Furniture Retailer ‘Coco Republic’ Closing San Francisco Store Just Seven Months After Opening, Citing Lack of Foot Traffic and Crime

 

Furniture retailer ‘Coco Republic’ is closing its flagship San Francisco store just seven months after opening, citing a lack of foot traffic and unsafe conditions due to crime.

Just days ago, T-Mobile announced that it was closing its San Francisco store for the very same reasons.

This is part of a larger pattern. Stores in San Francisco are closing almost every week. 

The San Francisco Gate reports:  

After 7 months, Coco Republic’s San Francisco flagship announces closure

In October 2022, after completing a multimillion-dollar renovation, Australian furniture and lifestyle retailer Coco Republic opened its flagship San Francisco location at 55 Stockton St. in Union Square.

Seven months later, a Coco Republic spokesperson told SFGATE that its flagship San Francisco location is set to close in the next few months, citing a familiar reason: lack of customer foot traffic, which the company pinned in part on unsafe conditions — or at least people’s perception of unsafe conditions — in the surrounding area. 

“[It] has become clear that downtown San Francisco is no longer a viable option for Coco Republic’s flagship store,” the spokesperson wrote in an email, adding, “It was a difficult decision and one that was not taken lightly. The recent closings of Whole Foods, Nordstrom, Saks Off 5th and Anthropologie show that ours is not an isolated problem in Union Square, and we hope the city will be able to address the issues that are making it so challenging to do business there.”

Every store that closes is lost revenue for the city, lost jobs, lost opportunity, and lost choices for people who live there. All of this is being driven by crime, which the city seems unable or unwilling to deal with.

When is San Francisco going to try to turn this trend around? When it’s a retail ghost town?