Group, which is currently at work on the redevelopment of the former CPMC campus in Laurel Heights, had also been interested in potentially redeveloping the nearby Macy's property at Union Square, after that store's announcement that it would eventually close its San Francisco flagship. Updates on the store's fate are still to come, but Macy's inked a deal to "explore the future potential" of the site with local developer TMG Partners in November. TMG Partners CEO Michael Covarrubias said at the time that a future presence for Macy's at the site was still on the table, as was a replacement store for Bloomingdale's, which Macy's owns. And housing was also a potential option.

The redevelopment of both the Macy's and Westfield properties are now likely to happen concurrently.

Previously: BART Entrance Sealed Off at SF Centre as Official Closing Date for Mall Arrives This Week

The lights officially go off after this weekend at the SF Centre (formerly Westfield) mall in downtown San Francisco, marking a final death knell following a very long, slow, and painful demise.

We've gotten piecemeal reports over the last two months about inividual shops closing, and the final closure at the basement-level food court, Panda Express, just came last week. That Mission Street-facing bar Executive Order still hasn't made a closure announcement, and was still promoting its pool tables on Instagram on Monday afternoon.

But now the Chronicle got word from an employee at one of the remaining stores, Ecco, that the official mall closing date is now set for this weekend, January 26.

BART has also confirmed that it has sealed off its entrance to the mall on the concourse level of Powell Street Station, which provided direct access to that food court. BART spokesperson Alicia Trost tells the Chronicle, "Depending on the property’s future use, any new ownership may wish to reopen the entrance. At that point BART would entertain a new license agreement for reopening the entrance."

The entire building is thus set to go dark next week, with the current owners — an ownership trust known as DBJPM 2016-SFC Emporium — looking to shut off the lights and the heat and save on utility bills until they can offload the property to someone with some new plans for it.

Converting what was designed as a shopping mall into a radically different use will require a whole lot of money, and it's anyone's guess at this point what is to come. The building already has a 250,000-square foot office component that was occupied by San Francisco State University for its downtown campus after the mall initially opened, but otherwise it's built out with two huge anchor spaces — the former Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom — and a nine-screen movie theater, along with several full-service restaurant spaces on the fourth floor.

The mall is barely 20 years old, having opened in its current iteration in 2006, after a lengthy and expensive rebuild — that included the preservation of the former Emporium's grand dome.

Below you can see a video, recently posted to TikTok, by user melancholymustard, featuring shots of the immaculately empty mall, with its escalators still running.

Previously: New Owners of Downtown SF Mall Move to Evict Last Three Businesses Who Have Not Left

Photo by Aamy Dugiere

It seems odd that there are businesses that still want to stay open in a dead mall, but one of them has frontage on Mission Street, and the other two are apparently trying to stick it out for some reason.

With the former Westfield Centre mall, which became the San Francisco Centre briefly, now auctioned out of receivership late last year, and with most of the mall totally emptied of stores and food stalls, it's only a matter of time before the whole place gets padlocked and goes completely dark for some indefinite period of time. But there are apparently three holdout businesses, and the SF Business Times reports this week that the mortgage trust that now owns the 1.5 million-square-foot retail complex has filed unlawful detainer suits against three businesses, following notices of eviction that were issued in November.

We don't know which businesses these are or what the play is here, except for one, which is the seven-year-old bar and lounge that faces Mission Street called Executive Order, near the former Bloomingdale's back entrance, in the space that was once occupied by 'wichcraft when this mall opened. Owner John Eric Sanchez told the Chronicle in late November that he was hoping to "hold out as long as we can," but with $35,000 to pay in rent every month, it's not clear whether the place has even been breaking even.

Also, a shoe store called Sole & Laces told the Chronicle in November that they believed their lease was good through all of 2026, so perhaps they are trying to stick around as well.

As we previously noted, the ownership trust known as DBJPM 2016-SFC Emporium, informed all tenants that any leases they signed had been "extinguished," and they were ordered to vacate "immediately." Some stores, like the Ecco shoe store, already told the Business Times that they were in the process of shutting the store down, but it would take more than a few weeks — and they apparently gave employees a January 31 closure date.

The unlawful detainer filings are a first step in a formal eviction process, and perhaps only the stores that have not responded to the previous notices are the ones being targeted.

The strategy on the part of the ownership trust appears to be to bring expenses down until such time as the place can be flipped and resold — with nothing open, there won't be any need to pay for big utility bills, janitorial, or hired security, and the place can just sit dark for a while.

What comes next for the building is anyone's guess.  But the mixed-use complex — which was designed to have a 250,000-square foot office component that was occupied by San Francisco State University for its downtown campus — could be reconfigured into any number of things.

We'd just like to note here, ahead of the mall's final-final death knell, that it was only 16 years ago that this mall won international accolades as one of the world's prettiest and best-designed shopping centers, and it was hailed as "a 21st-century engine of commerce, community and culture." Oh how swiftly they can fall.

Previously: SF’s Beleaguered Former Westfield Mall Now Actively Kicking Out Its Few Remaining Tenants

Photo by Amy Dugiere

One of the last retailers to close up shop at the nearly shuttered San Francisco Centre mall is H&M, which just confirmed it will close down in January, after the holidays.

Some of the last remaining stores at the San Francisco Centre mall are, oddly, still trying to do business in the nearly empty shopping center. And among them is the outpost of H&M on the third floor of the mall.

But H&M just confirmed that they have gotten their notice to vacate from the mall's new owners, and they'll be doing so in January.

Presumably that means that the H&M Man and H&M Kids stores will be closed as well — the mall directory shows them both as still open, among about two dozen stores that are still doing business there.

But the Chronicle got a statement from H&M that suggests that they, perhaps like Japanese discount retailer Uniqlo, might be plotting a return to SF after closing their huge Powell Street store early in the pandemic.

"We remain committed to our presence in the San Francisco Area and will continue to explore opportunities for the best store locations — a guiding principle since our founding in 1947 — as reflected in our recent opening at Stonestown Galleria on Nov. 20, 2025," the company said.

At one time, a number of retailers including Tiffany, Zara, and John Varvatos had locations both at street level in Union Square and inside the nearby former Westfield mall — which retail brokers said reflected an effort to target different demographics of customers.

John Varvatos, which closed its location in the mall this year, announced plans in August to return to Union Square with a store at 58 Geary Street, not far from its former Geary location. Similarly, Zara is planning to open a multi-level flagship store at Post and Powell streets next year, after also closing its location in the mall.

Uniqlo confirmed in early October that it will be taking over the former Old Navy store on Market Street at Fourth, a few doors down from the mall.

The SF Centre complex sold at auction last month for a fire-sale price after losing anchor tenants Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom in the last two years. And shortly thereafter we learned that the corsortium of banks that bought it, including Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase, are in the process of evicting all the remaining tenants so they can shutter the building altogether and save cash as it awaits resale or redevelopment. With no tenants there, owners can save on utilities, maintenance, and hired security.

Last week, Shake Shack announced its closure, leaving only Panda Express down in the once bustling food court.

And the only stores remaining open before the holidays are GNC, Foot Locker, Pawbox, H&M, Ecco, a couple of eyebrow salons, street-level stores Aritzia and Boss, and a few other businesses.

Over in Union Square, things are looking only slightly better than they were earlier in the year with the arrival of some pop-up stores and the new Off the Grid food hall filling some of the larger vacancies along Powell and Stockton streets. And the opening of the new Bourbon Steak and Bourbon Lounge at the Westin St. Francis also has injected some energy around the park itself.

Related: SF’s Beleaguered Former Westfield Mall Now Actively Kicking Out Its Few Remaining Tenants

Top image via Yelp

The South Bay’s largest mall, Westfield Valley Fair Mall, was temporarily closed until noon Saturday during the investigation of a shooting that led to the evacuation of thousands of Black Friday shoppers. A man was shot during an argument with the suspect, and two bystanders were also shot.

Update: The mall reopened Saturday at noon, per KRON4. “For those that left a vehicle overnight, you may retrieve it from the property at your earliest convenience,” the mall said on social media. The mall’s lost-and-found is located on the third floor across from Security Dispatch.

Update 2: As KRON4 reports via San Jose police, the incident is believed to have been gang-related.

The shooting happened around 5:30 pm Friday, November 28, as KPIX reports, in front of the Macy’s on the second floor of the Westfield Valley Fair Mall — which sits on the Santa Clara-San Jose border. Three people were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, including the man involved in an altercation with the suspect, as well as two bystanders — a woman and a 16-year-old girl. The suspect fled the scene before authorities arrived and is still at large, per KRON4.

Eye witnesses in the below video segments describe mass panic as shoppers ran to the exits or ducked inside stores or under nearby structures.

“We were just all sitting at a table, chilling together, and then all of  a sudden, we start hearing, like, pop sounds, several pop sounds. And we start seeing people running," witness Sumaya Alqadhy told NBC Bay Area. “As soon as we made it outside, the shots came outside. So now we're hearing multiple back-to-back shots, and we start running in multiple directions.”

“We all started running, and then we came to the parking lot. Everybody was running, screaming, and crying,” witness Armando told KPIX. “Probably like 20 minutes after, we see a guy walk out with a wound on his chest, and he was bleeding. That’s when we knew this was real.”

“I just tried to find a spot to hide. People were going under the tables. I went also under the tables and waited there probably five minutes,” witness Emily Sanchez told KPIX. “I was just looking at people’s faces and looking how scared they were.”

“There was so much chaos, and even a lot of people were getting injured running on the way out because there was a really narrow bottle-neck at the exits to the point where we got separated,” witness Ali Danesh told NBC Bay Area. “Even though I was with a group, with my family members, they were separated into the back of the Gap store.”

Per KGO, staff and shoppers who were barricaded inside the mall during the investigation were escorted through Macy’s by law enforcement with machine guns around 6:30 pm.

“This shooting appears to be an isolated incident and NOT an active shooter,” San Jose police wrote in a social media post, per KRON4. “However, officers are evacuating and clearing the mall to confirm there is no ongoing threat to public safety.”

Shoppers involved in Friday’s incident say they might be avoiding malls for the foreseeable future. “I’m only online shopping now,” witness Neema told NBC Bay Area. “Why come to the mall if this is an actual possibility.”

“I’m 28 years old, and I feel like I’ve experienced a lot,” Ali Danesh told NBC Bay Area. “There’s nothing that equates to a life or death situation like this, when you are dealing with the unknown, and you’re dealing with an unknown threat, and you see the mass hysteria around you. It’s terrifying. It’s soul-crushing.”

Residents are asked to continue avoiding the area as the investigation is ongoing. Per NBC Bay Area, mall security will also be boosting patrols when the mall re-opens.

“We can say for a matter of fact that this was not unsuspected shoppers that were targeted, this was an isolated incident with two individuals, and unfortunately two others were injured,” said Sergeant Jorge Garibay of the San Jose Police Department, per KGO. “And this shouldn't stop people from enjoying their holiday."

“San Jose - this is not the news I wanted to share with you this holiday weekend,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan on social media. My prayers are with these victims and I know our officers are doing everything they can to find the person responsible and hold them accountable.”

Image: Katedief/Wikimedia

• Single-driver electric vehicle drivers with those EV stickers will no longer be able to use carpool lanes after September 30. They've had a pretty long run, with this program dating back to 1999, but the Trump administration has basically killed off the program. [NBC Bay Area]
• A scheduled August auction of the in-receivership SF Centre mall has been postponed yet again, for the seventh time, leaving the half-empty mall in continued limbo. [Chronicle]
• As happens many years, a person in South Lake Tahoe has been diagnosed with bubonic plague, after being bitten by an infected flea. [KTVU]

National:

• Conditions are deteriorating for the North Carolina coast as Hurricane Erin, now a Category 2 storm, passes by about 50 miles off the coast. The storm's outermost bands are causing wind and rainfall, but the worst impacts will likely be from storm surges and big waves. [CNN]
• The Texas House has approved those gerrymandered redistricting maps, falling in line with Trump, and the State Senate will vote on them Thursday. [New York Times]
• As happened last year, there's an ongoing summer uptick in COVID appearing in wastewater nationally — especially in Texas! — but researchers say this year's summer wave is a milder wave. [New York Times]

Video:

• Behold this hard-hitting KPIX report about San Francisco's goth scene circa 1998, centered around the club at 11th and Folsom (no longer there, alas) called The Catacombs — which doesn't seem to be the same thing as this notorious gay leather club that existed about 15 years prior just down the block, with the same name.

Top image: Photo by Aamy Dugiere

Ingka Centres, the mall affiliate of IKEA, just announced the activation of one more of the upper floors of the still half-vacant, six-story shopping center at 945 Market Street.

After debuting the two-level food hall Saluhall last year, and promising a slow rollout for filling other spaces in the shopping center, officially named Meeting Place, with tenants — and it sure has been slow! — Ingka Centres just announced that a section of the fourth floor facing Market Street will become L4, a new event space, this October.

The 3,877-square-foot event venue will have a capacity for up to 250 people, with catering packages provided through Saluhall downtstairs. With a central location not far from transit, Moscone Center conventions and Union Square hotels, it's being billed as "ideal for private celebrations, cultural events, corporate gatherings, and community activations."

Renderings of the space depict it having a bar, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street, and a space that can be set up in multiple configurations, including a lounge and a gallery.

"At 945 Market, we’re building more than just an event space — we’re creating a place for San Francisco to come together," said Nick Cattaneo, CX Leader at Ingka Centers, in a release. "Whether it’s a community gathering, a conference, or a milestone celebration, this venue is designed to feel welcoming, flexible, and full of possibility. We’re excited to open our doors and be part of what makes this city so vibrant, diverse, and alive."

With the opening of L4, this leaves only the third and fifth floors of Meeting Place still vacant, by our count, though the event space may only occupy the front portion of the fourth floor. Ingka is still promising that "When fully complete, the building will feature an inspiring blend of retail, office, entertainment, food, and digital experiences — reimagining what a modern community hub can look like."

The "entertainment" and "digital experiences" would seem to be the missing components, for now.

IKEA opened its first urban-scaled three-story store in San Francisco in August 2023, offering shipping on furniture items and a limited selection of products that can be purchased and taken home directly from the store, as well as a cafe serving its signature meatballs. Ingka Centres then opened Hej! Workshop, a co-working space on the top-most floor of the complex.

Saluhall followed in April 2024, and already there has been some turnover among the food vendors and offerings there — notably, you can now get SmishSmash smashburgers on the ground floor, and Oakland's well-loved Tacos El Ultimo Baile just debuted in the upstairs area.

Field Notes highlights moments of connection, culture, and community across the Bay Area—from a new Peninsula trail network and thriving raptors to Japantown’s retail revival, a Mission escape room, Black history exhibits, and Oakland’s tribute to a cherished mentor.

654-acre Peninsula estate launches new trail network

Filoli, an historic 654-acre estate on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land in Woodside, has launched a new trail network guided by six giant trolls by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. The whimsical Trolls: Save the Humans exhibit marks a shift from manicured gardens to wild spaces, inviting visitors to explore two miles of easy trails through redwoods, willow houses, and playful art. It’s part of Filoli’s effort to reconnect with the land’s deeper roots and invite broader public engagement through nature, history, and imagination. [7x7]

The raptors are alright

Pinnacles National Park’s 2025 nesting season is off to a strong start. Biologists are monitoring four peregrine falcon and nine prairie falcon territories, with most pairs actively nesting. Other raptors, including golden eagles, long-eared owls, and white-tailed kites, are also settling in. After years of concern—from DDT’s legacy to avian flu outbreaks—this “wonderfully normal” season is a welcome sign for the park’s recovering raptor population. [Pinnacles National Park]

Retail revival in Japantown

While downtown’s San Francisco Centre continues to shed tenants, Japantown’s Japan Center Mall and the Stonestown Galleria are thriving—thanks to a wave of Asian retailers, nostalgic collectibles, and student-friendly entertainment like arcades, escape rooms, and karaoke bars.

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With nearly full occupancy and rising foot traffic, both malls show how cultural relevance, safe neighborhoods, and suburban-style accessibility are reshaping the city’s retail future. [Chronicle]

Unlocking connection in the Mission

Lore, a new speakeasy-style escape room, opens June 12 in San Francisco’s Mission District, inviting guests into a whimsical world of puzzles, Vietnamese-inspired cocktails, and Mad Hatter–style tea parties.

Founder Vy Tran created the space as a response to the loneliness epidemic—and as a love letter to the city that made her dream possible. In an open letter on Lore’s website, she writes, “I hope you meet someone new and that you’ll plan new adventures together.”

In a recent Reddit post, Tran explains how she taught herself building codes, drafted her own architectural plans, and made 80 trips to the Department of Building Inspection to bring Lore to life. Her long-term vision is to expand it into a full underground universe of wonder and connection, according to the Chronicle.

Black history in the American West

Two major exhibitions are honoring Black history in California, offering a fuller, richer picture of the American West:

• Black Gold: Stories Untold at the Presidio, reframing the Gold Rush through Black resilience, entrepreneurship, and military service. [FOR-SITE]

• Routed West at BAMPFA, showcasing over 100 historic quilts from African American families who migrated to California. [BAMFA]

“Be Like Boomer”

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee declared June 6 Dr. Marvin Boomer Jr. Day in honor of the beloved Castlemont High mentor and College and Career Pathways Coach who was killed in a hit-and-run last week.

At his memorial service, a student returned a stuffed bear she’d promised to give him when she graduated. His partner, Nina Woodruff, called him “Mr. Wonderful.” The city is urging everyone to carry his legacy forward. [KRON4]

Top image: Yinka Shonibare, CBE, Man Moving Up, 2022 at Black Gold: Stories Untold                          

"Bloomingdale’s was the last straw" says one employee at an SF Centre retailer that closed Monday, and eight other stores are either set to close or have already closed at the beleaguered mall.

Just six or eight months ago it seemed like there was a chance for a near-term revival of the SF Centre mall on San Francisco's Market Street. But the mall formerly known as Westfield just lost its second anchor tenant with the closure of Bloomingdale's, and a swath of other retailers aren't sticking around to see what happens when the whole property gets auctioned off.

As the Examiner reports, the Coach and Kate Spade stores will be the next to shutter, on April 11. And already closed in just the last week or so are Rolex, Bucherer, Panerai, IWC Schaffhausen, and computer store Razer. Within the last several weeks the mall also lost its Sunglass Hut, and the store Psycho Bunny.

It was a sales assocate at Razer that told the Examiner, "Bloomingdale's was the last straw," noting that the store was only seeing seven to ten customers a day these days.

It won't be long before there is little to draw anyone to the mall except the food court — and I feel especially bad for the stellar Pakistani food stall there, called Pakistani Restaurant, which just opened last year and caught the attention of the Chronicle's food critic.

The death knell of the mall began tolling with the departures of Nordstrom and the Century Cinema, but those closures both date back two years now. The mall property's court-appointed receiver, Gregg Williams of Trident Pacific Real Estate Group, took control after former owner, the Westfield Corporation, decided to walk away from its loan in 2023, right around the time of the Nordstrom announcement.

There was talk back then of completely reimagining the mall — ideas floated included an urban soccer stadium, and a Legoland complex. But the mall's future will be in the hands of whoever submits a winning bid at auction — an auction that has now been delayed four times, after originally being scheduled for November.

The foreclosure auction was supposed to take place last week, as the Chronicle reported, but it has now been delayed again until June 17.

Foot traffic at the mall was in decline even before the pandemic began, and while some cited downtown crime and the sorry state of SF's streets as the cause, there is also a larger retail apocalypse happening nationwide. Bigger, department-store retailers have been suffering as more people turn to online shopping, and the Macy's corporation plans to exit SF's downtown area entirely once it sells its flagship Union Square property.

The company announced it would close the Bloomingdale's store last month that has been at the SF Centre since it opened in 2006, despite retail expert reports that the Bloomingdale's brand continues to thrive, at least relative to parent company Macy's.

Elsewhere in the Bay Area, department store Kohl's just shuttered five locations last week, and these were among 27 stores the company closed across the country.

Previously: Bloomingdale's to Close at SF Centre, Ushering In Further Bleak Days for Beleaguered Mall

This is not news that anyone wanted to hear today about San Francisco and its downtown recovery efforts, but following in the footsteps of major retailers Nordstrom and Macy's, Bloomingdale's is shuttering its massive SF store.

Bloomingdale's announced Tuesday that it will close its flagship San Francisco store at the SF Centre mall as of "late spring," or the end of March — a statement from the company says the former, but the Chronicle is reporting the latter, which would be early spring.

The store, which has certainly felt under-trafficked in recent years much like its sibling Macy's at Union Square, occupies the other anchor space at the SF Centre that has been a vague glimmer of hope for the mall, after the closing of anchor tenant Nordstrom in 2023.

This leaves the mall, which continues to be in receivership after the departure of former owners the Westfield Corporation in 2023, in even worse shape when it comes to turnaround efforts.

Multiple smaller but prominent retailers have shuttered their spaces in the mall in the last two years, including J. Crew, Hollister, Adidas, and the Lego Store, and the Michael Kors store, which occupies a space facing Market Street, announced its closure last week.

While the court-appointed receiver has filled some of unoccupied spaces, several sections of the mall, including all of the fourth floor that was once home to "The Restaurant Collection," have lain sadly vacant for a number of years now.

"We are saddened to confirm that Bloomingdale’s will officially close its doors in Union Square, San Francisco," the company said in a statement. "While we are committed to this decision, Bloomingdale’s doors will remain open until late spring 2025.  We are hopeful to be back to serve the San Francisco community in the future and look forward to introducing new ways to provide enhanced service to our loyal local shoppers."

Macy's, which owns Bloomingdale's, has been downsizing in recent years and has plans to close its Union Square flagship once it sells the property. Macy's is also closing stores in San Mateo, Corte Madera, and Newark.

But according to the company, the Bloomingdale's brand, as well as its cosmetics chain Bluemercury, were still doing well in the struggling brick-and-mortar retail marketplace, while the Macy's brand is flagging. This led to speculation that the company could relocate Bloomingdale's from the SF Centre to the Union Square building — though they reportedly still had a decade left on their lease at the SF Centre.

A veteran retail real estate broker, Kazuko Morgan, calls the news of the closure "more heartbreaking than Macy's," speaking to the Chronicle. Morgan says that retail overall has been "on a good momentum," but this is no doubt a big blow.

Stay tuned for some sort of statement from Mayor Daniel Lurie, who like Mayor Breed before him with the Macy's news, was likely blindsided by this — and this won't be an easy or quick problem to fix.

The fate of the former Westfield mall, now called the Emporium Centre San Francisco, will be decided at an auction next month, as the receivership process appears to be soon wrapped up.

As many of you know by now, the former owners of the mall property, Brookfield Properties and Westfield, walked away from their debt obligations in 2023 amid a dismal outlook for the retail landscape — and as Westfield, as a shopping center operator, was in the process of exiting the North American market. The owners' decision came after the departure of anchor tenant Nordstrom, which occupied nearly half of the mall's leasable space.

That was followed by several more blows for the property last year, including the closure of the Century Cinema on the top floor and several other retailer departures.

This year has seen a few bits of good news for the mall, including a rumored new cinema tenant taking over that movie theater, and seven new leases signed for retail spaces as of June (we haven't had an update since then).

Now, as the SF Business Times reports, the property is going up for auction on November 14. Representatives for the property's lenders, Deutsche Bank AG and JP Morgan Chase, informed Brookfield and Westfield of the upcoming auction date, as the price achieved from the highest bidder will offset what they continue to owe on their mortgage and the subsequent penalties for nonpayment.

At the time of their departure, Brookfield and Westfield owed $558 million on their original loan. The Business Times reports that as of October 14, they owed $625.6 million to the two lenders, including missed payment fees and penalties.

As the Business Times notes, if no third party comes forward with an acceptable bid for the property, the lenders could make their own bid and begin formal foreclosure proceedings.

Since October 2023, the mall has been in receivership, under the oversight and management of a SoCal-based expert in distressed assets, Trident Pacific.

While the mall had some well publicized theft incidents in recent years, and has suffered from the same wave of vacancy that is plaguing Union Square at large, real estate experts have said that the property, which is only 18 years out from its inception in its current form, remains of high value for retailers and could see a strong recovery.

The nearby Metreon complex is, by comparison, 92% leased, anchored by a Target and an AMC cinema, and just went up for sale.

Previously: Expert In Distressed Assets Assigned to Take Over Management of Westfield Mall

There's some good news on the retail front for San Francisco, with the Union Square-adjacent Emporium Centre San Francisco having signed seven new leases in recent weeks to fill some of the abundant vacancy in the troubled mall.

Still in receivership and seeking a buyer, the 1.5 million-square-foot Market Street mall formerly known as the Westfield San Francisco Centre has recently shown some signs of renewed life. A rebranding took place in March, nine months after the departure of previous owner the Westfield Corporation — and that's when we got the name Emporium San Francisco Centre, a nod to the property's long-ago department store, The Emporium.

In April, the Chronicle noted that three empty spaces in the mall had "leased" signs on them, and today the Chronicle reports from the leasing team that five of the formerly empty retail spaces have signed leases, in addition to two segments of the upstairs office space in the building.

Three new tenants that are already open for business in the mall are A&S Cell Accessories and Repairs, Hey Hi Toys, and Paw Box, which is some sort of vending machine operation for pet treats.

Hey Hi Toys — which mentions selling Hello Kitty and Mario toys and says "From cuddly companions to thrilling electric toys, we’ve got something for every adventurer" — may be a sign that the Emporium's agents are leaning into the trendiness of Japanese products and retailers. Both the Stonestown Galleria and the Japantown Mall having found recent success catering to teens with Japanese and other Asian retailers, and arcade games like claw machines.

Two other retailers are reportedly opening in July at the mall: +Friends, a vintage retailer; and another Japanese retailer, Merkado.

On the office side, the Chronicle reports that the nonprofit career exploration and workforce development organization Opportunities for All has leased 17,000 square feet on the fourth floor. And Block by Block, a company that provides cleaning, landscaping, and security services to community benefit and business improvement districts, including the Union Square BID and the Yerba Buena CBD, has leased space in the building as well.

This still leaves the enormous spaces vacant that were left by the departures of Nordstrom and Cinemark last summer. And last month we learned that the Market Street-facing American Eagle Outfitters would be closing in July.

Other vacancies were earlier left by the closures of Sephora, J. Crew, Hollister, Lucky Brand, The LEGO Store, Adidas, Burberry, and L'Occitane.

Up the street, IKEA's shopping center subsidiary, Ingka Centres, is trying to reimagine an urban mall with Meeting Place — at least that what it has been called in press materials. So far, it consists of an urban-sized IKEA store, and Saluhall, their reimagined two-level food court. Also, the top floor of the building is occupied by Hej! Workshop, a co-working space that doubles as a showroom for IKEA's office furniture.

It's not clear how popular Saluhall or the co-working space have been to date, and the company still has a fair bit of space to fill in the building. Ingka Centres has previously indicated it would be leaning in to more food- and entertainment-based retail.

Sarah Dennis-Phillips, director of SF's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, tells the Chronicle that the city has been working with the Emporium Centre to market to small businesses with limited budgets, implying that they may be getting discounts — in an arguably similar fashion to how the Vacant to Vibrant program is helping to get local small businesses into empty spaces further downtown.

"For too long, many small business owners were priced out of downtown spaces," Dennis-Phillips says in a statement to the Chronicle. "San Francisco Centre’s coordination with the Office of Small Business is part of its re-envisioning of the iconic mall as a place for small businesses to get a foothold and to flourish."

The fourth floor of the mall remains a kind of ghostly shadow of its former self — since it was once home to a collection of higher-end restaurants like Lark Creek Steak and MY China in addition to the movie theater. Those restaurants closed either pre- or mid-pandemic, and have not reopened, while the tidal wave of closures in the mall mostly took place in 2023.

The Emporium Centre San Francisco, formerly known as the Westfield San Francisco Centre, continues on the vacancy train with the announcement of the July closure of American Eagle Outfitters, one of the larger remaining stores in the mall.

American Eagle's parent company filed suit against the mall's former owner-operator, Westfield, citing "full neglect" of the property in the wake of the pandemic. The lawsuit said Westfield had allowed the mall to "deteriorate into disarray" by cutting back security before it surrendered the property to its lender last summer. "Westfield cannot walk away from the harm that it has caused without consequence," the company's lawsuit said.

The lawsuit alleged that the store had seen over 100 separate security incidents between May 2020 and May 2023, with some involving armed suspects brandishing weapons and threatening store employees.

Now, four years ahead of its lease expiration, American Eagle Outfitters is closing its store effective July 12. As the Chronicle reports, this will result in 52 lost jobs, and create another major vacancy next to the street-level entrance at Fifth and Market streets, on the (former) Nordstrom side.

American Eagle still maintains stores in San Mateo, Concord, Livermore, and Pleasanton.

The steady parade of exiting retailers from the mall since last spring has been staggering, with major tenants Nordstrom and Cinemark leaving the biggest vacancies to fill.

Other closures in the last six months have included Sephora, J. Crew, Hollister, Lucky Brand, The LEGO Store, Adidas, Burberry, and L'Occitane.

Since October, an expert in distressed assets, Trident Pacific, has been the court-ordered receiver for the mall property. Presumably they have been beefing security back up and seeking out new tenants at the mall — and the Chronicle reported several weeks ago that three of the vacant storefronts, including the former Burberry store, now have red "leased" signs on them.

In March, the new management rebranded the mall as the Emporium Centre San Francisco, in a nod to the longtime department store that lived at the property in the 20th Century, The Emporium.

Previously: American Eagle Sues Westfield Mall, Saying Ownership Let the Place ‘Deteriorate Into Disarray’

Photo via Yelp

We have two more closures to add to the list of retailers leaving the former Westfield mall in downtown San Francisco.

Not long after news came last week that Adidas was closing its only SF store, in a street-facing space at the San Francisco Centre mall, we have two more clothing-store closures to rack up at the center.

J. Crew, which filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and has been in the process of shrinking its brick-and-mortar footprint, is apparently closing its SF store in the mall within two weeks. SFGate got the news from an anonymous employee at the store, who said the store's last day would be January 22.

J. Crew has yet to confirm this closure. The company is similarly closed a location in Portland, Oregon at this time last year, and they underwent a similar round of closures in January 2022.

This news comes two days after the Chronicle reported that Hollister had already shut down its store in the SF Centre.

In December, SF's only LEGO Store, which was on the lower level of the center in the older, formerly Nordstrom-anchored portion, closed its doors as well.

Shakeup among the tenants in the mall has been fairly inevitable, as the entire property is in receivership and in the process of being readied for a sale to a new owner.

European-owned Westfield, now a subsidiary of Paris-based Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield SE, is reportedly divesting itself of American mall assets, and announced last spring that it was walking away from its loan and turning over the SF property to its lender.

With the J. Crew closure, the only J. Crew retail stores remaining will be a Stanford Shopping Center and in Corte Madera. In early 2020, J. Crew had 181 stores nationwide and 170 factory stores.

The number of retail stores was down to 120 as of November 2023, according to a company statement, though it now as 215 factory stores, as well as 154 stores for its Madewell brand.

Related: San Francisco's Only Adidas Store Closing at Former Westfield Mall

Photo via Yelp

An expert in receivership of large properties who's based in Southern California has been given the go-ahead by a judge to take over the operations of the San Francisco Centre mall, formerly known as the Westfield San Francisco Centre.

The next phase in SF's downtown mall's existence will now begin under the receivership of Gregg Williams and his firm Trident Pacific. The SF Business Times broke the news of the court appointment, reporting that Williams will now begin collecting rent from tenants in the mall, and begin the process of preparing the property for sale — which will include adding a lot more security.

"The most significant issue relating to the Mortgaged Property is security," Williams wrote in a court filing, per the Business Times. He said he plans to add guards and security canines at all exits and on the sidewalks surrounding the property.

"These actions have proven extremely effective in deterring crime at malls, especially in inner city or downtown locations," Williams said in the filing. "Based on my experience, I believe these security measures will discourage bad actors from engaging in bad acts, and will provide comfort to customers knowing that security at the Mortgaged Property is in place."

Trident Pacific will be paid $30,000 per month for its services. Williams also said he planned to retain the firm Jones Lang LaSalle, or JLL, to serve as third-party operator and leasing agent for the mall.

Last month, one of the tenants in the mall, American Eagle, sued Westfield Properties, accusing the mall operator of "full neglect." Westfield, along with its partner Brookfield Properties, announced in June that they were walking away from the property and ceasing mortgage payments, setting up the current receivership process.

Subsequently, lenders who backed the firms' $550 million mortgage sued their affiliates on September 29, requesting that the mall be placed in receivership rather than foreclosed upon. That suit, the Business Times reports, includes the detail that Westfield allegedly stopped paying to maintain or secure the property as of September 12, "severely and immediately threaten[ing] the integrity, well-being and value of the property, including security and tenant relations.”

Williams, a developer by trade based in Newport Beach who built a practice focusing on receivership during the Great Recession, was profiled by CoStar in May. He said he found the demand for receivers during that last economic downtturn was high, and it led him into the business after being laid off. He has figured out paths to turning large properties around, including large Class A office towers in downtown LA that have had similar vacancy issues to those in SF.

"Our job is to try to come in, stabilize the asset and add as much value as we can," Williams said in the profile. "If we do that, then that's a benefit to both borrowers and lenders."

The next steps will include finding tenants for vacant spaces in the mall, including the massive and vacant Nordstrom space that accounts for nearly half the mall's square footage. And, following that, there will be an effort to locate a buyer who can help make the lenders whole.

In recent months, Mayor London Breed has floated the highly improbable idea of building a soccer stadium in the mall's footprint, which is not likely to factor into this process. Also, a local architect recently suggested that a Legoland outpost could be a great fit for the Nordstrom space.