An abandoned office space or on the rise. Brooks Jarocz live tonight in downtown San Francisco with what can possibly be done here to turn things around. Brooks. Well, Mike, they say it's going to take some heavy lifting and a multi-pronged approach. First, cleaning up the streets. Next, preventing crime and stopping retail theft. And third, figuring out what to do with all of those empty spaces and reimagining those abandoned storefronts. It's sad to see honestly closed, empty or planning to vacate downtown San Francisco has put on a new face . Huge streets, big sidewalks that are never really filled. It's not really that crowded anymore. Real estate investment research shows office vacancy and available space in the city at 35% and growing this week, two key Hilton hotels near Union Square dealt a big blow. Investment firm Park Hotels and Resorts announcing it's no longer making mortgage payments, citing business and city challenges. This is a big wake up call for San Francisco to realize that that they need tourism. Bob Rausch is a hospital consultant, surprised by the move and says it may be part of a long term strategy. I suspect they know what they're doing and I suspect that one thing they want to do is refinance the hotel with the lender. Another thing they may want to do is put pressure on the city of San Francisco to clean up its act relative to homelessness and crime. Otherwise, Rausch says, more hotels could follow suit. While business travel is back 85% from 2019 conventions and even leisure travelers are staying away. We only found the occasional shoppers just like Doc Martens boots on this block of Market Street. Just as shoe shop remains open. It's pretty strange. No one's giving up on San Francisco. We're not putting our heads in the sand about the problems, but we're focused on trying to figure out how to address these big challenges. Rufus Jeffries represents the business community, is part of the Bay Area Council. He says San Francisco has to pivot first, dealing with the street conditions, drug use, homelessness and theft, then lower the tax burden on businesses and repurpose office space to reinforce rent downtown, create more of a 24 over seven kind of neighborhood where we have a mix of office and residential and cultural and arts uses where we can kind of create more energy on a regular basis versus just your five day, 9 to 5 kind of activity. On average, major city companies only require workers to show up in person 2 to 3 days a week. Available space increasing as real estate costs are forecasted to decrease. Why can we fix the zoning? Like if people aren't coming to the office, turn the offices into like residences. There'll be more people living here. There'll be more people downtown. Greater resources in the area could really change this and revamp the area. Now hotels are forecasted to reach 2019 revenue levels. In fact, we learned there are a couple of big conventions coming in later this year. The Bay Area Council says one of the keys, though, is to attract new industries like AI or biotech to make a new home here in the city. Live in San Francisco, Joe Brooks Jarocz, ktvu fox two news. And as the council told you
