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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMayor Daniel Lurie speaks at a press conference on Market Street on Wednesday, January 15, 2025 in San Francisco, Calif.Lea Suzuki\/The Chronicle<\/em><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mayor Daniel Lurie<\/a> wants to bring downtown San Francisco back to life, and while he\u2019s found reasons for optimism just two weeks into his administration, it’s also clear the task ahead is daunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lurie went on CNBC<\/a> last week to tout the city successfully hosting the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference<\/a> \u2014 and promote plans to woo businesses from other states such as New York, Texas and Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the economic blows to San Francisco’s beleaguered urban core just keep coming. Walgreens recently announced plans to shutter a dozen stores throughout the city<\/a>, including some downtown. Bloomingdale’s confirmed on Tuesday that it will shutter its massive flagship store<\/a> inside the half-empty San Francisco Centre mall at Market and Fifth streets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For Lurie and other city officials, downtown presents an urgent problem with far-reaching consequences. Empty offices, vacant storefronts and fewer tourists compared to before the pandemic means less tax revenue flowing to city coffers \u2014 contributing to a structural deficit<\/a> that could exceed $1 billion in future years if no action is taken. People dealing and using drugs on the streets, homeless encampments and retail thefts have also battered San Francisco’s global reputation. Lurie emphasized that message last week when he appeared on CNBC\u2019s \u201cMad Money with Jim Cramer\u201d as the JPMorgan conference was underway, drawing thousands of visitors to the city. He told Cramer that moving more people off the streets and into treatment for addiction or mental illness would help \u201ccreate the conditions for business leaders to want to come back here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are some early signs that certain executives are responding positively to Lurie. Yet the Bloomingdale\u2019s closure announcement this week marks another hit to the city and its largest mall that has seen store after store shut down in recent years. Shortly before the announcement, Lurie said, he received a \u201cheads up\u201d phone call from Macy\u2019s CEO Tony Spring, whose company owns Bloomingdale\u2019s. Macy\u2019s is also working to\u00a0sell its huge flagship store<\/a>\u00a0on Union Square as part of a plan to close 150 \u201cunderproductive\u201d stores nationwide.\u00a0Multiple local developers are interested in acquiring the site<\/a>, though no deal has come together yet. Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents the South of Market neighborhood where Bloomingdale\u2019s is closing, bemoaned the department store\u2019s exit as \u201ca gut punch\u201d and said he hoped the city could convince Macy\u2019s to stay in the area in some form. He said that while some factors driving the retail exodus are beyond San Francisco\u2019s control \u2014 like online shopping and remote work \u2014 others are squarely in the city\u2019s purview. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Lurie\u2019s top priority right now is winning the Board of Supervisors\u2019 approval of an ordinance he introduced<\/a> to accelerate the city\u2019s response to the fentanyl crisis \u2014 and he thinks that legislation can help downtown too. The ordinance would speed up city contracting for services related to addiction, mental illness and homeless shelters and would also allow his office to raise money from private donors to fund those efforts. Asked by CNBC\u2019s Cramer last week about companies continuing to pull up their roots in San Francisco, Lurie said he planned to visit New York City, Miami and Austin with a simple message to companies based there: \u201cYou know you want to be back in San Francisco.\u201d The city will find itself in another big spotlight next month, when the NBA All-Star Game will be held at Chase Center on Feb. 16. Related events are planned throughout the weekend, and the annual Chinese New Year Parade is also set for Feb. 15. Reach J.D. Morris: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com; X: @thejdmorris<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jan 23, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n J.D. Morris<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n CITY HALL REPORTER<\/p>\n\n\n\n J.D. Morris covers San Francisco City Hall, focused on Mayor Daniel Lurie. He joined the Chronicle in 2018 to cover energy and spent three years writing mostly about PG&E and California wildfires.Before coming to the Chronicle, he reported on local government for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, where he was among the journalists awarded a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the 2017 North Bay wildfires.He was previously the casino industry reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. Raised in Monterey County and Bakersfield, he has a bachelor\u2019s degree in rhetoric from UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How Mayor Daniel Lurie plans to revive downtown S.F. amid retail exodus By J.D. Morris,City Hall ReporterJan 23, 2025 (SFChronicle.com) Mayor Daniel Lurie speaks at a press conference on Market Street on Wednesday, January 15, 2025 in San Francisco, Calif.Lea Suzuki\/The Chronicle Mayor Daniel Lurie wants to bring downtown San Francisco back… Continue reading
Whether Lurie can make visible progress in restoring vibrancy to the Financial District, Union Square and other nearby neighborhoods will be a big test of his leadership. His predecessor, former Mayor London Breed, tried to re-energize downtown<\/a> by replacing some empty stores with pop-up businesses, welcoming new street fairs and passing laws to make office-to-housing conversions easier. But Breed was unable to convince enough voters that her efforts were working, and Lurie is eager to show results after defeating her in November.
Lurie told the Chronicle on Wednesday that the revival of downtown would be boosted by his plans to reduce open-air drug scenes, increase police staffing and cut down on property crime.
\u201cWe have historic challenges, and I am not suggesting that we’re going to fix things overnight,\u201d Lurie said. \u201cWhat the world and the country needs to know is \u2026 San Francisco is open for business. It’s really important that people hear that message. And one of the ways that we\u2019ll be open for business is making sure that businesses can run without fear of being broken into constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the healthcare conference, he met with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon at City Hall. Dimon\u2019s company confirmed to the Chronicle that it will bring the conference back to San Francisco next year after working well with police to ensure attendees\u2019 safety this year.
\u201cI enjoyed meeting with Mayor Lurie during our healthcare conference last week and let him know we\u2019re committed to San Francisco and eager to work with him and his team to help ensure the city grows,\u201d Dimon said in a statement to the Chronicle. \u201cI felt a real sense of optimism in the city during my visit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat was years in the making \u2014 obviously (it) wasn’t a decision they made overnight,\u201d Lurie said of the planned Bloomingdale\u2019s closure. \u201cAnd what I said to him is, I want him to be part of the rebuilding of San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
City officials have been pressing Macy\u2019s for months to retain a presence in a redeveloped version of the department store, but it\u2019s not clear how likely that is to occur. Macy\u2019s said Tuesday that it was \u201ccommitted\u201d to closing the Bloomingdale\u2019s location at the San Francisco Centre and was \u201chopeful to be\u00a0 back to serve the San Francisco community in the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is a major factor within our control that has to do with public safety but is particularly around drug-related street disorder,\u201d Dorsey said. \u201cThat is driving the deteriorated street conditions. It is what is driving most of the retail theft problems that we\u2019re seeing. I think we, as policymakers, need to have a serious conversation about what we\u2019re doing to end the phenomenon of public drug use in San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, Lurie announced in his inaugural speech<\/a> the formation of a dedicated police unit serving Union Square and the Moscone Center area.
\u201cWe have to make sure the streets of San Francisco are places that people can freely walk (around) and not have people using drugs openly, open-air drug markets, open-air drug use,\u201d Lurie told the Chronicle on Wednesday. \u201cWe have to do better. And that’s the message I’m sending to business leaders and retailers and people thinking about bringing their conferences back here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a message that local business leaders hope will resonate as the city tries to bring back jobs, companies and tourists.
\u201cWe need to get into the business of attraction and retention, which we have had the pleasure of not having to do over the last decade \u2014 but we are in a different position now,\u201d said Rodney Fong, CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. \u201cWe also want to make sure that we are attracting the most innovative companies \u2026 (and) businesses that will have the capacity for large employment down the road.\u201d
While the appetite among large companies in returning to San Francisco or expanding here remains to be seen, Lurie got a favorable reaction from one executive he reached out to: Jonathan Gray, president of the giant investment firm Blackstone. Lurie met with Gray last week to impress his \u201copen for business\u201d message, and Gray shared a bullish view on the city in a statement to the Chronicle.
\u201cSan Francisco is a great American city at the epicenter of innovation, particularly AI,\u201d Gray said. \u201cWe\u2019re optimistic about its recovery potential under Mayor Lurie’s leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lurie said he wants to \u201cinvite the world back to San Francisco\u201d as he works to lessen the city\u2019s problems.
\u201cWe have a lot to look forward to, and I want to make sure that San Francisco is thriving and vibrant again,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n