Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerry of San Fran
I expressed my opinion on the Skyscraper forum that the mall was a big mistake from the beginning & I know nothing about retail except that I like to shop! I did not believe that downtown could support more retail.
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I actually testified at the Planning Commission in favor of it. That was several years before it was built and actually before online retail took off. At that time they had tentatively signed up Target for a large chunk of the space. But the delay in approval and then in construction eventually led Target to find an alternative site which turned out to be the Metreon (do they still call it that?).
Regardless of the amount of total retail in downtown, the southern Tenderloin, northern SOMA and mid-Market do not have the sort of retail that supports the people who live there. Sure there's plenty of high end retail in Union Square but 5-10 years ago where was there you could walk to from this area to buy basic groceries or inexpensive, basic clothing (the dept store outlets have also arrived since "Market Street Place", as it was called, was first conceived).
And that was the concept the developer put forward: That unlike, say San Francisco Center, this mall would have retail that served the mainly lower income community around it for basic goods such as one might find at, say, Walmart (which, unfortunately IMHO, would NOT be there) or Target (which would have) or Ross or TJ Max or other discounters (some of which have also moved further down Market St. since then). I still think that sort of retail would be useful in this location but something happened between the concept and the realization--something even more than Target going elsewhere (to a place that doesn't serve that neighborhood nearly as well).