The San Francisco Centre Mall, also known as the Westfield Emporium, sold at auction recently for a fraction of its original worth.
Even before Covid, lax progressive policies on crime, specifically shoplifting and low/no bail policies, were ruining businesses in downtown San Francisco. After Covid hit, all bets were off and stores that were located downtown and in shopping malls began to evaporate.
Stores were forced to deal with thieves, as well as drug users camping out on their doorsteps. The Centre Mall eventually became a ghost town as stores deserted the once vibrant shopping place.
That’s how this happened.
The Daily Mail reports:
Once-bustling mall worth $1.2b is sold for fraction of the price after being laid to waste in crime-ravaged blue city
An iconic mall foreclosed for a fraction of the billion-dollar valuation it once commanded as Covid shutdowns and out-of-control crime left the seven-story behemoth a shell of its former self.
Valued at $1.2 billion nearly a decade ago, the San Francisco Centre Mall, previously known as the Westfield Emporium, was sold at an auction on Wednesday to lenders Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the mall served as a shopping hub in San Francisco, with residents and tourists flocking to its vibrant energy and big-name brands.
As consumers turned away from the city’s sketchy downtown and toward online shopping, however, the mall’s value declined drastically.
An appraisal at the end of 2022 valued the property at only $290 million, a 76 percent drop from its height before the pandemic.
But lenders purchased the property for even less than appraisals, with the final sticker price for the sprawling 1.5 million square-foot mall only $133 million – or just 11 percent of its top valuation.
Here’s a video report from CBS News in the Bay Area:
California Governor Gavin Newsom should know that if he is really planning to run for president, all of this is going to come up.
Newsom managed to destroy the most desirable place to live. That’s a level of incompetence I won’t see again in my lifetime. https://t.co/35mXlAbk4l
— EducatëdHillbilly
(@RobProvince) November 13, 2025
Yet another success story for @CAgovernor! https://t.co/sQvP3605Ue
— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) November 13, 2025
11% of the initial valuation. Insane.
Gonna be a lot of that going on soon https://t.co/sd8yne1117
— FilmLadd (@FilmLadd) November 13, 2025
Would this shopping mall have survived if leaders in the city and state had enforced the law? Probably. Unfortunately, we will never know for sure. All we know now is that this once thriving place of business is now a shell of its former self.
The post San Francisco Shopping Mall Ravaged by Crime and Store Closures Sells at Auction for a Fraction of its Worth appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.