The Covid-19 pandemic’s effect on San Francisco’s office market was tragic as workers abandoned work spaces around the city to work remotely and then didn’t return after the pandemic subsided.
The office vacancy rate in San Francisco hit a record high of 36.8% in the second quarter of 2024 after setting a record in the previous quarter of 36.7%, according to CBRE statistics.
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High office vacancy rates since the pandemic cleared out office buildings in 2020 has helped devastate the downtown retail market in San Francisco. The city’s San Francisco Centre mall, formerly a Westfield mall, has lost several major retailers, including Nordstrom, Hollister, Adidas and J. Crew, and American Eagle revealed it is leaving.
And the Union Square downtown shopping district has lost major retail chains since the pandemic, including H&M, The Gap, Uniqlo and Crate & Barrel. More major retailers have revealed they will be closing stores as well, including Macy’s, The North Face and Zara.
The economic downturn in downtown San Francisco and its Union Square shopping district also led hotel operator Park Hotels & Resorts (PK) in June 2023 to abandon two major hotels in the city, the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco and 1,024 Parc 55 San Francisco.
Park Hotels & Resorts stopped making payments on a $725 million loan on the two hotels, and the two properties are now in receivership.
Problems in another metropolitan city has led Park Hotels & Resorts to close another of its hotels across San Francisco Bay in Oakland.
After 56 years in business, Park Hotels & Resorts (PK) has reportedly shuttered its 360-room Hilton Oakland Airport location on Aug. 25 as the neighborhood surrounding the property near the Oakland Airport has deteriorated in recent years.
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Park Hotels & Resorts had revealed in June that it planned to close the hotel on Aug. 28, but the property closed its operations three days earlier than expected, KPIX-TV in San Francisco reported. The company did not state a reason for closing the property.
Former employees at the hotel believe effects from the Covid-19 pandemic and high crime in the area led to the hotel’s closing. The workers said that a lot of customers’ vehicles had been broken into, catalytic converters were stolen off of cars and even hotel buses had been stolen, KPIX reported.
More closings:
Essential retailer closes more stores in Chapter 11 bankruptcyHistoric furniture chain closing after Chapter 11 bankruptcyBankrupt essential retail chain closes dozens of stores
The hotel at one time accommodated many sports fans attending Oakland Raiders, Golden State Warriors and Oakland Athletics games played a short distance over a nearby overpass on Hegenberger Road at the Oakland Coliseum complex. Attendees of many concerts and other events at the Coliseum arena and stadium also stayed at the hotel over the years since it opened in 1968.
The hotel, however, has lost a lot of business with the relocation of the Warriors to San Francisco’s Chase Center in 2019, the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas in 2020 and many concerts and other events shifting from the Coliseum arena to the Chase Center. The hotel was set to lose even more future business, as the Oakland A’s are set to relocate, first to Sacramento in 2025, then to Las Vegas when its new ballpark is completed.
Not only have Oakland’s sports teams abandoned the neighborhood surrounding the Hilton, but many businesses have closed nearby over the past decade because of crime.
A Walmart in the neighborhood closed in 2016 because of frequent car burglaries, and a popular In-N-Out restaurant nearby closed in March because of car break-ins, property damage, theft and armed robberies, SiliconValley.com reported.
Also, a nearby Raising Cane’s closed its dining room in 2023 because of car break-ins and numerous robberies in the neighborhood, KGO-TV in San Francisco reported.
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