San Francisco's flagship Macy's store in Union Square not on 2025 closure list
When Macy's on Friday released its full list of stores that are slated for closure this year, one notable location that was not included was the retail chain's flagship San Francisco store in Union Square.
The new list of "underperforming" locations set to be shuttered in the coming year came out almost a year after the retailer's late February 2024 confirmation that the Union Square store was among the 30% of Macy's shops that the chain would close by 2027.
According to a report published by the Business Times after the initial Macy's announcement, the retailer plans to keep the location at 170 O'Farrell St. in operation until it can find a buyer for the real estate that the company owns.
The Union Square Macy's is one of the retailer's largest and oldest locations. It has anchored the popular San Francisco shopping district for nearly a century since opened in early March of 1929 when the company was operating under the name O'Connor, Moffat & Co.
At the time of the initial announcement, there was outcry among city officials including then-Mayor London Breed as well as the Union Square Alliance, a collective of business owners in the neighborhood's 27-block radius, over the planned closure.
"It's hard to think of Macy's not being part of our city anymore," Breed said in a statement.
There was a bittersweet undercurrent to holiday festivities in Union Square this past Christmas as San Francisco's residents wondered if it might be the last time the Macy's store would be at the center of the city's yuletide celebrations.
However, the Union Square shopping area has experienced its share of troubles since the pandemic, including the notorious 2021 retail crime spree that targeted nearly a dozen businesses and spurred Breed and the San Francisco police department to increase officer patrols and deploy community ambassadors.
Last summer, the neighborhood received more unwanted attention when 49ers rookie wide receiver Ricky Pearsall was shot in the chest during an attempted armed robbery by a Tracy teenager who faces attempted murder and enhancements as well as other charges.
While the historic San Francisco Macy's was spared, there were three Bay Area Macy's store locations included on the closure list released by the retailer. While the updated list noted that the Macy's Furniture Gallery in San Mateo had already been shut down and moved into the Hillsdale Mall department store, the Newark Macy's store in the NewPark Mall and the Corte Matera Macy's store were the two currently operational locations on the list that will face closure soon.
The downtown Sacramento Macy's and the store at Sunrise Mall in Citrus Heights were the other two Northern California locations set to be among the stores closing during the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, according to the list.
