Thomas J. Baltimore Jr. wrote that it was a “very difficult, but necessary decision” to cease payments on the loan because it had become a burden on their operating results and balance sheet.
Baltimore pointed to issues both old and new that “clouded and elongated” San Francisco’s path to recovery following the pandemic: “Concerns over street conditions; lower return to office than peer cities; and a weaker than expected citywide convention calendar through 2027.”
Living in San Jose, I’ve visited San Francisco many times since the 70s to see concerts, movies, museums, go on dates, or just for a day trip to wander around and take pictures. Those trips have become less and less frequent, especially to downtown. The number of crazy/scary people and garbage-strewn sidewalks just suck all the enjoyment out of it for me.
But despite all the shit and used needles, housing prices in S. Fran are still among the most expensive in the country, aren’t they?
So there must still be a LOT of people who like living there.
Yah, and from my readings, commercial real estate leases remain stubbornly high, even as the downtown area struggles with companies downsizing their RE footprint - there is a lot of vacant space right now but no one seems to want to lower rents. I don’t get that, either.
Prestige? I don’t know, but it’s like a lot of other pricing – sooner or later, the manufacturers/landlords/whoever sets the prices will price themselves out of the market. But what do I know? It’s more than possible to buy a pickup truck that costs over $100,000. In my mind, there’s no way that’s worth it.
My understanding is the commercial real estate leases are long term, like ten years or more. I’ll bet the landlords and management agencies don’t want to lock in lower rents, expecting that eventually things will turn around.
I still go into the city a lot, especially for concerts. The neighborhood is not that nice, but the downtown venues still attract a slew of world-class talent. For me, it’s worth it. I was just thinking, I’ve recently seen concerts in SF from artists from Scotland, Belgium, Japan, Korea, etc. Having that variety at the expense of the dirt is a fair trade, for me.
That’s what I was going to say – I think some people are making generalizations about the entire city based on some things that happened in certain parts of the city. I think I can say pretty confidentially you’re not going to find any shit and used needles on Nob Hill (And that’s not even that far from Downtown).
I didn’t mean to paint the whole city with a broad brush. There are places other than downtown that I’m happy to visit. Actually, these days I’m more likely to be passing through the city on my way to the Marin Headlands or Point Reyes.
Same here. I passed thru the western part of the city on a bicycle recently, from the GGB down Great Highway to Daly City. It was very normal and as-expected out that way. The thread is about downtown SF, so I will be careful to keep my comments around that.
I just spent 3 weeks in the Haight. I was not bothered by the street people. My main objection to San Francisco is the damp cold wind with a chill that seeps right through you. I could never get comfortable. I also thought of my disabled friends, for San Francisco has got to be the least accessible city in the world with all the hills and staircases. I couldn’t even imagine getting around those hills in a wheelchair without getting exhausted.
That said, it’s an astonishingly beautiful place with wonderful people. Every single person I met there was perfectly kind and considerate, what I consider the human ideal. I lucked into a very cool lesbian community. San Francisco author Julia Serano wrote in Whipping Girl about the transmisogyny (prejudice against trans women) in the LGBQ scene there. I saw none of that. All the dykes welcomed me as one of them with no reservations at all. One of them invited me to a book reading at Fabulosa Books in the Castro, and the author gave me a copy just because I was from out of town! It’s a beautiful scene.
The Haight is a close-knit community where neighbors are really neighborly to each other.
The Haight and the avenues (and Great Highway) are very different from downtown. Even Nob Hill is very different. On a map it is close, but in reality with the big hill, that in effect moves it farther away. So in that sense it is farther away, if you know what I mean.
Businesses are moving out of the city. If that continues, and if the downhill slide continues and the dirt keeps spreading, more businesses will leave, then residents will leave, and residential property values will start dropping.
I was in SF on Friday night to see an opera. Even though the Opera House is near a bad neighborhood, the theater was completely full. So people are still coming to the city when there’s something they really want to see.
Was going to say… yes, there are some where you can easily “steer clear” but many others where you got the “fine” places right up to and abutting the not-so-fine places, often because the “in between” buffer spaces got filled in either upward or downward, or because changes of one kind or another wound up creating enclaves, and you have to pay attention what’s around you.
When I visited SF some years back, I stayed outside limits, parked at those lodgings, and BARTed into the city. As others have mentioned, my impression was it has some blocks that are unpleasant-to-nasty, some that are just fine, and others, eh, it’s a big city and it draws all kinds. But the nasties were quite so far more than for example Manhattan at the time.
I recently visited my Niece in Seattle. She works for Microsoft and I read about the horrible homeless problem and half expected to be attacked by homeless people as soon as I left the airport. Of course it was no where near as bad as it was portrayed.
I mean there were definitely still homeless and the city is pretty expensive and I live right out of Washington DC so I know expensive.
I think there are certain people who constantly crow over the bad stuff in a city and it gets the attention.
I have not been back to San Francisco since 1987 so I don’t know and my late parent’s old friends have all passed on now.
I do watch this guys videos whenever I get homesick. Jermaine Ellis who is a laid back delivery worker who works in and around San Francisco and does several city walking tours. He has both the good and the bad but I feel he is even keel regarding how bad the city has become.
Recently had dinner with friends who were in SF area for 2 weeks for a dtr’s wedding across the bay (Danville.)
Husband described picking up some suits near Jackson Square - which he described as a pretty nice area. Said the parking deck stairwell was filthier than he could have imagined possible, with both trash and feces, and homeless persons were going through the trash. He described a number of local malls which had closed and simply allowed the property to revert to the lenders. I asked what Fisherman’s Wharf was like, and he said, “Dirty, dirty, dirty.” He said some of the most exclusive areas were beautiful, but there was a considerable homeless presence in all but the ritziest areas.
His daughter, who lived in SF for a decade or so, pronounced herself “done with SF.”
Just an update - saw this story in the paper yesterday.
Data bears out that San Francisco’s downtown is having a harder time than most. A study of 63 North American downtowns by the University of Toronto ranked the city dead last in a return to pre-pandemic activity, garnering only 32% of its 2019 traffic.