San Francisco Centre, the downtown mall once known as Westfield San Francisco Centre, will permanently close next Monday, according to an employee at one of the last remaining stores who spoke with reporters. The shutdown caps a slow, two-year exodus of retailers and restaurants that has left the complex largely empty. Commuters and shoppers can expect the concourses to go dark and at least one direct BART passage to be sealed in the coming days.
BART entrance already sealed
BART has already shut the entrance from Powell Street Station, which for decades funneled riders directly into the mall. "SF Centre’s General Manager advised BART they were going to close the entrance from the Powell Station concourse level to their mall," Alicia Trost, BART's chief communications officer, told the San Francisco Chronicle. BART officials say any future reopening of that connection would require a new agreement with whoever eventually acquires the property.
Foreclosure, a lender takeover and lease terminations
Control of the 1.2-million-square-foot property shifted after a foreclosure auction in November, when a mortgage trust and its special-servicing team assumed the mall’s debt and took effective ownership, The Real Deal reports. Lawyers for the new ownership, an LLC tied to the loan, have been notifying remaining tenants that their leases were "extinguished," triggering a wave of vacate notices and leaving the owners free to idle the building while it is marketed for sale. Brokers have already started pitching the site as a conversion or redevelopment opportunity, but experts warn that the cost to rework two massive anchor boxes and the mall’s complex layout will be high.
Who's gone and what's closing
The food court and retail exodus has been steady: Shake Shack closed its mall location in mid-December, and the last Panda Express shut earlier this month, leaving only a handful of shops through the winter, according to SFGATE. An employee at shoe retailer Ecco confirmed that their store and the mall itself are set to close next Monday, SFist reports. The final departures follow the loss of anchors Nordstrom in 2023 and Bloomingdale’s in 2025, which siphoned away the foot traffic that supported smaller tenants.
Redevelopment is possible but costly
Brokers from CBRE and other firms are marketing the property as a candidate for conversion to mixed use or a major redevelopment, but turning a mall into offices, housing, or a new civic use will require significant capital and time, The Real Deal notes. Owners have a clear incentive to cut operating expenses such as lights, heat, and security by shutting the complex down while they seek buyers or plan a reuse. For downtown San Francisco, the closure is another sign of how tough the post-pandemic retail recovery has been along the Powell-Market corridor.
What locals are saying
Reaction has been a mix of nostalgia and resignation online, with longtime San Franciscans sharing photos and videos of the mall’s empty escalators and holiday crowds from years past, as collected by SFist. Local television coverage has also been tracking the shutdown and the timeline for the final day. KRON4's Stephanie Rothman was among the reporters who visited the mall this week.
