Shopping mall giant pulls out of San Francisco l GMA

we turn now to San Francisco a major Mall downtown pulling out of the city citing sharply declining sales fewer Shoppers and more and it is the latest in a series of companies pulling out of San Francisco and another blow to one of the largest urban economies in the country our chief National correspondent Matt Gutman is there with more good morning Matt hey good morning Rebecca there's concern that San Francisco could turn into a so-called zombie city with its downtown hollowed out by a fentanyl epidemic pervasive homelessness and fleeing retailers and you just mentioned that last significant hit the biggest mall in the city right in downtown is leaving this morning a San Francisco mall at the epicenter for growing real estate Dead Zone in a major American City battling Rising crime soaring real estate prices and a homelessness crisis the city dealt its latest blow this week Westfield which owns the city's largest mall stopped paying its half billion dollar mortgage and is surrendering the property to lenders the company setting dramatically decreased occupancy down to approximately 55 percent including already announced closures of tenants such as Nordstrom Banana Republic and others also giving up on downtown hundreds of other companies including Gap and Whole Foods Union Square used to be the Beating Heart of San Francisco but a recent survey found that since 2019 nearly 50 percent of all the stores here have left now it's empty storefront after empty storefront after empty storefront the last time I was here was the 2019. so it was great back then now I was like I'm scared I was thinking to switch my hotel in the first quarter of the year the city saw a 16 rise in robberies and a 41 spike in fentanyl deaths over the same period in 2022. you're seeing it all over right now companies are leaving the city is San Francisco dangerous well here's the thing San Francisco is a major city and it has challenges 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 but it's not just San Francisco other West Coast cities including Portland Seattle and Los Angeles also suffering from a similar trend of downtown decay the mayor noting that several metrics of crime are actually flat or down but it is worth mentioning that we are not at Union Square or the Westfield Mall this morning because we have been advised it is simply too dangerous to be there at this hour Michael now they're saying a lot there man thank you so much for that hi everyone George Stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our Channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts thanks for watching

Channel: ABC News

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Keywords: Centre, Francisco, San, Westfield, abc, blight, drugs, francisco, gma, homeless, mall, mortgage, news, nordstrom, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-100064162, payment, rei, san, shopping, westfield

Id: n7at8A2NdRM

Length: 2min 55sec (175 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 14 2023