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‘Collapse of San Francisco is accelerating’: Hotels, malls, and AT&T among latest to flee ‘failed city’

June 16, 2023 | | Print Article

Perhaps the greatest — and most painful to watch — testament to the devastation caused by progressive policies is the agonizing “collapse” in real time of San Francisco, once a shining jewel in California’s tinsel-laden crown.

The city has devolved into a hellscape of drugs, homelessness, and unabated crime, causing a long list of companies to flee for reasons of self-preservation.

“The collapse of San Francisco is accelerating at an alarming pace,” tweeted the popular Twitter account, Amuse. “Each day another employer shuts down.”

“[San Francisco Mayor] London Breed is presiding over a failed city,” Amuse added.

The latest to leave is telecommunications giant AT&T, which announced on Thursday that it will be shutting its flagship, downtown store.

“Consumer shopping habits continue to change, and we’re changing with them,” AT&T spokesperson Chris Collins said, according to the San Francisco Standard. “That means serving customers where they are through the right mix of retail stores, digital channels and our phone-based care team.”

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Two AT&T locations remain within a mile of 1 Powell St., Collins noted, and San Francisco continues to boast more than 10 stores and licensed retailers.

Regardless of AT&T’s reasons, the fact is that it is joining a slew of shuttered San Francisco businesses. On Wednesday, Cinemark announced that it will close its Westfield San Francisco Centre movie theater.

“An analysis by The Standard shows 46% of the Westfield’s stores have closed since the pandemic, another analysis shows Union Square has lost at least 17 stores since 2020,” the outlet reports.

On Monday, the mall’s owner, Westfield, announced it would be turning the retail center back over to its lender, allowing it to decide the property’s future, The New York Times reported.

And according to Vince Tibone, managing director at the real estate firm Green Street, things will likely only get worse for the city.

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“I don’t think we’re in the upswing yet for San Francisco,” he told The Times. “I would say we probably haven’t even reached bottom yet.”

NBC correspondent Miguel Almaguer argued it wasn’t crime that caused the closure, it was merely “the perception of crime.”

But crime appears to be everywhere in the city.

“Thieves target more luxury retail in San Francisco,” KGO-TV anchor Dion Lim reported on Wednesday.

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Video used in the police investigation “shows multiple suspects run out from Fendi this afternoon,” Lim tweeted.


“Earlier in the day I’m told another luxury handbag shop within a major department store was also hit for thousands in goods,” she added.

Earlier this month, BPR reported that US Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. announced it is halting payments on a $725 million loan that secured both its 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square and 1,024-room Parc 55 San Francisco properties, citing “major challenges” in the city.

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“Now more than ever, we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges — both old and new: record high office vacancy; concerns over street conditions; lower return to office than peer cities; and a weaker than expected citywide convention calendar through 2027 that will negatively impact business and leisure demand and will likely significantly reduce compression in the city for the foreseeable future,” Park Hotels CEO Thomas J. Baltimore Jr. explained in a statement.

Meanwhile, Mayor Breed is working on a “path” to “disrupt drug activity” on the streets of San Francisco.

“Taking more aggressive actions to disrupt drug activity on our streets also requires us to take actions to create more options for getting people into care,” she tweeted on Thursday. “In my budget, this includes providing new sober housing options for people who need that path.”


Reaction to the mayor’s plan was less than enthusiastic.

Melissa Fine
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