Primark is among the contenders to fill the empty space in San Francisco’s struggling downtown mall, according to a new report.
San Francisco Center, formerly known as Westfield Mall, has been without a permanent tenant since August of last year, when Nordstrom upped its bet amid rising crime and declining foot traffic.
Now mall operators JLL and Trident Pacific are in talks to fill the five vacant floors left vacant by Nordstrom with a foreign operator, possibly European, sources told the San Francisco standard.
Possible suitors mentioned by the outlet include Primark, the fast fashion retailer headquartered in Dublin, and Eataly, the major Italian food hall with locations around the world.
Other options that have been put forward include French goods chain Printemps, Japanese bowling and arcade Round1 and Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo.
San Francisco Center, formerly known as Westfield Mall, has been without a tenant since August of last year, when Nordstrom left
Irish discount fashion chain Primark is a possible candidate to fill the empty spot in San Francisco’s struggling shopping center
It was not confirmed which retailers may have been approached by the ownership group and the examples were offered 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 huge popularity in Ireland and Britain, but has only recently embarked on an expansion in the US, where it currently operates 24 stores in nine states, with plans to reach 60 US stores by 2026.
Earlier this month, the Irish company announced plans for a new distribution center in Jacksonville, Florida, to support expansion plans in the southern US.
Primark also announced plans for new stores in Woodbridge, Virginia; Hyattsville, Maryland; Franklin, Tenn.; and Katy, Texas.
So far, however, the retailer has no existing or announced U.S. locations west of Chicago, meaning a San Francisco store would be a radical expansion of its U.S. footprint.
Meanwhile, the ailing mall in downtown San Francisco has suffered an exodus of retailers in recent months.
Last month, Madewell became the fifth retailer in a month to leave the mall, following sister brand J. Crew, Adidas, Lucky Brand and Aldo.
The ailing mall in downtown San Francisco has suffered an exodus of retailers in recent months
According to the Real Deal, San Francisco Center has lost as much as $1 billion in value as a retailer since 2016.
The city’s largest mall, formerly owned by Westfield and Brookfield, which stopped making mortgage payments last year, is now worth just $290 million, down 75 percent from seven years ago, according to the Real Deal.
When the former operator of the Westfield mall transferred the property to its lender last year, the company blamed “unsafe conditions” and “lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity” in large part for Nordstrom’s departure.
The mall is located in the city’s troubled Union Square area, where pedestrian traffic has fallen since the pandemic, a shift 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 negotiations with landlords.
“Maybe right now they are able to look at this market more objectively than the American (retailers),” Berne said.
“They are not as influenced by the political football and can instead focus on how this could be a golden opportunity to access a market that they may have long desired but have been unable to access in the past had.’
