Another major retailer is leaving downtown San Francisco — this time Coco Republic, an Australian furniture store that is leaving the iconic Union Square less than a year after opening a flagship location there.
The ongoing retail exodus from San Francisco follows years of worsening crime, drugs, and homelessness, plus a wave of “mass looting” events that have caused many other retail stores and chains to leave the city.
Other reasons include a decline in foot traffic in downtown San Francisco as a result of pandemic restrictions that caused many workers to shift to work-from-home, and many residents to relocate outside of the city.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday:
Coco Republic, an Australian furniture retailer that invested heavily in a San Francisco showroom off Union Square, abruptly announced Wednesday that it would be closing the store, less than a year after it opened on Stockton Street, across the street from Macy’s.
The reason given was safety of its shoppers, along with a significant drop in foot traffic that has not returned since the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, according to a statement released to The Chronicle.
“We invested extraordinary time and capital in our initial U.S. flagship store in Union Square,” said Anthony Spon-Smith, Coco Republic’s creative director and founder, who is based in Sydney. “Less than six months from opening, we could not be more disappointed to be shuttering this flagship location in our sister city, but ultimately, the safety and well-being of our customers and employees is our highest priority.”
Last week, Nordstrom closed two of its stores in downtown San Francisco, amid denials from liberal pundits like Franklin Leonard who doubted that rising crime could possibly be the reason for retailers to leave the area.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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