After a three\u002Dyear exile, the pandemic now fading from view, the expected crowds and electric ambience of downtown have not returned.
“They’re no longer central business districts. They’re centers of innovation, of entertainment, of recreation,” he said. “The faster places realize that, the better.”
Why? San Francisco relied heavily on international tourism and its tech workforce, both of which disappeared during the pandemic. And midwestern cities like Indianapolis and Cleveland already struggled pre-pandemic with diminished downtowns as they relied on a single industry to support them and lacked booming industries like tech, said Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto and author of the study.Article content
But Marc Benioff, chief executive officer of Salesforce, the city’s largest employer and anchor tenant in its tallest skyscraper, said downtown is “never going back to the way it was” when it comes to workers commuting in each day. He advised Breed to convert office space into housing and hire more police to give visitors a sense of safety.Article contentDowntown housing has been the key to success in Baltimore and Salt Lake City, Chapple said.
Daud Shuja, owner and designer of Franco Uomo, a luxury clothier based in San Jose, said new customers who live in San Francisco drive at least an hour to the store. He plans to open a shop in a more convenient location in suburban Palo Alto next year. Gap, which started in San Francisco in 1969, closed its flagship Gap and Old Navy stores near Union Square. But the company isn’t abandoning the city entirely, planning four new stores from its major brands at its headquarters near the waterfront and anticipating other new stores.
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