BIG Changes Coming to Downtown San Francisco in 2025

We all know that downtown San Francisco has been one of the slowest metropolitan areas in the country to recover in the aftermath of the pandemic. But there are some major changes coming to downtown San Francisco that are clearing the path to a return to its former glory. Incredible new developments, innovative strategies to boost retail sales and occupancy, luxury retailers opening up new spaces and expanding, brand new restaurants and hospitality spaces, and a whole lot more. This is Austin Klar, your lawyer turned real estate agent in San Francisco and Marin County. And in this video, I'm going to break down all the exciting changes that are happening in downtown San Francisco and how the city developers, and entrepreneurs are all getting really creative to bolster the city's recovery post-pandemic. So let's get right to it and start with perhaps the biggest change in downtown San Francisco, the reopening of the iconic Transamerica Pyramid. The iconic 48-story tower was purchased in October 2020 by Chefo, who invested over $1 billion into rejuvenating not just the building, but the entire neighborhood. The goal of the project was to turn the building into a true trophy property, like extremely luxurious spaces and amenities, Michael Schwoz is known for creating ultra-high-end hospitality spaces, and he's applying that concept to The Office in San Francisco with the hope of giving people a reason to come back to work. One of the world's preeminent architecture firms, Foster and Partners, led the redesign, completely transforming the public spaces, The Office, including a 45,000-square-foot private club. In addition to the building itself, the unused Mark Twain Street on the block was transformed into a beautiful tree-lined path with retail shops leading to Redwood Park. Schwoz also working on renovating and expanding an adjacent 9-story building. All of these grand plans and designs seem to have been working because he's already garnered leases at rent rates that we haven't seen outside of New York City, about 3 times San Francisco average office rents. The building officially reopened in September, and there are a number of spaces already open to the public, including a new coffee shop and bookstore in the lobby. There are new tenant-only amenity spaces like a cocktail lounge that hosts weekly happy hours. There's a brand new restaurant, Café Sebastian, that opened at an adjacent building at the Transamerica Center, helmed by renowned chef Brad Kilgore, who worked at not one, but 2 3-Michelin-star restaurants and was named Best New Chef in America by Food Wine magazine. And Chef Kilgore also has plans to open another restaurant called Ama, a Japanese-Italian fusion spot. Both of them will be open to the public. He's also helming the food menus for the tenant-only spaces on the 26th floor lobby and the 48th floor cocktail lounge. It's really great to see a powerhouse chef opening these new spaces. By the way, if you want to learn more about new developments, current events, or lifestyle in San Francisco and Marin County, subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you're thinking about relocating to the area, The market's undergone some pretty dramatic shifts over the past several years. I've lived here for over a decade and I've helped numerous people relocate from all over the country. I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I'll put my contact information in the description below, including a link to book a Zoom with me. Now back to other transformations underway in downtown San Francisco, and the next one is a really innovative strategy to boost retail sales and occupancy downtown. It's called the Vacant to Vibrant program, and it's creating dozens of pop-up shops all across downtown. Under the program, each pop-up shop is provided months of free rent through grants from a nonprofit called the SF New Deal. The program helps these businesses get permits for their stores and gets them set up, takes care of, you know, setup expenses, utilities, and provides these grants to, you know, property owners who are basically giving them these spaces rent-free. The goal is to encourage these small businesses to experiment with new locations or locations that they aren't 100% sure about, like in hard-hit downtown San Francisco where retail vacancies are significantly higher than city average. They get to experiment with potentially attracting new audiences and also maybe their old audiences. The first iteration of pop-ups opened in the Financial District and SoMa areas, and it's clear the program's already working to revitalize retail in the area, as 7 of the first 9 have signed for direct long-term leases for their spaces. And the program's been so successful that they're actually expanding it to other parts of downtown, including the Powell Street Corridor on Union Square. 25 new storefronts are planned on the Powell Street Corridor and throughout other parts of downtown with help from a new $3 million grant by the SF New Deal. Over 1,200 businesses have applied to be part of the program, so obviously it's working if businesses want to be a part of this. It's a really innovative way to encourage retailers to come to the hard-hit downtown areas, and the hope is that with more foot traffic, the office market and tourism increases as well. And it isn't just experimental retail that is having a comeback in downtown. Some major luxury brands are not only renewing their commitments to downtown San Francisco, but they are expanding. Investors recently purchased Burberry's flagship location in Union Square, and Burberry opened a new location down the street. Luxury trunk maker Goyard announced it's expanding its footprint, taking over a vacant storefront next door that used to be occupied by Montblanc. Brunello Cucinelli expanded its footprint, opening separate men's and women's stores on Grant near where the Goyard is. Luxury watch brands Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Breitling each opened new flagship stores in Union Square. Fashion house Max Mara has a new store. Christopher Clarke Art Gallery has a new space there. And Nintendo has plans to open a new flagship retail store in Union Square in 2025. So that hard-hit retail center of downtown San Francisco is slowly coming back. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on trends and will be updating you about the latest happenings. So if you're interested in keeping a pulse on things, definitely subscribe to my channel. Now, new stores don't really matter that much if there isn't more traffic coming to downtown, but there are some new strategies that are being implemented that have already started boosting traffic as well. There's a new program in downtown San Francisco called Downtown's First Thursdays. It's an open-air festival that happens in San Francisco the first day of every single month. The program started in summer of 2024, and it's already been a huge success. The events bring food trucks, local artisans, street performers, musicians, outdoor bars to downtown. Three local bar staples— Harrington's, Schroeder's, and Royal Exchange— have hosted multiple events. They've seen sales in connection with those events increase between 700 to 1,500%. So it's been tremendously successful for local businesses. They also had huge turnouts for two events that they held in the Entertainment Zone, which is an open container zone on Front Street. They did Oktoberfest and a Halloween event, Nightmare on Front Street. Each of those saw about 10,000 people come to the event, which is huge. They're opening a second Entertainment Zone at Thrive City, which is the retail and bar scene immediately outside of Chase Center. It's an 11-acre open space. It's really beautiful, and I can't think of a better place to have it. These free events are really innovative, creative uses to get people back to downtown visiting these new shops that are getting set up, bringing traffic back to the hard-hit area. There's so much changing with these creative new spaces, new offices, new policies, new retail. There's a lot happening that is already transforming and is going to continue to transform downtown San Francisco and hopefully bring it back to its former glory. I'm really excited to see these changes, and if you want to stay on top of them, definitely subscribe to my channel because I'm going to keep making videos about that stuff. And if you're thinking about relocating and want more information about how these policies have already started impacting the real estate market and how it's likely going impact the market into the future, definitely reach out to me. I've helped people relocate here from all over the country, and I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I'll drop my contact info in the description below. And before you go, if you want to learn more about other developments happening in the city, not just in downtown, I've made several videos about that stuff, from multi-billion-dollar mixed-use communities to new food halls all across the city. I'll link those videos in the description as well. Go take a look. I hope you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you in the next one. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]