The City by the Bay continues to die:
The owner of two of San Francisco’s largest hotels has stopped making mortgage payments on the properties and will let them go into foreclosure as historic crime rates continue to deter tourists.
Park Hotels and Resorts announced on Monday that it stopped making payments on its $725 million loan due in November for the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 — the largest and fourth-largest hotels in the city, respectively.
‘After much thought and consideration, we believe it is in the best interest for Park’s stockholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market,’ CEO Thomas Baltimore Jr said in a statement.
‘Now, more than ever we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges — both old and new’ as the city becomes a ghost town with empty storefronts.
Out of 203 retailers open in 2019 in the city’s Union Square area, just 107 are still operating, a drop of 47 percent in just a few pandemic-ravaged years.
Among the heavy hitters, Brooks Brothers, Ray Ban, Christian Louboutin, Lululemon and Marmot have all packed it in.
Another 12 new retailers have opened in the area since the pandemic began in 2020 but already two have them have either closed or plan to shut down.
Williams-Sonoma also announced it will shut down in 2024.
San Francisco is a harbinger of the urban US future. Few US cities combine extremes of ideology, diversity, and immigration in as perfect a mixture as San Francisco. Just as Detroit is the poster city for pure vibrancy, San Francisco is the poster city for left-wing ideals. And it is demonstrating, in real-time, the inevitable consequences of those ideals.