Primark is one of the contenders to fill the empty anchor space at San Francisco’s struggling downtown shopping mall, according to a new report.
San Francisco Centre, formerly known as Westfield mall, has been without an anchor tenant since last August, when Nordstrom upped stakes amid rising crime and falling foot traffic.
Now, mall operators JLL and Trident Pacific are in talks to fill the five vacant floors left empty by Nordstrom with a foreign operator, possibly European, sources told the San Francisco Standard.
Possible contenders named by the outlet include Primark, the fast fashion retailer headquartered in Dublin, and Eataly, the large-format Italian food hall with locations around the world.
Other possibilities floated include French department chain Printemps, Japanese bowling and arcade venue Round1, and Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo.
San Francisco Centre, formerly known as Westfield mall, has been without an anchor tenant since last August, when Nordstrom departed
The Irish discount fashion retailer Primark is a possible contender to fill the empty anchor space at San Francisco’s struggling downtown shopping mall
It was not confirmed which retailers may have been approached by the ownership group, and offered the examples only as speculative possibilities, the Standard reported.
Representatives for Primark and the mall’s owners did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Monday morning.
Primark has long enjoyed wild popularity in Ireland and the UK, but has only recently begun an expansion push in the US, where it currently operates 24 stores in nine states, with plans to reach 60 stores in the US by 2026.
Earlier this month, the Irish firm announced plans for a new distribution center in Jacksonville, Florida to serve expansion plans in the southern US.
Primark also announced plans for new stores in Woodbridge, Virginia; Hyattsville, Maryland; Franklin, Tennessee; and Katy, Texas.
However, so far the retailer has no existing or announced US locations west of Chicago, meaning that a San Francisco store would be a radical expansion of its American footprint.
Meanwhile, San Francisco’s ailing downtown mall has suffered an exodus of retailers in recent months.
Last month, Madewell became the fifth retailer in a month to quit the mall, following its sister brand J. Crew, as well as Adidas, Lucky Brand and Aldo.
San Francisco’s ailing downtown mall has suffered an exodus of retailers in recent months
According to the Real Deal, San Francisco Centre has lost a staggering $1billion in value since 2016 as retailers.
The city’s largest mall, previously owned by Westfield and Brookfield who stopped making mortgage payments last year, is now worth only $290million, which is 75 per cent less than seven years ago, according to the Real Deal.
When its former mall operator Westfield turned the property over to its lender last year, it blamed ‘unsafe conditions’ and ‘lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity’ in large part for Nordstrom’s departure.
The mall is located in the troubled Union Square area in the center of downtown, which has witnessed plunging foot traffic since the pandemic, a shift that has been variously attributed to crime, homelessness and work-from-home policies.
Michael Berne, president of MJB Consulting, a Berkeley and New York-based retail planning and real estate consultancy, told the Standard that European or Asian retailers could have the upper hand in negotiating with landlords.
‘They may be capable of seeing this market more objectively than American [retailers] right now,’ Berne said.
‘They’re not as impacted by the political football and can instead focus on how this might be a golden opportunity to gain entry to a market they had perhaps long coveted but were unable to access in the past.’
