SAN FRANCISCO—Before the pandemic, San Francisco’s Westfield Mall, which was once a bustling space for mallrats and an after-school hangout, is dead now. The mall was sold at auction for $133 million on Wednesday, November 12. The lenders, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase, were the only bidders, acquiring it for $133 million.
In 2016, before the pandemic crisis, San Francisco’s Westfield Mall was worth more than $1.2 billion.
In June 2023, the previous owners and its operators, Unibail-Rodanco-Westfield (URW) and Brookfield Properties stopped making payments on their $558 million loan and walked away from the property because of financial distress. There was also a significant decline in San Francisco downtown’s economic conditions, and strategic decision by URW to exit United States market.
In August 2023, Nordstrom closed its 5th floor anchor store. In October 2023, a receiver, Gregg Williams of Trident Pacific, was appointed by a San Francisco Superior Court judge to take charge of the mall’s operations. By late June 2023 to early 2024, numerous other stores, like LEGO, Adidas, Hollister and J. Crew started closing, causing the mall’s occupancy to drop significantly.
The mall was officially renamed Emporium Centre San Francisco. In Spring 2025, Bloomingdale’s the last anchor store shuttered its doors. All throughout 2025, foreclosures had been delayed about nine times as various stakeholders negotiated over debt issues before it was recently auction in November 2025.
