As the August montage was of 29 empty or available storefronts on Union, according to the Chronicle 35 businesses “went under from the start of 2008 through the second quarter of 2009 in the six blocks on Union Street between Octavia and Pierce” while 7 opened up.
The national economic crisis and its impact on tourism no doubt hurt Union Street in 2009, but business owners say the shopping district’s decline is likely due to more gradual trends, in which retailers were slow to respond to younger consumers and landlords expected rents more reflective of the neighborhood’s heyday.
The latest closure: Left at Albuquerque. But apparently new restaurants will save the day. Or perhaps that will be lower rents (down roughly 25% from a September 2008 peak).
∙ Twenty Nine Union Street Photos Worth More Than “Weak” Words [SocketSite]
∙ Merchants suffering along Union Street [SFGate]
There’s nothing price won’t fix.
I know its anathema to any real “native” – but take a look a few blocks over at chestnut and see who is faring better due to some chains.
Of course, SF wouldnt be SF without its artisanal thimble emporiums.
Robert Selna, the author of this piece, is infamous for couching his agenda items in “reporting.” In this case, its 1) the Entertainment Commission, of which he is an ideological supporter. The gist of the article is that Union St. will get better by opening more “venues,” most of which will essentially be thinly disguised clubs… and 2) an attack on commercial landlords and chain stores (another frequent Selna target), the logic being that commercial rents are too optimistic and based on what a large chain would pay, and need to come down so the common person can lease space. Its bunk. The article also mentions nothing about outrageous parking costs (and lack of parking options) around Union St.
A previous Selna piece about Japan Town falsely claimed that it was moribund and a victim of its adequate parking garages. The comments on SFGate were 95% negative about the article, calling out its many flaws and truthiness.
So Union St. imploded on its own without the aid of any chain stores? Whocoodanode?
I’m not surprised. The Marina/Cow Hollow area is filled with former frat boys/sorority girls, pretending they’re rich. The truth was that they were only making $40k per year, working at Gap and they were living off daddy’s credit card. Once the credit dried up, it is no surprise that merchant revenue dropped and that many places closed.
When I was a youngster back in the early 1990’s a few bars on Union Steet allowed underaged drinking
Strip clubs on Broadway would let anyone in over 15
This town is wrecked man!
In all seriousness even back in those days and before Chestnut street was always nicer with a better clientele. There were many middle class Italians left and other well-heeled locals
Union street always had a cheaper aesthetic it seems
Sux to be to you, but it’s not bunk.
Of course the outlandish rents are the main reason for independent businesses (i.e. stucco sux’ “common person”) failing. Exorbitant lease increases killed the radio star.
But silver spoon entitled commercial real estate snobs (not at all like the “common person”) who think all their properties are golden prime, obfuscate their venal culpability by blaming the empty storefronts on “parking!”, “taxes!”, “regulations!”, “wages!”, “Chris Daly!”, “the homeless!”, “communism!”, etc.
The landpirates (and bankpirates, and pharmapirates) have lived a gilded life for years. Your greedy excesses were cloaked because the rest of the population foolishly bought into the happytime bubble mania, living largely on credit. POP! oops, it’s gone! And here we are, back in the cold and real world.
Haven’t you sophicates ever heard of the free market? Supply and demand? If your properties are empty, there is one reason, and one reason only: THEY ARE PRICED TOO HIGH.
and the ones that are still open are all having big sales. expect more post holiday closures as we speak.
Someone else had an observation on the previous thread that I feel is pretty accurate. Chestnut has fared well while Union has suffered because the stores are all simply too small to host anything but boutique shops. Specialty shops for women are suffering everywhere thanks to the problems mentioned in the article. Even if rents are lowered what is going to thrive in these tiny spaces? There’s only so much coffee, yogurt, and cupcakes people can drink and eat. I would argue some shops are thriving. I go in Past Perfect all the time and they blast through inventory. La Boulange always has people (is it chain now?!). The newish Crunch seems nice. The bar scene seems very B&T and touristy on the weekends. I’d prefer fewer bars and better restaurants and maybe a revised overall business plan that emulates the success of the Ferry Building.
There are a few Union street landlords who own too many properties and do not have a civic bone in their bodies. They’ve owned the buildings for years and they’ll let them sit fallow for years until another sucker comes along.
Part of the answer to this is the gravity of youthfulness in this city has greatly shifted south to Noe, Valencia, lower 24th, Glen Park and Bernal Heights
I rarely cross Market, other than to go to Crissy Field, for much of the last 5 years. The area around Union street had a particually strong reputation for douchebaggery
a lot of small businesses are suffering around the country right now, no reason why those on Union St. would be any different.
one (of many) reasons: a lot of small businesses initially bleed cash. The owners get this cash from small business loans, loans from friends, credit card advances, etc.
lenders aren’t lending much to small biz right now, credit lines (like credit cards) are being cut right and left, and thus small biz has decreased access to credit. Unemployment (and the specter of unemployment) dries up loans from friends and family as well.
My GUESS is that many shopkeepers held out through xmas to see how holiday shopping would go, and now that this is over we may see more businesses decide to throw in the towel if their sales weren’t strong enough this holiday season
somehow we need to get small businesses and small community banks on the government’s “too important to fail” list too, or at least on the “maybe we can help” list, instead of shoveling all the cash into bank executive’s bonus pools.
IOA (interesting observation anonn). So a large share of union street props tend to be owned by a few families? I wonder if this is the case for other SF business streets like 24 st, Clement, etc.
What anonn describes is true for other commercial districts as well. These property owners have a long term vision of acquiring a dominant share of a commercial street. They can wait out low revenue periods. For example buying properties that have negative cash flow, waiting for the lease to expire, and then raising rent to market. The only proprietors that can afford the higher leases are those who sell overpriced stuff. Gone are the hardware stores, greengrocers, bakeries, etc. that operate on small margins.
In the end these commercial strips that were once a crazy/cool amalgam of owner-operators are becoming more like stealth shopping malls with a very small pool of landlords controlling the leases and occupancy.
This game is being played out in dozens of formally mom and pop commercial strips around the bay area. They are becoming boutique gift zones. For the stuff you need daily you’ve got to go to your nearest big box chain.
It’s a whole new world out there and the cheap money/living off credit card days are gone. For a long time to come. Add to that that savings rates are starting to rise and the scenario is not good for upscale stores/boutiques as well as luxury vacation spots, second home communities and on and on.
Folks were blowing money in the first part of this century on everything and anything. Stuff – everyone needed more stuff.
That spawned a growth in upscale retailers and stores. In second homes – a la SOMA condos. The landlords were only too happy to take as much of that cheap money as they could by raising rents and yes letting storefronts sit empty for extended periods if they could not find a gouchee tenant.
Its a systemic problem in SF, the state, the US and the world. It’s going to take years to work out a new more realisitc (less cheap money) balance.
It’s inevitable that there will be a significant shrinking of upscale retailers and restaurants. Heck, even middle brow retilaers like macy’s are in trouble.
You can only support so many boutiques and candle shops and such in the best of times. SF exceeded that amount even when things were booming. The realignment will hurt but it is healthy. Union St. may trend middle brow over the next decade as it tries to adjust to the new economic reality.
There are several chain stores on Union, including the big, bad Starbucks.
Commercial landlords in this city routinely obstruct the development of good businesses by hiking rents astronomically.
Union Street and Chestnut Street compete with each other. Ten years ago, Union was a little more upscale in terms of merchandise offered, restaurants, etc.
Times have changed. Chestnut Street has opened an Apple store, a nicer Walgreens, a few popular restaurants, etc. — all that pull traffic to Chestnut Street and then help support the smaller businesses.
During the same period, some of the larger new businesses on Union Street included a (now defunct) Vespa dealership, large rug store, a second-hand furniture emporium, etc.
Bottom-line, Union now offers less “anchor” businesses to draw-in customers. The rest of the street suffers. Walk down Chestnut any day — there are always more people. Not so 10 years ago…the Chestnut anchor merchants have created the change.
Perhaps 25 years ago, a wise friend of mine, who was young, rich and smart said that people like him found Union Street too full of shops “selling stuff that no one really needs.” That trend persisted and then the current malaise set in. Yet both Fillmore and Chestnut and Laurel Village survive, so there is a formula for rejuvenating Union Street.
Union Street is in the past. Way past. As mentioned above, the Marina is for old people and the young generations of douche bag frat/sorority kids. Only problem is that old people do not shop and the frat kids go to the Mission/Fillmore/Union Square to be “hip”. Thus their homebase, Union Square is falling by the side.
Sucks.
I’m still not hearing ideas about what would thrive on Union. The stores are just too damn small to sell anything useful and good luck merging them. Likewise, I’d wager that a good portion of stores aren’t on street level. Some are halfway underground, others are upstairs with no clear entrance. I’d forget the gym idea for the theater and put in a mini-Whole Foods like the one on 24th. I’d put in a chain drugstore in the old Left at Albuquerque. I’d also work out select weekends to close off streets and host a farmer’s market. I’d also abandon the idea of putting in a French restaurant in that never-ending construction on Buchanan, and put in a more affordable dinning option kind of like the Peninsula Creamery in Palo Alto.
@Conifer
Fillmore and Laurel Village are also good comps. Laurel Village continues to thrive, Fillmore not quite so much.
Laurel Village offers the locals what they need. Supermarket(s), bookstore, Walgreens, banks, decent wine shop, etc. Perhaps not the best mix for every neighborhood, though appropriate there.
Fillmore runs the risk of becoming the next Union. A sizable store that only sells blinds? A hat store? It’s a wonder to me how half the stores on Fillmore keep their lights on. There’s been little innovation in dining choices. One plus is that Mollie Stone’s brings many people to the area.
I think folks on Union and on Fillmore need to consider sleepiguy’s and other ideas, or risk becoming a ghost town.
And now, horror of horrors, Brooks Bros, evil incarnation of “formula retail” will blight Fillmore Street, in a neighborhood where no one would ever wear anything they want to sell.
Thereby bringing more people to the street and improving the desirability of the other shops there.
The mindless opposition to “formula retail” constitutes a failure understand that these formulas are often the cure for the city’s economy woes.
“Its a systemic problem in SF, the state, the US and the world. It’s going to take years to work out a new more realisitc (sic) (less cheap money) balance.”
Holy shit! Is it possible that Gil has finally grasped the very simple idea that SF is not unique in dealing with the negative economic fallout caused by the excesses of the recent bubble?