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Pandemic exodus is over: Census Bureau numbers present slight improve in San Francisco inhabitants

Daily SF News — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 06:03:19 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — New census figures show people are returning to San Francisco for the first time since 2019.

“I think the pandemic has really changed a lot of people's lives. I'm glad they're coming back. It’s wonderful,” said Mark Palmer, a San Francisco resident.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, San Francisco's population increased by about 1,200 between July 2022 and 2023. The city's population rose from 807,774 to just under 809,000. That's an increase of 0.15%.

“I’m a little surprised at the number,” Linda Jensen said.

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MORE: California Dreaming: Moving to Texas

The recovery from a decline of over 50,000 people in 2021 is shown in the light blue line in the chart above.

“As a chef, a lot of my friends left,” said Danny Murcia, a San Francisco resident. “A lot of the restaurants we grew up in are a thing of the past.”

Statewide, California lost more than 75,000 people from 2022 to 2023 — a decline of 0.2%.

“But things are starting to change,” Murcia said. “I’m starting to get calls again asking if I know anyone who has openings in our industry again, which is huge for us.”

MORE: Census Bureau: Greater SF sees mass exodus during pandemic; more are thinking about leaving

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that 7.6% of San Francisco metro area residents surveyed are considering moving to another city in the next year.

“We spent a lot of time in Tahoe. A lot of people went to Tahoe. They were unprepared for year-round living in Tahoe. I’m not surprised that people want to come back,” Jensen said.

The pandemic allowed people to work remotely and in significantly cheaper locations. But Eric McGee, policy director at the Public Policy Institute of California, said that is now changing.

“Now, in some cases, the staff is a little more cumbersome about people only showing up in person a few days a week, and I think that's attracting people because of the dynamic and the well-paying jobs, especially in the Bay Area, back to California. “Still here,” McGee said.

The Bay Area is also experiencing an upswing.

“The Bay Area in general, not just San Francisco, has seen a bit of a turnaround. We have some new dynamic industries like AI that are attracting people back to the state,” McGee said.

MORE: Bay Area exodus: Where is everyone going and why?

New data from the United States Postal Service shows people are moving from the Bay Area to less restrictive parts of the state amid the ongoing pandemic.

Kevin Ho, a San Francisco real estate agent with Vanguard Properties, said things have definitely improved.

“We have a lot of vendors who would have left town before. Now they're upgrading and staying in the city – and buying bigger and better homes,” Ho said. “We have customers who are relocating and moving back to the Bay Area. We had a couple who just bought an iconic property and are moving here from Miami.”

MORE: After passing affordable housing bond, how can SF build more homes in one of densest US cities?

How can San Francisco build more affordable homes after voters recently passed a bond? Officials also provide insights into the challenges.

Experts say San Francisco still has a long way to go to get back to where it was.

“San Francisco is not quite back yet, but it is in recovery mode,” McGhee said. “We just have to wait and see whether this trend can continue. Policy challenges remain, particularly with regard to building sufficient housing. But things are moving in the right direction again.”

Meanwhile, Ho said there were large crowds at the open house on Sunday. He said the listings would sell in less than a week.

“We see people crowding there who want to buy, who want to stay,” Ho said.

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Is the San Francisco exodus over? Right here’s what inhabitants information reveals

Daily SF News — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 20:21:59 +0000

People gather to see the main stage at the Night Market in the Sunset District of San Francisco on Sept. 15. New data suggests the city’s population has grown over the past few years.

Felix Uribe/Special to the Chronicle

The city’s population began growing again in 2021 after plunging at the onset of the pandemic, a year earlier than previously thought, according to California Department of Finance data released Tuesday.

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The city gained about 1,400 people between July 2021 and July 2022, according to a revised estimate. A previous Department of Finance report estimated a loss of around 4,400 people during that period. The revisions incorporate migration data from the Internal Revenue Service and 2020 census data.

Gains were stronger in the following 12 months: The city grew by about 4,900 people to a total of a little over 848,000 residents, a positive sign that it remains appealing in the age of remote work and despite persistently high housing costs. San Francisco’s 0.6% gain was the fourth-highest percentage increase among California counties, behind the three rural counties of Yuba, Madera and Mono.

The city’s return to growth could boost its economy as it grapples with a budget crisis and stave off fears of a “doom loop.” Population swings have been driven mostly by people moving out or in, rather than births and deaths. By voting with their feet, many departing residents told the Chronicle that the city was no longer worth it.

They flocked to destinations such as Texas and Washington state during the pandemic. But the more recent gains show that San Francisco is drawing in more people than it is losing, though it remains roughly 22,000 people smaller than it was in mid-2020.

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Between July 2022 and July 2023, the city saw a net gain of 4,682 people through domestic and international migration, the highest growth among California counties from those two sources. Notably, net domestic migration accounted for a gain of 1,070 people, up from a loss of nearly 3,000 people in the prior 12 months.

Between July 2020 and July 2021, San Francisco lost a staggering 29,013 people, or 3.3%, almost all due to net out-migration amid stringent health restrictions. (The U.S. Census Bureau, which uses a different methodology, said the population loss was 6.3% during that time, the biggest percentage drop of any major American city.)

Three of the Bay Area’s most populous counties also saw gains. Santa Clara County grew by about 8,500 people, or 0.5%, between July 2022 and July 2023. San Mateo County grew by 2,800 people, or 0.4%, and Alameda County increased by a little over 6,000 people, or 0.4%. The other five Bay Area counties lost population, with Napa County seeing the biggest percentage decline of 0.8%, or about 1,000 people.

The population of Los Angeles County, home to over 9.8 million people, or a quarter of the state’s residents, fell by about 15,000 people, or 0.15%.

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California’s total population fell by only 0.1%, a loss of 37,200 people, in the same period, thanks to fewer deaths and an immigration rebound compared with the prior year. The loss was far narrower than the 0.75% drop between July 2020 and July 2021, a net loss of 295,000 people.

The state lost a net 260,400 people to domestic out-migration. The Department of Finance noted that net domestic migration has been negative for almost 20 years, leaving the state dependent on births and international immigration to make up the loss.

The state gained 107,300 people from natural increase — births minus deaths — plus a net 115,900 people from international migration.

San Francisco population loss was a common subject during the early part of the pandemic. But new data suggests people were moving into the city sooner than previously thought.

Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

Only 16 of California’s 58 counties grew, with four Bay Area counties seeing some of the biggest gains.

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Separately, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Tuesday that California lost over 75,000 people between July 2022 and 2023, using different methodology. In contrast, 42 of 50 states gained population. County-level census data will be released in March.

The U.S. population grew by 1.6 million, or 0.5%, as the country recovered from the pandemic during that time. A striking 87% of the country’s population growth happened in the south.

The Department of Finance previously told the Chronicle that the Census Bureau’s 2022 estimates, which showed a lower San Francisco population, were likely more accurate than its own. But this year, the department’s figures are probably stronger, said Department of Finance chief demographer Walter Schwarm, since they account better for in-migration.

State data comes from driver’s licenses, birth and death certificates, address changes, tax returns, health care programs, elementary school enrollment, immigration reports and group quarters population data.

Reach Roland Li: roland.li@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @rolandlisf, Reach Christian Leonard: christian.leonard@sfchronicle.com

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A 3rd of Californian voters and most Republicans say the state is shifting too quick on inexperienced vitality – new guidelines pushing motorists to spend $60,000 on EVs will hasten exodus to Texas and Arizona: analysis

Daily SF News — Sat, 04 Nov 2023 09:42:55 +0000

Millions of Californians say their state is switching to renewable energy sources too quickly, and experts say that its strict and costly new rules on electric cars will price more people out of the Golden State.

Polling from the University of California, Berkeley, has revealed that, while Californians broadly support more wind and solar farms, nearly a third of residents say the switch to green power is taking place ‘too fast.’

Meanwhile, Stanford University experts warn that looming new rules requiring Californians to spend tens of thousands of extra dollars on costly electric vehicles will drive ever more from the state.

California recorded a net loss of 341,866 residents last year, many moving across state lines to Arizona and Texas, which have lower taxes, cheaper homes and looser environmental rules.

Californians are split on the state’s speedy moves against reliance on fossil fuels

‘As the Golden State’s exorbitant cost of living and strict environmental mandates grow, Californians are hitting the road,’ researchers from the school’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, posted online.

Stanford’s Bruce Cain says California is moving too fast

California is at the vanguard of cutting out fossil fuels, which release planet-heating gasses when burned, producing more than a third of its power from renewables, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

In recent weeks, officials have greenlighted a study into wave and tidal energy potential off the state’s 840-mile coastline, and required more than 5,300 companies to report more details about their carbon dioxide emissions.

Gov Gavin Newsom, a Democrat understood to have ambitions to become US president, also signed a bill to study and plan for solar farms running in the vacant lots alongside the more than 15,000 miles of state highways.

The state has also asked the Biden administration to approve a plan to require all new vehicles sold in the state by 2035 to be either electric or plug-in electric hybrids, speeding the end of gasoline-powered vehicles.

California’s Democratic Gov Gavin Newsom has long championed renewable energy and electric cars

A poll by Berkley’s Institute of Governmental Studies shows that voters broadly support this switch to the growing number of wind turbines and solar arrays that can be seen across the state.

But that still leaves 29 percent of voters saying the switch from hydrocarbons is happening ‘too fast.’

This is especially true among Republican voters. More than two thirds — 67 percent — say they want the administration of Democratic Gov Gavin Newsom to slow down the move away from fossil fuels.

‘The state’s voters largely back its climate change initiatives, although the partisan differences evident in many other policy areas are also present.’ said the institute’s co-director Eric Schickler.

Older Californians, as well as those living in the Central Valley, the North Coast and the Sierra Nevada mountain range, are more likely than others to use oil, coal, and other carbon fuels for longer, the poll showed.

A Tesla Supercharger station in San Francisco, California. Nice, if you can afford it

A common site in California nowadays: A solar farm, near Lancaster

Stanford scholars Bruce Cain and Preeti Hehmeyer in their new research warn that California’s speedy switch to renewables could be denting the appeal of a state that has in recent years been waving goodbye to residents.

The state’s population grew massively throughout the 20th Century, but peaked in about 2019-2020 and has been slowly declining since, thanks to fewer births and more residents moving out, often for cheaper living in Texas and Arizona.

In their paper, California’s population drain, Cain and Hehmeyer argue that tight environmental rules and the additional costs they place on consumers make one more reason for residents to leave.

Californians already pay over the odds for housing, they say. Making them shell out an average of $640,000 on an EV truck, when the diesel-powered equivalent is just $160,000, could be the last straw for a cash-strapped resident.

‘There is reason to be hopeful that these prices will ultimately come down and that charging infrastructure will eventually catch up, but the intervening years could be rough, and with more population and commercial outflows,’ the eight-page report.

California voters were keener on EV subsidies than those in Texas or Arizona

In their survey of more than 3,000 people across Arizona, California and Texas, they found that nearly of voters supported state subsidies for electric cars, another third was opposed.

Californians were significantly keener on EVs than residents of the other states.

The research was released at the same time as new US Census Bureau data revealed that California and New York combined lost nearly 1.4 million residents last year.

Overall, California recorded a net loss of 341,866 people, compared to 244,137 for New York.

Population experts have long studied America’s people flows.

Some explanations for interstate migration patterns are widely accepted.

Americans mostly relocate for better jobs, affordable housing, cheaper living costs, and to lower their tax bills.

America on the move: Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona all counted more arrivals than departures

Some move away from high crimes areas, homelessness, and the sight of drug addicts stumbling on the sidewalk.

Social problems have been a headache for officials in such cities as San Francisco and Portland.

Still, William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution, a think tank, said Americans mostly hit the road for money.

‘Interstate movers are motivated by employment, housing, and family reasons,’ Frey told DailyMail.com.

The top relocation trends of recent years have seen New Yorkers flock to Florida and Californians choose Texas, he noted.

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Exodus From New York and San Francisco Is Far From Over

Daily SF News — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 19:21:17 +0000

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The big migration story of the pandemic was the emptying out of major US cities. As more employees return partly or fully to their offices, people have begun to talk about a rejuvenation. Don’t believe it.

The housing trend of the pandemic had people leaving big, expensive cities and moving to destinations that were some combination of cheaper, warmer or more scenic. People left Northeast cities such as New York for Florida and Texas, and they left the West Coast for Montana, Idaho and Arizona.

That migration slowed down in 2022 as companies called workers back to the office and, importantly, as the housing market began to sputter.

We can expect to see a further slowing in the 2023 population numbers from the Census Bureau, due in December, in line with what’s showing up in the change-of-address data from the US Postal Service. This doesn’t mean the coastal-city exodus that we saw during the pandemic is over, just that elevated mortgage rates and the sluggish resale housing market are holding back moves that people will make once activity picks up again.

Interstate migration and the level of existing home sales go hand in hand. Transactions in existing homes rose from an annualized rate of around 5.25 million a year prior to the pandemic to 6.5 million in late 2020 and early 2021 at the height of the migration boom, the fastest in 15 years.

Now, homes aren’t selling so homeowners aren’t moving. Since the pandemic boom, existing home sales have collapsed by 40% as of last month.

We have some confirming data courtesy of the USPS, which began publishing monthly change-of-address statistics at the ZIP code level during the pandemic so researchers could track migration trends.

The USPS has complete monthly data through May 2023, which covers most of the period we’ll get population numbers for in December. The data show, for instance, that requests for change of address to the popular destinations of Florida, Idaho and Texas fell by 9.5%, 13.9% and 10.9% respectively — matched by slowdowns in moves away from California and New York — in the first five months of 2023, compared with the first five months of 2022. Existing home sales have fallen even more since May, suggesting even less interstate migration in the second half of the year.

Civic leaders in big cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco that saw a lot of outmigration during the pandemic shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security by the slowing of these outflows. While the peak of pandemic migration may have been unsustainable and due for some giveback, current low levels of migration and existing home sales aren’t a new normal as much as a temporary friction while the market adjusts to higher interest rates.

Even before the pandemic hit, the 2020s were destined to be a period of higher migration as the two biggest generations — baby boomers and millennials — both found reasons to move. Baby boomers were retiring, following a long-established pattern of retirees moving to places like Florida. Millennials were entering their family-formation ages, which historically has meant moving from cities to suburbs and from the north to the south. The dispersion of knowledge jobs and the rise of remote and hybrid work make mid-career moves even more attractive than they were five years ago.

There’s history of a surge in interest rates and slump in home sales temporarily slowing population migration. In the 1980s, Nevada had the fastest population growth of any state in the US and was the most popular destination for domestic migration. The growth was interrupted by a slump in the housing market in the early 1980s in response to high mortgage rates. Nevada’s population growth fell from over 6% a year in 1978 and 1979 to just 2.3% in 1983 before rebounding to more than 5% by the end of the 1980s.

I am not convinced by all the pessimism around how long home sales will be depressed because of elevated mortgage rates. John Burns Research & Consulting’s survey of real estate agents nationally shows buyers still outnumber sellers, signaling lack of inventory is a bigger constraint on transactions than the impact from high rates on affordability. It is why home prices have remained so resilient.

Yet, as I’ve noted, inventories are now rising at a time of the year when they typically don’t, suggesting 2024 could be a year of more inventory, more transactions and a pick-up in interstate migration.

History suggests that rising interest rates aren’t enough to permanently impair housing transactions. Rising mortgage rates in the late 1970s and early 1980s temporarily slowed housing activity, but the market found its footing once inflation settled down and interest rates stabilized. Housing activity and Americans being on the move may be on pause for now, but don’t bet on it lasting.More From Bloomberg Opinion:

• Millennials Are Right to Complain About Housing: Justin Fox

• The US Housing Market Is Now Completely Broken: Conor Sen

• Maine Is the New Florida for Climate Migrants: Conor Sen

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Conor Sen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is founder of Peachtree Creek Investments.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

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The San Francisco Bay Space is successful again staff after pandemic exodus

Daily SF News — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:11:20 +0000

Unsurprisingly, people are still moving to Austin, Texas. More surprisingly, people are also moving to San Francisco.

Over the last 12 months, San Francisco has seen the second-biggest worker population gain of any area in the United States, according to LinkedIn. The January data, which measures when people update their locations in their profiles, showed that for every 100,000 LinkedIn users, 83 moved to San Francisco in the last 12 months. The workers largely came from Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Washington DC.

Where people are moving to — and leaving — has huge repercussions for the financial success of those cities and what industries can thrive there. Remote work bore the promise that high-paying jobs could spread from superstar coastal cities like New York and San Francisco to more affordable and economically struggling Heartland areas. To some extent, that’s happened, but the new data from LinkedIn shows the pull of major cities could still be strong, even ones hard-hit by the pandemic.

The data represents a significant shift in population trends for San Francisco, which hadn’t seen notable net gains in LinkedIn’s data since 2017. The San Francisco metropolitan area had some of the biggest population declines from 2020 to 2021, losing more than 125,000 residents, according to the latest available Census data.

One of the reasons for the decline was a lack of affordable housing, which meant that even tech workers with six-figure salaries couldn’t afford to live there. When the pandemic hit, the Bay Area’s high concentration of people working in remote-friendly tech jobs made it so that many could leave to seek cheaper and greener pastures. Other reasons to leave maybe include high rates of homelessness and income inequality the area is facing, although it’s also likely that reports of an urban hellscape in San Francisco might have been overstated.

Indeed, more people are now coming to San Francisco than leaving. By the end of last year, nearly two people were coming to the metropolitan area for every one that left (LinkedIn wasn’t able to provide the net change in area members since the start of the pandemic). The area was still bested by Austin, where prices are still relatively cheaper and where there’s no income tax, but that’s been the case for years now.

Why are people moving to San Francisco? In some sense, it’s a matter of popular cities continuing to be popular. That means people still find value and jobs there. The Bay Area is culturally rich, with people — and culture and food — from around the world. While tech companies have been cutting back on hiring lately, the area is still the home base to their giant and lucrative businesses, meaning there’s still plenty of opportunity for workers.

There’s reason to believe that people aren’t just moving back to San Francisco because they want to. The move back also represents a solidification of remote work policies, in which many companies have come down on the side of hybrid work, where people are still expected in the office some of the time. In other words, people who may have wanted to move elsewhere permanently have been forced back to the Bay Area, though perhaps in different locations than they had been.

The decision to return to the Bay Area could also come from employees who are hoping to put in face time with their bosses ahead of a potential recession. Studies have shown that bosses view people who work in the offices more favorably and are more likely to consider them for promotion.

Even still, it only looks like people are going into the office some of the time. Offices in San Francisco and nearby areas have some of the lowest office occupancy rates in the country, according to data from Kastle, which provides building-access swipe cards to companies across the country and thus has visibility into when people go to the office. During the week of December 29 to January 4, office occupancy was about 20 percent of pre-pandemic levels there, while the national average was 33 percent.

Rather than leave cities, many people have moved to more suburban areas, where home rental prices are more affordable. They might still have to commute to the office, but a longer commute doesn’t seem as bad if they only have to do it a few days a week. On average, office workers are expected to continue working from home an average of 2.3 days per week, according to a December survey of employer plans post-pandemic by WFH Research.

The LinkedIn data, of course, only includes people who update their profiles, so it’s limited in its scope to professionals who stay up-to-date on their LinkedIn profiles. A reversal in population decline hasn’t yet shown up in other data sources, but lagging data from the US Postal Service does show a lot fewer people are leaving the San Francisco Bay Area than had been earlier in the pandemic. The number of people leaving San Francisco based on the number of change of address forms filed in the city declined to 12,000 last year, down from about 48,000 in 2020 and 18,000 in 2021, according to change of address data from the US Postal Service collected by Riordan Frost, senior research analyst at Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

“It’s fair to say there’s some recovery happening in terms of people moving there,” Frost told Recode.

California as a whole saw more people leave the state than enter in 2022, with a deficit of 343,000, but that was down from nearly 500,000 net people leaving in 2021. County-level Census data for 2022 will be out in March, but so far there’s only visibility through 2021.

Perhaps all of this represents a natural middle ground, as people try to find both a better quality of life and opportunity. For many, that might once again be in the suburbs outside big cities.

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IKEA to open retailer in downtown San Francisco this month, defying retail exodus

Daily SF News — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 22:17:14 +0000

Whole Foods, Old Navy and Nordstrom have closed area stores in recent months.

August 9, 2023, 11:04 AM ET

5 min read

IKEA, the global furniture giant, will open a store in downtown San Francisco later this month, the company announced on Tuesday, defying an onrush of retail departures that has slammed the city center in recent years.

Located blocks away from the city’s Union Square retail hub, the store will anchor a new mall owned by Ingka Centres, an IKEA-affiliated developer that seeks to drive shopping traffic toward company stores.

The new, sprawling three-story store will span a combined 52,000 square feet, featuring 27 fully-furnished room displays tailored for city dwellers, IKEA said.

The announcement bucks a trend of retailers exiting downtown San Francisco.

In recent months, a slew of closures of retail stores in San Francisco doubles as a roundup of well-known shopping brands: Whole Foods, Old Navy and Nordstrom, among others.

In June, the 70-store downtown Westfield Mall said it would stop making payments on a $558 million loan, relinquishing ownership of the shopping center and leaving the fate of the complex uncertain.

Nearly half of the stores in the city’s downtown shopping district have closed since 2019, the San Francisco Standard found in May.

The series of store departures has spurred criticism focused on crime and homelessness but a more complicated set of forces is driving companies away from the city, experts and a former downtown store owner previously told ABC News.

They pointed to sluggish sales at some stores due in part to a longstanding shift away from brick-and-mortar retail that went into overdrive during the pandemic, they added. The rise of remote work — a trend even more pronounced in the Bay Area’s tech industry — also has slashed the number of office commuters downtown, they said.

Bloomberg via Getty Images

Despite the trend, IKEA San Francisco Market Manager Arda Akalin voiced optimism about the store opening in a statement.

“We are so excited to open the doors of our new IKEA store to our neighbors in the San Francisco area,” Akalin said on Tuesday. “We appreciate the excitement and support from the community and can’t wait for our customers to experience the new store full of affordable home furnishings and solutions that reflect who San Franciscans are and how they live.”

In a statement to ABC News, San Francisco Mayor London Breed celebrated the new IKEA store.

“The arrival of IKEA on Market Street is a tremendous boost for our City that will bring more shopping, jobs, and excitement to the Union Square area,” Breed said. “We have been working closely with IKEA to make this a successful opening and we will continue to work to make the area clean, safe, and welcoming for all.”

“We know the future of Downtown will look different, but we also know that San Francisco is a resilient city that embraces change and is always working to build what comes next. We are proud to welcome IKEA to be part of that future,” Breed added.

In June, Breed told Good Morning America that San Francisco faces difficulties but she also faulted a disproportionate focus on exits from the city.

“San Francisco is a major city and it has challenges,” Breed said. “But let’s back up a little bit. You are talking about people who are leaving the city but not the people who are staying, expanding, coming to San Francisco.”

The San Francisco area already plays host to two IKEA stores, the company said. A store in nearby Emeryville, California, opened in 2000; and a store in East Palo Alto followed in 2003.

The forthcoming store in downtown San Francisco will open on Aug. 23.

“On grand opening day, IKEA customers can enjoy games, workshops, giveaways,” the company said.

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IKEA to open retailer in downtown San Francisco this month, defying retail exodus

Daily SF News — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 16:26:50 +0000

The new, sprawling three-story store will span a combined 52,000 square feet, featuring 27 fully-furnished room displays tailored for city dwellers, IKEA said.

The announcement bucks a trend of retailers exiting downtown San Francisco.

In recent months, a slew of closures of retail stores in San Francisco doubles as a roundup of well-known shopping brands: Whole Foods, Old Navy and Nordstrom, among others.

MORE: San Francisco’s retail hub is turning into a ghost town. The exodus isn’t just about crime, experts say

In June, the 70-store downtown Westfield Mall said it would stop making payments on a $558 million loan, relinquishing ownership of the shopping center and leaving the fate of the complex uncertain.

Nearly half of the stores in the city’s downtown shopping district have closed since 2019, the San Francisco Standard found in May.

PHOTO: A ‘For Lease’ sign at a storefront on Market Street in San Francisco, May 3, 2023. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Despite the trend, IKEA San Francisco Market Manager Arda Akalin voiced optimism about the store opening in a statement.

Story continues

In a statement to ABC News, San Francisco Mayor London Breed celebrated the new IKEA store.

MORE: Whole Foods closes flagship San Francisco store over employee safety concerns

In June, Breed told Good Morning America that San Francisco faces difficulties but she also faulted a disproportionate focus on exits from the city.

The San Francisco area already plays host to two IKEA stores, the company said. A store in nearby Emeryville, California, opened in 2000; and a store in East Palo Alto followed in 2003.

The forthcoming store in downtown San Francisco will open on Aug. 23.

“On grand opening day, IKEA customers can enjoy games, workshops, giveaways,” the company said.

IKEA to open store in downtown San Francisco this month, defying retail exodus originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

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Is there a retail exodus in San Francisco? Some say Union Sq. is ‘beating sturdy’ | Information

Daily SF News — Tue, 30 May 2023 18:51:06 +0000

Is Union Square in downtown San Francisco really dying?

Nordstrom is closing its two stores in the area. Saks Off 5th goes. T-Mobile has already closed its two-story flagship store.

Why are these retailers at or near Union Square saying goodbye to a well-known tourist destination and the heart of the city’s shopping core? The exodus of these companies has worried some business leaders and economists alike.

A decline in consumer spending, supply chain disruptions, high operational costs and public safety have caused San Francisco’s overall retail vacancy rate to rise to 6% in the first quarter of 2023 — up from 5.2% a year earlier and the highest Been in town since 2006, according to Cushman and Wakefield, a commercial real estate services company.

Union Square’s overall vacancy rate rose to 15.5% in the first quarter of 2023, compared to 14.2% in the last quarter of 2022.

“It’s a very serious problem for the entire city, let alone downtown,” said Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

But Mayor London Breed and other San Franciscans have resisted the narrative that Union Square is doomed in recent media coverage.

“For the people who don’t walk the streets of San Francisco, who don’t live in San Francisco but want to write and comment on San Francisco, I urge you to come to this city and see how it feels. Breed said during a May 16 news conference. “I urge you to shop at the stores that you are complaining about and that you have probably never set foot in.”

Breed stressed that the media doesn’t report on stores like Banana Republic and Ikea that have moved or plan to move to Union Square.

At least 26 stores in downtown San Francisco have closed since 2020, with seven more scheduled to close.

This month, Nordstrom announced it would be closing its two stores on Fifth Street and Market Street, becoming the youngest retailer to leave Union Square in recent years.

“The dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past few years, impacting the flow of customers into our stores and our ability to operate successfully,” said Jamie Nordstrom, the chief stores officer, in a Explanation.

Saks Off 5th on Market Street is also closing its doors, attributing the decision to “store performance and other factors” in a statement.

As for T-Mobile’s recent Stockton Street closure, a spokesman said it was part of the company’s “nationwide retail strategy to better serve customers.”

Despite those companies moving, a few weeks ago Breed held a press conference with District Manager Aaron Peskin to announce a $6 million investment in the three blocks of Powell Street near Union Square where H&M, Gap and Uniqlo have recently closed their doors years.

While Marisa Rodriguez, the CEO of the Union Square Alliance, acknowledged that some stores have certainly left Union Square during and after the pandemic, she emphasized that luxury retailers in particular have expanded, opened or moved to the area.

“The heart of the square is beating strongly – it’s alive,” she said. “There have certainly been challenges post-pandemic that many major cities have struggled with. We try to position ourselves in such a way that we do justice to the situation and adapt where we can.”

Saint Laurent, Chanel and Van Cleef & Arpels have all moved to Union Square, while Pandora opened its doors there last year.

“When we shut down, we shut down pretty hard,” Rodriguez said. “Union Square is a visitor destination. We will see more closures than a more traditional neighborhood where people can roam and shop where they live. A lot of these closures are because we couldn’t get through that closure.”

According to Wade Rose, president of Advance SF, a company representative, storefronts in the shopping district have become vacant in recent years due to the increase in internet shopping and the reduction in foot traffic as a result of the pandemic.

“This is an example of the pressure that urban retail is feeling because of people’s buying habits,” Rose said. “San Francisco is very committed and looking into this issue. Around 300,000 fewer people live in downtown San Francisco than in 2019.”

The city’s property crime and homelessness crisis have also deterred foot traffic, Rose said.

According to the California Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Statistics Center, San Francisco has the highest property crime rate in the state, rising 16.9% in 2021.

The Bay Area has the highest rate of property crime in the state, with a rate of 2,718 per 100,000 people.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, reported cases of commercial burglaries in San Francisco have actually decreased. There were 1,107 incidents in 2020, compared to 945 in 2021 and 735 in 2022.

Rose described San Francisco’s Stonetown Mall as a shopping district that caters to the needs of the population. The mall, which was once very traditional and which included a Macy’s, was going through hard times and needed to be reinvented, he said. There is now a Trader Joe’s, a sports cellar and a Target.

“It’s thriving because it meets the needs of the neighborhood and has the kind of metamorphosis that needs to happen in the downtown retail district,” he said. “It’s not just Union Square that’s under pressure because of these issues.”

Union Square and other shopping districts need to be diversified and offer diverse shopping and living experiences to attract consumers.

“The bottom line is that San Francisco’s urban core needs to become a much more experientially and physically diverse place than it is through the recovery from the Great Recession,” said Rose. “That means there should be a 24/7 city, there should be more cultural offerings, and there should be diverse types of retail and businesses.”

The post Is there a retail exodus in San Francisco? Some say Union Sq. is ‘beating sturdy’ | Information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Is there a retail exodus in San Francisco? Some say Union Sq. is ‘beating sturdy’

Daily SF News — Tue, 30 May 2023 08:48:20 +0000

Union Square in San Francisco. At least 26 downtown businesses have closed since 2020, with seven more scheduled to close. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)

Is Union Square in downtown San Francisco really dying?

Nordstrom is closing its two stores in the area. Saks Off 5th goes. T-Mobile has already closed its two-story flagship store.

Union Square’s overall vacancy rate rose to 15.5% in the first quarter of 2023, compared to 14.2% in the last quarter of 2022.

“It’s a very serious problem for the entire city, let alone downtown,” said Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

But Mayor London Breed and other San Franciscans have resisted the narrative that Union Square is doomed in recent media coverage.

“For the people who don’t walk the streets of San Francisco, who don’t live in San Francisco but want to write and comment on San Francisco, I urge you to come to this city and see how it feels. ‘ Breed said during a press conference on May 16. “I urge you to shop at the stores you complain about and have probably never set foot in.”

Breed stressed that the media doesn’t report on stores like Banana Republic and Ikea that have moved or plan to move to Union Square.

At least 26 stores in downtown San Francisco have closed since 2020, with seven more scheduled to close.

This month, Nordstrom announced it would be closing its two stores on Fifth Street and Market Street, becoming the youngest retailer to leave Union Square in recent years.

The story goes on

Saks Off 5th on Market Street is also closing its doors, attributing the decision to “store performance and other factors” in a statement.

As for T-Mobile’s recent Stockton Street closure, a spokesman said it was part of the company’s “nationwide retail strategy to better serve customers.”

“The heart of the square is beating strongly – it’s alive,” she said. “There have certainly been challenges post-pandemic that many major cities have faced. We try to position ourselves to do justice to the moment and turn where we can.”

Saint Laurent, Chanel and Van Cleef & Arpels have all moved to Union Square, while Pandora opened its doors there last year.

“When we switch off, we take it off pretty hard,” Rodriguez said. “Union Square is a visitor destination. We will see more closures than a more traditional neighborhood where people can move and shop where they live. A lot of these closures are because we couldn’t get through this shutdown.”

“This is an example of the pressure that urban retail is feeling because of people’s buying habits,” Rose said. “San Francisco is very committed and looking into this issue. About 300,000 fewer people live in downtown San Francisco than in 2019.”

The city’s property crime and homelessness crisis have also deterred foot traffic, Rose said.

According to the California Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Statistics Center, San Francisco has the highest property crime rate in the state, rising 16.9% in 2021.

The Bay Area has the highest rate of property crime in the state, with a rate of 2,718 per 100,000 people.

Rose described San Francisco’s Stonestown Mall as a shopping district that adapts to the needs of the population. The mall, which was once very traditional and which included a Macy’s, was going through hard times and needed to be reinvented, he said. There is now a Trader Joe’s, a sports cellar and a Target.

Union Square and other shopping districts need to be diversified and offer diverse shopping and living experiences to attract consumers.

This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

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Is there a extremely a retail exodus in downtown San Francisco?

Daily SF News — Mon, 29 May 2023 12:44:03 +0000