Neighbors saddened by planned closure of downtown San Francisco Starbucks location
Almost five years after the start of the pandemic, there are still a lot of empty storefronts to be found in downtown San Francisco. A Starbucks location that some neighbors refer to as "the clubhouse" Is about to become one of them.
Despite the looming closure, some parts of the city may be getting back on the right track.
For Madeleine Trembley, she's been coming to her local Starbucks located beneath her apartment at the Gateway for more than a decade. She said her go-to order is a decaf cappuccino with soy milk.
But soon, her tradition of meeting with friends downstairs over a warm cup of coffee will soon come to an end. That is because the Starbucks at 99 Jackson Street will close on Feb 9.
"We have no other place really to meet. And for instance, when I'm looking for board members and we want to interview them, we always meet here. It's the rally point, basically," Trembley said.
The Starbucks location has been what nearby neighbors call their "community clubhouse."
"We typically sit out here, have coffee and talk to whoever we're with. And it's really very pleasant. And it would be a shock to this neighborhood if we lose it," James Seff, who lives across the street from the Starbucks, told CBS News Bay Area.
He and his neighbors gathered at their local Starbucks on Thursday afternoon to rally against the closure.
A Starbucks Spokesperson sent CBS News Bay Area this statement:
"As part of Starbucks standard course of business, we continually evaluate our business to ensure a healthy store portfolio. After careful consideration, we made the decision to close our store at 99 Jackson Street at lease end. Our last day at this location will be February 9 and all Starbucks partners working at the store received the opportunity to transfer to one of our nearby locations. Customers can find the nearest store location through the Starbucks app."
"We remain committed to investing in the San Francisco community: Through the Neighborhood Grants program, The Starbucks Foundation invites Starbucks partners and Starbucks Alumni to nominate local grassroots, community-led nonprofit organizations in their community to receive small grants. This year, we awarded $56K across 25 community organizations in San Francisco through our Neighborhood Grants program."
The Gateway apartment complex owns the property on the ground floor, in which Starbucks had been leasing from them for decades.
CBS News Bay Area had reached out to The Gateway for comment and have not yet received one.
"It's probably bad for Starbucks. We can't second guess their business plan but they do talk about the community center and wanting to become like an old neighborhood pub. And they're not walking the talk," Jay Folberg, who also lives across the street from Starbucks, said.
"We are hoping against hope that we can convince the management that this is worth saving," Seff said.
Although this decades-old location is closing next month, researchers with Cushman & Wakefield released new economic data showing that San Francisco's vacancies in the real estate market have seen a positive trend since 2019.
"This is certainly the best quarter we had since the pandemic began in San Francisco," Robert Sammons, regional director of research for Cushman & Wakefield, told CBS News Bay Area. "We had positive net absorption, which means we had positive absorption of office space in San Francisco. So, more move ins than move outs. Always good news for the office market for sure."
Sammons said their report showed a 34.2% vacancy rate in the city, which compared to previous quarters, is much lower since the pandemic.
"Because of AI, they started the trend. They are much more in office as well. Other tech companies see that trend, other types of companies see that trend. So, they've become much more in office the past few months and going forward we see more and more of that happening," he said.
According to the report, communities like Third Street Corridor, the Presidio, and Mission Bay had the lowest vacancy rates last quarter.
"Much more mixed use… there's a lot of residential, there is retail," Sammons said.
Comparatively, neighborhoods like SOMA, Mid-Market and Potrero Hill had one of the highest vacancies.
"You have these other submarkets that have these longer blocks, a little quieter, less retail activity. And they've struggled because of that. But I think as these other markets start performing much, much better, there will be spillover in the quieter markets going forward," he added.
Back out here on Jackson street, the Starbucks is slated to be vacant soon. There is no word yet on what will fill that spot once that Starbucks closes next month.
"It has by default become a community gathering spot, there's nothing else like it around and this is a very dense neighborhood," Folberg said.
For Trembley, she said the location of the Starbucks beneath her and her neighbors' apartment was very convenient.
"25% of our residents are elderly people that are partially handicapped. So, they are desperate, they are totally desperate," she said.
"We're trying to get a dialogue with Starbucks. Relations always are a two-way street, I'm sure they have their reasons for closing but we would like to talk to them to see if as a community we can work on that two-way street," she added.
