The San Francisco Centre shopping mall, as seen in its final days of being open.
Dan Hernandez/S.F. Chronicle
San Francisco’s dead mall at Fifth and Mission is a real estate investor’s nightmare: a marbled monument to a bygone retail era that disappeared down the escalator years ago along with the center’s many shoppers.
But what may seem like a long shot to a developer is a rare chance to dream big for city architects, who have no shortage of ideas about what to do with 6 acres at one of the most high-profile intersections west of the Mississippi.
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The former mall is made up of three buildings: The six-story Bloomingdale’s building covers about 2.4 acres; the seven-story Nordstrom building covers a little less than 2 acres and the old eight-story Emporium is also just under 2 acres.
A rendering of a proposal for a new facade for the closed S.F. Centre mall.
Courtesy of Gensler
So far most of the public input about future uses of the 1.5 million-square-foot mall break out into two broad categories: Convert it to an entertainment and arts center or a college campus or casino or housing; or tear it down and build something from scratch, like a group of residential towers or a soccer stadium.
But most architects who have studied it favor a more nuanced approach: adaptive reuse of the historic Emporium building, with its beaux arts sandstone facade and 102-foot-wide glass and steel rotunda; and a mix of residential or hotel towers, including on the portions of the site previously occupied by Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom.
While architects agree that the dome needs preserving, most favor lowering it from the fifth floor of the building, where it was hoisted during the 2006 remodel, to its original height at the entrance to the building.
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The Emporium Dome, a landmarked feature, seen from inside the San Francisco Centre.
Dan Hernandez/S.F. Chronicle
“You keep the historic facade and move the dome back to its original height. I think the rest of the nonhistoric structure could go,” said Leo Chow, a design partner with Skidmore Owings & Merrill. “It’s hard to imagine the existing structure as it is being completely reused.”
Lisa Huang, a senior designer with Gensler, spent months studying uses for the dying mall for the brokerage CBRE, which was marketing it for sale.
She said the property’s next incarnation should embrace the old Emporium’s legacy as a gathering place for middle-class families rather than the generic destination mall it evolved into. The Emporium, which closed in 1996, had a house orchestra and rooftop carnivals and dances. Friends meeting for a movie or night out at the theater would say “meet me at the dome.”
Gensler renderings show the lowered dome as the centerpiece of a spacious mid-block plaza off Market Street, while a collection of high-rises and mid-rises all spill out onto the open space.
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“It should go back to its civic roots,” she said. “For 100 years it served that purpose.”
One consensus among architects is that the now-closed mall was an urban design failure long before it became an economic disaster.
The southwestern basement entrance from Powell Street Station to the S.F. Centre, next to where the Starbucks used to be, was closed off recently.
Dan Hernandez/S.F. Chronicle
It offered little connection to Market Street with its streetcars, cable car bells, brick sidewalks and sycamore trees. It also turned its back on the cultural and convention activity to the south, with the glass Bloomingdale’s facade along Mission Street offering a blank wall to the visitors wandering at lunch from Moscone West or Yerba Buena Garden. Once inside the mall, you could be in Phoenix or Cleveland or Atlanta.
“The mall never capitalized on the desire of visitors to have an experience that was uniquely San Francisco, that was urban, that took advantage of being between these two incredible places and right on top of the biggest transit axis in the western United States,” said Skidmore Director Mark Schwettmann.
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Architects said the block needs to be more porous, to allow pedestrians to flow mid-block between Market and Mission streets.
A rendering of a proposed university library that could be constructed under the dome of the San Francisco Centre.
Courtesy of Gensler
One solution would be to extend Powell Street south through the site, connecting Union Square and the Powell Street cable car turnaround with Moscone West and Yerba Buena, according to architect and engineer Charles Bloszies.
The street would split the block to the west of the Emporium building, with a tall residential tower on one side and a mixed-use row of retail and sports and entertainment on the other. Both Mission and Market Street would be lined with shops and restaurants.
“It is a perfect location for a bold move, but it has to be one that attracts a lot of people,” said Bloszies.
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Huang said a redevelopment could connect by pedestrian bridge to the rooftop of the Fifth and Mission garage, which could become an open space with recreation and gardens. A second overpass could link to Moscone West, creating a passage between Howard and Market streets.
One complication is that the land the mall sits on is owned by the San Francisco Unified School District, with a ground lease that expires in 2040. Any developer investing in a project that will likely cost $1 billion or more would need to extend that ground lease.
A view of the now-locked Fifth Street entrance to the downtown mall.
Dan Hernandez/S.F. Chronicle
Architect Owen Kennerly, principal of Kennerly Architecture, says the fact that the school district owns the land could create an opportunity for the site to become a new downtown arts campus, which he said is sorely needed with the recent announcement that CCA is closing.
Kennerly envisions a scenario where the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, known as SOTA, moves to Fifth and Market streets, along with City College of San Francisco’s downtown campus, creating a bustling arts center with theaters, rehearsal rooms, galleries and music venues. SOTA had intended to build a new campus in Civic Center, but that plan stalled because of cost escalation.
The arts campus could be complemented by high-rise housing or biotech or tech research. He imagined a “lightweight steel and glass shed structure, like the Centre Pompidou in Paris, laced with … wood and terra cotta and traditional masonry craft.”
“It would be an amazing thing to bring that arts energy back downtown,” he said.
While a new arts center for SOTA and City College would not be a big moneymaker, revenue could be generated by redeveloping SOTA’s 22-acre campus at 555 Portola in Diamond Heights and City College’s downtown property at 88 Fourth St.
The current SOTA site could be developed with 2,000 units, he said.
“The SOTA parcel is the size of nine city blocks,” he said. “It’s an incredible site with great views.”
A rendering of a university quad area proposed for the San Francisco Centre.
Courtesy of Gensler
Given the reality of how long it takes to develop in San Francisco, the focus should be as much on short-term activation as long-term development, according to Laura Crescimano, principal with SiteLab Urban Studio.
“It’s important to not just put out sketches of the future but to think in both the three-year time frame,” she said. “Anything we do is going to take time to work out, to approve, to build. It’s important to think about how that corner can be activated and engaging in the short term.”
She said the short-term activation should take advantage of the “hobby economy” — think golf simulators, racquet sports, yoga, climbing walls, creative production facilities. These types of uses have been a success at Pier 70 where Bay Padel opened pickleball and padel courts and is now more than doubling its footprint.
“You need a space hog that needs that much space and will bring strong foot traffic,” she said.
Given that the mall is on public land and occupies such an important intersection, there should be a public competition similar to the one that was held for the Transbay Transit Center, Schwettmann said.
“This is something rare and incredible,” Schwettmann said. “You would want to see real public discourse about how much housing is being provided, how many jobs are being provided, how much urban activity is being created.”