Can San Francisco Revive Struggling Union Square?

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

San Francisco’s Union Square is known for a lot of things: department stores and high-end boutiques, a massive and ornate Christmas tree and a Cheesecake Factory with an amazing view of the city. It’s now also known for swaths of empty storefronts. Close to a quarter of the neighborhood’s 3.2 million square feet of retail space is available for lease, according to brokerage firm Avison Young. Foot traffic in the area has yet to recover from the pandemic, but vacancy was already creeping up for years as more shopping shifted online and rental rates shot up. We’ll talk about how the iconic retail district is doing, how the pandemic shook up brick and mortar retail and what could happen next. Guests: J.K. Dineen, Bay Area real estate reporter, San Francisco Chronicle Amanda Mull, staff writer, The Atlantic Marisa Rodriguez, CEO, Union Square Alliance - a business improvement district that provides security, maintenance, marketing, and capital improvements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:51.3	Union Square has long been the retail heart of the entire Bay Area.
0:55.5	It was zoned with 5 million square feet of retail space. That rivals the Mall of America.
1:01.4	But at the biggest, most structural levels, brick and mortar retailing has been in trouble for most of a decade.
1:07.2	Add the pandemic. Add the viral videos of shoplifting, subtract a lot of visitors to central cities,
1:12.5	and the outcome is ugly.
1:14.9	One SF standard analysis
1:16.4	found that more than half of Union Square's retailers
1:18.9	have left since the pandemic began.
1:21.3	So what happens to Union Square now?
1:23.2	What are the factors behind the headlines
	...

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