San Francisco Retail Market Report

Amid general strength, troubled core sees signs of improvement. While overall vacancy in the metro continues a climb that began in 2015, available retail space is limited across most of the city of San Francisco. For the area west of Fort Mason and south to Visitacion Valley, which represents about a third of the market’s retail inventory, vacancy was at 3 percent to start this year and falling. The challenges facing the local retail sector instead largely reside downtown, where vacancy ended 2024 at 15.7 percent. The loss of daytime office worker foot traffic and public safety concerns have inhibited many retailers in these areas. The Office of Mayor Lurie, however, hopes to use a new state of emergency ordinance to streamline the process for establishing public health centers, aiding those in the city who are homeless or suffering from drug addiction. The mayor aims to establish 1,500 new beds at such settings — a process that, should it come to fruition, could both rehabilitate vacant retail space and improve public health and safety and, by relation, retail foot traffic.