Office Depot and Anthropologie to pull out of Downtown SF

A vortex of businesses spinning out of Downtown San Francisco now include Office Depot and Anthropologie.

The Florida-based office supply retailer will close its store at 33 Third Street in South of Market, and the Philadelphia-based clothing and home decor chain will shutter its location at 880 Market Street in Union Square, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The closure date for Office Depot in the Hearst Parking Center wasn’t announced. The shutdown of Anthropologie near the Powell Street cable car turnaround will take place on May 13. The company also plans to close a store in Corte Madera.

The darkened stores will represent the latest retailers and restaurants to exit Downtown this year as commuters and shoppers become less frequent during the era of remote work. The city also lost tens of thousands of residents during the pandemic. 

San Francisco, which has struggled to rebound since the pandemic, has been dubbed “the most empty downtown in America,” with one out of three offices now vacant.

Office Depot still runs a larger store at 3700 Geary Boulevard in the Richmond District, according to the Chronicle. The chain announced in February that it would close several stores this year, after closing 263 stores in 2021 and 2022.

While the Union Square shopping hub began losing stores before the pandemic, the city has seen a flurry of high-profile closures, casting a national spotlight on crime and homelessness.

This month, Whole Foods Market packed up its premium groceries and closed its largest store in the city at 1177 Market Street in Mid-Market, citing safety concerns for its employees. The 65,000-square-foot flagship market had been open one year.

A bedraggled Union Square has lost numerous businesses, including The RealReal in February shutting its first hometown brick-and-mortar store at 253 Post Street. 

The closure of Crate & Barrel’s CB2 store in Union Square a month earlier followed the exit of Container Store, Marshalls, Gap, H&M and Abercrombie & Fitch.

The slump in business around Union Square led Mayor London Breed and local businesses to promote zoning reform to revitalize the upscale shopping district. The plan calls for lifting zoning restrictions to draw more tenants, while adding housing and offices on upper floors.

— Dana Bartholomew