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“ Traffic and sales at other Westfield properties increased during the same period.” This clearly shows there is demand but people prefer to go somewhere else.

“ Traffic and sales at other Westfield properties increased during the same period.” This clearly shows there is demand but people prefer to go somewhere else. San Francisco is becoming worse day by day with crime and city maintenance. But mayor wants to somehow not show any link with this and conveniently says it is long coming.

estebank 3y ago
Look at the zoning map[1]. All the red is only commercial buildings. (If you don't want to open the PDF, effectively the entire zone all around Market Street and Union Square, from Folsom to China Town.) Businesses in cities thrive on foot traffic. Those offices are now pretty empty because a ton of employees are still working remotely, so the area is no longer a destination, and no one lives there. It's not shocking to me that people don't go to that mall anymore. In the rest of the city, where people live, businesses are thriving (at least restaurants, those are the easiest to gauge whether they have clients or not, it can be that other kinds of businesses are doing poorly). 1: https://sfplanning.org/resource/zoning-use-districts https://sfplanning.org/resource/zoning-use-districts
- GeneralMayhem 3y ago
  That map is misleading if you just look at the colors, because all the downtown mixed-use zones are grouped under "commercial". The red in SoMa is mostly "C-3-O (SD)", for "commercial 3 - office - special districts", where there "special district" rules allow either offices or residential over street-level retail. There's a bunch of large condo buildings in the red areas between Folsom and Market east of 4th (you're probably at least familiar with the infamous Millennium Tower at Mission and Fremont and the visually distinctive Mira at Folsom and Spear). Along Market in the other direction, "C-3-G" ("Downtown General") also includes apartment buildings, and there's a few that have opened in the past few years between 6th and 9th. North of Market to the east you have more of the traditional financial district, but that's really quite a small area, and it's not where the mall is. You also have to remember tourists, which have actually picked up pretty well post-pandemic. The red areas in around Union Square and in SoMa between 2nd and 5th contain a large fraction of the city's hotel rooms. That's not permanent residents, but it's still a lot of people.
  - estebank 3y ago
    If you look at the population density per neighborhood[1], that area is not any denser than other parts of the city, including the very residential Richmond and Sunset districts, but the number of shops is much higher. That means that all things being equal, shops throughout the city are more spread out and have less competition, allowing them to have an easier time being profitable. To me that tells me that downtown is entirely reliant on people going there from other parts of the city, while the other neighborhoods service their local communities. Furthermore, urban malls rely on foot traffic: malls are either a destination (you go there because you need multiple things so you save multiple trips around town) or they are a place of convenience (they are next to transportation hubs or landmarks with lots of foot traffic). Westfield SF was rarely the first, and lost the later for years due to the pandemic. 1: https://statisticalatlas.com/county/California/San-Francisco-County/Population https://statisticalatlas.com/county/California/San-Francisco...
  - TMWNN 3y ago
    >You also have to remember tourists, which have actually picked up pretty well post-pandemic. The red areas in around Union Square and in SoMa between 2nd and 5th contain a large fraction of the city's hotel rooms. That's not permanent residents, but it's still a lot of people. Tourism *in San Francisco* has not recovered. From <https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/two-s-f-s-largest-hotels-given-owner-18136504.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/two-s-f-s-largest-hot...>: >Park Hotels said San Francisco’s convention-driven demand is expected to be 40% lower between 2023 and 2027 compared with the pre-pandemic average.
echelon 3y ago
I stayed at the Hotel Zetta last month. It's on the same block as the Westfield. Nearly every night, mentally ill homeless people were screaming at the top of their lungs, making it extremely hard to get to sleep. This lasted until 3 and 4 AM. On the few nights I ventured out after dark, there were people sprawled out all over the sidewalk, and you had to jump around or walk into the street to avoid them. There were lit fires on the bare sidewalk under the Westfield entrance. It's surreal.
- taylodl 3y ago
  "Mentally ill homeless" - have been there since Reagan deinstitutionalized the mentally ill and cut funding for mental illness. The problem has just only gotten worse over time. I remember friends going to San Francisco in the 90's and saying it was awful and they'd never go back. All that to say, this problem has existed for decades. It doesn't explain the recent drop in foot traffic which is largely caused by people no longer going to the office. Getting around in SF isn't the easiest thing to do and if you don't have to go downtown then you're probably not going to. This scenario is playing out in downtowns all across America.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    > since Reagan deinstitutionalized the mentally ill and cut funding How long are we going to blame Reagan? Democrats have supermajority in California since 2011-12 ballot reforms, and hypermajority in SF. It's not for a lack of funding neither as SF has spent billions[1] so far. So blaming it on Reagan and funding is just lazy and dishonest. [1] 1.45B per https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-francisco-supervisor-rafael-mandelman/12760671/ https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-franci...
    - emaginniss 3y ago
      Looking at it from a nationwide perspective, there were two watershed moments in mental health treatment in the late 20th century. The first was in the 60's when JFK (whose sister had been savaged by the mental health institutions) signed legislation changing the requirements for commitment to be "posing a danger to oneself or others." This was a change from the metric of "mentally unfit to live independently in society." The second was in the 80's when Reagan and the Democratic-majority congress defunded and shuttered many of the state-owned mental health facilities. This was a bi-partisan effort by the Republicans, who hated spending money, and the Democrats, who hated how poorly run the facilities were. Nobody has had a really good solution for mental health care in the US since those happened and, as the parent post points out, it is unfair to paint this as "Reagan defunded mental health care."

estebank 3y ago

Look at the zoning map[1]. All the red is only commercial buildings. (If you don't want to open the PDF, effectively the entire zone all around Market Street and Union Square, from Folsom to China Town.) Businesses in cities thrive on foot traffic. Those offices are now pretty empty because a ton of employees are still working remotely, so the area is no longer a destination, and no one lives there. It's not shocking to me that people don't go to that mall anymore. In the rest of the city, where people live, businesses are thriving (at least restaurants, those are the easiest to gauge whether they have clients or not, it can be that other kinds of businesses are doing poorly). 1: https://sfplanning.org/resource/zoning-use-districts https://sfplanning.org/resource/zoning-use-districts

GeneralMayhem 3y ago
That map is misleading if you just look at the colors, because all the downtown mixed-use zones are grouped under "commercial". The red in SoMa is mostly "C-3-O (SD)", for "commercial 3 - office - special districts", where there "special district" rules allow either offices or residential over street-level retail. There's a bunch of large condo buildings in the red areas between Folsom and Market east of 4th (you're probably at least familiar with the infamous Millennium Tower at Mission and Fremont and the visually distinctive Mira at Folsom and Spear). Along Market in the other direction, "C-3-G" ("Downtown General") also includes apartment buildings, and there's a few that have opened in the past few years between 6th and 9th. North of Market to the east you have more of the traditional financial district, but that's really quite a small area, and it's not where the mall is. You also have to remember tourists, which have actually picked up pretty well post-pandemic. The red areas in around Union Square and in SoMa between 2nd and 5th contain a large fraction of the city's hotel rooms. That's not permanent residents, but it's still a lot of people.
- estebank 3y ago
  If you look at the population density per neighborhood[1], that area is not any denser than other parts of the city, including the very residential Richmond and Sunset districts, but the number of shops is much higher. That means that all things being equal, shops throughout the city are more spread out and have less competition, allowing them to have an easier time being profitable. To me that tells me that downtown is entirely reliant on people going there from other parts of the city, while the other neighborhoods service their local communities. Furthermore, urban malls rely on foot traffic: malls are either a destination (you go there because you need multiple things so you save multiple trips around town) or they are a place of convenience (they are next to transportation hubs or landmarks with lots of foot traffic). Westfield SF was rarely the first, and lost the later for years due to the pandemic. 1: https://statisticalatlas.com/county/California/San-Francisco-County/Population https://statisticalatlas.com/county/California/San-Francisco...
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >You also have to remember tourists, which have actually picked up pretty well post-pandemic. The red areas in around Union Square and in SoMa between 2nd and 5th contain a large fraction of the city's hotel rooms. That's not permanent residents, but it's still a lot of people. Tourism *in San Francisco* has not recovered. From <https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/two-s-f-s-largest-hotels-given-owner-18136504.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/two-s-f-s-largest-hot...>: >Park Hotels said San Francisco’s convention-driven demand is expected to be 40% lower between 2023 and 2027 compared with the pre-pandemic average.

echelon 3y ago

I stayed at the Hotel Zetta last month. It's on the same block as the Westfield. Nearly every night, mentally ill homeless people were screaming at the top of their lungs, making it extremely hard to get to sleep. This lasted until 3 and 4 AM. On the few nights I ventured out after dark, there were people sprawled out all over the sidewalk, and you had to jump around or walk into the street to avoid them. There were lit fires on the bare sidewalk under the Westfield entrance. It's surreal.

taylodl 3y ago
"Mentally ill homeless" - have been there since Reagan deinstitutionalized the mentally ill and cut funding for mental illness. The problem has just only gotten worse over time. I remember friends going to San Francisco in the 90's and saying it was awful and they'd never go back. All that to say, this problem has existed for decades. It doesn't explain the recent drop in foot traffic which is largely caused by people no longer going to the office. Getting around in SF isn't the easiest thing to do and if you don't have to go downtown then you're probably not going to. This scenario is playing out in downtowns all across America.
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  > since Reagan deinstitutionalized the mentally ill and cut funding How long are we going to blame Reagan? Democrats have supermajority in California since 2011-12 ballot reforms, and hypermajority in SF. It's not for a lack of funding neither as SF has spent billions[1] so far. So blaming it on Reagan and funding is just lazy and dishonest. [1] 1.45B per https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-francisco-supervisor-rafael-mandelman/12760671/ https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-franci...
  - emaginniss 3y ago
    Looking at it from a nationwide perspective, there were two watershed moments in mental health treatment in the late 20th century. The first was in the 60's when JFK (whose sister had been savaged by the mental health institutions) signed legislation changing the requirements for commitment to be "posing a danger to oneself or others." This was a change from the metric of "mentally unfit to live independently in society." The second was in the 80's when Reagan and the Democratic-majority congress defunded and shuttered many of the state-owned mental health facilities. This was a bi-partisan effort by the Republicans, who hated spending money, and the Democrats, who hated how poorly run the facilities were. Nobody has had a really good solution for mental health care in the US since those happened and, as the parent post points out, it is unfair to paint this as "Reagan defunded mental health care."