Call it the San Francisco slide.
Old Navy is moving out of downtown fog city.
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This is notable because this specific store wasn’t located in some strip mall.
Market Street serves as the heart of tourist-y downtown San Francisco. Stores will typically plant their regional flagship store at a prestigious and highly visible location. Market Street, located in the Union Square area, is one of them. Amidst chain store closings, prominent downtown locations are often the last to go.
But that’s not the case this time.
The closure follows a number of others stores vacating the area. AmazonGO, Nordstrom, and Whole Foods all recently announced that they’re as good as gone from Union Square.
The reason is quite clearly a spike in homelessness, a less hospitable downtown, thereby bringing less tourists, and most of all, an explosion in shoplifting as the district attorney goes light on prosecuting retail thieves.
But you wouldn’t guess that hearing Old Navy’s statement explaining their Market Street closure. It was vague, and they were careful not to single out shoplifting. That wouldn’t be woke, and they want that good ESG score.
“Old Navy is always evaluating its real estate portfolio to ensure a healthy fleet of stores that can provide the best possible experience for our customer,” a rep said.
But in a single year, general retail theft has shot up 26%.
This all comes just two years after San Francisco voters chose to downgrade theft of anything under $950 to a simple misdeamenor. Most of those won’t even result in arrest.
An owner of multiple retail stores expressed the sad state of affairs saying, “with a police shortage and so much happening, stores are just pulling out. The criminals are winning. This is not the city it once was 20-30 years ago. It’s bad here now. Even with all the problems brick and mortar stores are having nowadays, these stores in Union Square could still make a profit if it wasn’t for all this crime. And we are seeing stores get out as a result. It’s a shame. If you want to fix it, get in more cops and bring back harsher penalties.”
Will beautiful downtown San Francisco soon become a ghost town? Looking at the current state of things, that is almost certainly a possibility. Expect to see a city shuttered by decade’s end.
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