Vertical mall may revive city centre

A new high-rise mall that may serve as a rejuvenation model for big city centres opened last week.

The expanded Westfield San Francisco Centre in the heart of the city's historic commercial district at Fifth and Market streets combines department stores, supermarkets, movie theatres, restaurants, shops, a spa and office space in two buildings one nine storeys and the other eight.

City leaders hope that the mall will invigorate once-seedy Market Street and serve as a bridge between Union Square now the city's main shopping attraction and the former industrial district south of Market Street known as 'SoMa', which includes new museums and hotels.

If successful, San Francisco Centre could be a blueprint for renewing the shopping districts of other major cities, experts said.

But it is a bold and risky bet that residents and tourists will frequent a vertical mall that goes upward instead of outward in the style of most sprawling suburban shopping centres.

"Most American consumers, save for San Francisco and Chicago, aren't really attuned to vertical retailing," said Peter Lowy, chief executive of US operations for the Sydney-based Westfield Group, which owns the mall with Forest City Commercial Group. "Even New Yorkers tend to not shop vertically unless they are in a department store."

The expansion of San Francisco Centre, which cost $460 million, is part of a trend toward making successful malls bigger by adding shops, apartments and condos. With the new addition, San Francisco Centre has tripled in size to 1.5 million square feet.

Smart growth

Remodelling and ambitiously expanding malls "is clearly something that is going to continue to happen across the US," said Art Coppola, chief executive of Santa Monica-based mall operator Macerich , which is also expanding some of its malls.

Retailers prefer to join proven centres, while neighbours are less likely to object to expanding an existing centre than they would to the creation of a new one.

If the properties are near public transit hubs, public officials are often quick to approve the addition of office space and residential units, Coppola said. "It makes sense because it's smart growth."

San Francisco Centre is above an underground rail station and along one of the city's busiest bus routes. Across Market Street, the city's main thoroughfare, a turntable spins around cable cars and relaunches them back up Nob Hill toward Fisherman's Wharf.

"The whole mid-Market area has been difficult, but now I think it will come to life," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. "It will ignite some long-range development."

Newsom said he was also looking forward to the 25 million visitors the mall should attract and the estimated $18 million it should contribute to the city's general fund through taxes.

The expanded San Francisco Centre combines the original centre a nine-storey venue that opened in 1988 with a Nordstrom store with a venerable eight-storey building that once housed the Emporium. It will contain, among other things, the US's second-largest Bloomingdale's department store and a Bristol Farms gourmet market.

The Emporium building was built in 1896 and survived San Francisco's devastating 1906 earthquake, but was destroyed by the subsequent fire.

Restoring life to the cherished relic was a 10-year ordeal for owner Forest City Commercial, said president Jim Ratner. A combined project with San Francisco Centre next door made the most sense, but its owners weren't interested until Westfield, the world's largest shopping centre owner, took it over in 2002.

The renovation of the Market Street facade brought back windows and storefronts on the sidewalk that had been boarded up for half a century, said architect Norman Garden of RTKL, the principal design firm for the renovation.