After crime forced the mass exodus of many retailers within and around San Francisco, California’s main shopping mall, the city’s mayor is now pitching the idea of tearing it down to put in a soccer stadium, according to SFGate.
San Francisco’s Union Square, which houses Westfield Mall, has seen 47% of retailers leave due to crime and unsafe working conditions, the San Francisco Standard reported.
In the wake of this, San Francisco Mayor London Breed floated the idea of replacing the mall with a soccer stadium in a bid to prevent the further deterioration of the area, according to SFGate.
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“A Westfield mall could become, you know, something completely different than what it currently is. It could be a place where — we could even tear down the whole building and build a whole new soccer stadium,” Breed said at a Bloomberg summit on Thursday. She continued to spitball ideas for the failed section of San Francisco, saying “we can create lab space or look at it as a new company in some other capacity.”
Crime has been a leading issue for both San Francisco residents and business owners; in 2019, there were 203 retailers in Union Square, but by 2023 that number had declined to 107, the San Francisco Standard reported.
A poll published last month by Probolsky Research found that 73% of San Franciscans were unhappy with the trajectory of the city, and almost 60% of voters viewed Breed unfavorably. Crime has been central to San Francisco residents’ disdain, with a May 2023 CityBeat poll finding that only 30% of residents feel safe at night.
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“There’s a narrative that is out there … that just says, ‘Things have gone to shit,’” said Adam Probolsky, of Probolsky Polls, to SFGate. “With nearly three in four voters unhappy about the direction of the City, it is no wonder that they think Mayor Breed is doing a poor job and that she is largely unpopular,” he said.
In 2022, Breed planned to address rampant public drug use through a building called the “linkage center,” which aimed to introduce addicts to treatment while providing them with the materials needed to use drugs, like alcohol swabs and clean needles. It shuttered after a little over a year over complaints of open-air drug use and crime, according to ABC 7.
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