Much has been written about the demise of San Francisco and fears of a never-ending doom loop narrative that will forever plague the city . Unfortunately , downtown San Francisco has become the poster child of many crime-ridden U . S . cities

that exhibit various stages of decay . The global pandemic drove people out of city centers and residual work-from-home mandates have endured , a death knell for the five-day-a-week , in-the-office legacy .

Downtown San Francisco has been acutely impacted and with roughly 30 million square feet of office space currently vacant , it is trailing many of its peers and , therefore , experiencing a torpid recovery . The massive reduction of daily office workers has also adversely affected the urban core ’ s retail sector , resulting in swaths of vacant storefronts .

San Francisco is a city with a long and rich history . The area ’ s natural and scenic beauty and temperate climate have made it an attractive , albeit expensive , place to live , visit and build . Today , San Francisco is one of the most populous cities in the U . S . and is known for its diverse population and as a liberal bastion . But the global pandemic hallowed out business activity in San Francisco ’ s core and devastated its tourism industry . Downtown ’ s postpandemic recovery has been anemic and in addition to a shrinkage of population ,

the city ’ s core is threatened by crime and homelessness , a situation which has been sensationalized around the world by the media .

Like other knowledge-based industries , the tech sector has embraced working remotely and has been generally lenient on return-to-office policies . Coupled with historic levels of congestion downtown , the work-from-home phenomena will likely result in a permanent reduction of half the city ’ s prepandemic workforce .

Downtown San Francisco ’ s commercial real estate market

42 hotelsmag . com Jan / Feb 2024