After nearly four decades in operation, San Francisco Centre has closed its doors for good, leaving the center of downtown San Francisco without its largest mall. The building went dark over the weekend, two days earlier than the previously announced final day of business, with signs on the doors telling would‑be shoppers the complex was closed until further notice.
People who wandered over from the Powell Street cable car turnaround or out of the BART station found something eerie instead of a food court and bright window displays. Only one remaining tenant, a shoe store, had been expected to stay open through the end of the weekend, yet workers confirmed that both the shop and the mall had already shut down.
A direct entrance from Powell Street Station had been sealed days before, cutting off a route that once funneled commuters straight into the atrium.
From crown jewel to empty shell
When it opened in 1988, the mall was a showpiece for Market Street, complete with a restored glass dome and a tenant list that looked like a who’s-who of American retail. Over time it became a weather‑protected shortcut, a meetup spot, and a place to grab lunch between trains.
That picture started to unravel long before this winter. Total sales at the center fell from about $455 million in 2019 to roughly $298 million in 2022, while annual foot traffic dropped by more than 40% according to Westfield’s own figures.
The slide accelerated when Nordstrom closed its longtime flagship there in 2023, followed by plans for Bloomingdale’s to exit and lay off 164 employees tied to its massive Market Street store. By late 2025, a new appraisal valued the property at about $195 million, roughly one billion less than its 2016 peak, and a report estimated that more than 90% of the retail space sat empty.
Remote work, safety worries and online habits
At street level, the reasons feel familiar to anyone who has watched a favorite mall empty out. Office towers around the center never fully repopulated after the pandemic, which meant fewer workers grabbing lunch or window shopping on the way to the train.
Westfield and later owners pointed to sharp drops in sales, occupancy and foot traffic, while many tenants complained about safety concerns and the perception of disorder in the surrounding blocks.
Shoppers noticed the shift too. One visitor summed it up bluntly, saying the mall was closing because people now buy everything on Amazon instead of coming downtown to spend money in person.
Another longtime local recalled growing up in the building and described it as “literally a public space,” a place to go even when you did not plan to buy much. Those comments capture something statistics cannot quite measure, the loss of a climate‑controlled town square where teenagers, tourists and office workers all crossed paths.
What comes next for a full city block
Control of the complex now sits with a consortium of lenders that took over after foreclosure and then began telling tenants to vacate. Brokerage firm CBRE is marketing the structure as a redevelopment opportunity, but real estate analysts warn that repurposing a 1.5-million-square-foot, transit‑linked concrete shell will be technically complex and very expensive.
Ideas have floated around for months, from housing and classrooms to entertainment venues. Nearby Union Square is slowly adding brands again, yet the darkened mall across Market Street is a daily reminder that recovery is uneven.
For now, the closed gates leave former regulars rerouting their walks, their commutes and their weekend errands, while city leaders try to decide what kind of downtown replaces the one that revolved around a shopping center.
The full report was published by the San Francisco Chronicle.
