This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
WESTFIELD is leaving San Francisco, as challenging operating conditions continues with the US city struggling to return to its pre-COVID state.
The Westfield mall was one of the California city’s largest shopping centres, comprising more than 170 stores across nine-storeys, with multiple neighbouring stores in the downtown precinct meeting a similar end.
“We have made the difficult decision to begin the process to transfer management of the shopping center to our lender to allow them to appoint a receiver to operate the property going forward,” said a representative of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.
Westfield was Australian owned until 2014, before breaking off into two groups—Scentre Group and Westfield Corporation, which was absorbed into Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield in 2018.
The Paris-based Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield announced plans to dispose of the majority of its US assets by the end of the year, with plans to extend focus on its European operations.
Reportedly the parent company has begun the process of ceding control of the mall and has ceased making payments on its $558 million loan.
According to Westfield, the declines at the San Francisco mall stood out from gains made at other similar assets, with sales having fallen 35% from 2019 to December 2022.
Westfield acquired the centre in 2002 and has spent $460 million into expanding the asset.
