SF Union Square Macys employees blindsided by closure news – SFGATE

A view of Macy\'s Union Square location in downtown San Francisco, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Charles Russo/SFGATEThe Macy’s store in San Francisco’s Union Square was quiet Tuesday afternoon, with modest foot traffic, just hours after the retailer announced it will close 150 stores nationwide.Classic department store music played at medium volume throughout the aisles, as a steady but small number of customers frequented the five-floor store. According to local politicians, the iconic San Francisco location is among the Macy’s stores slated to close.“I thought this would be the last Macy’s closing in the country,” an employee, who was granted anonymity in accordance with Hearst’s ethics policy, told SFGATE after hearing about the closure.Advertisement Article continues below this adThe employee, who said he’d worked at the store for more than two decades, said he and the entire staff were called into a meeting Tuesday morning. There, they were told about the nationwide Macy’s closures.“When I went to the first floor in cosmetics, I saw everybody’s faces,” he said. “They just seemed so worried. Some of them were so red, some of them looked like they wanted to cry.”The employee said that during the meeting, a manager grabbed a microphone with visibly shaky hands and told the team that the store is looking to sell the building, which spans nine floors total, and close. The employee said details are still uncertain and only limited information was shared with staff members, but he and his co-workers were shocked.On Tuesday morning, Macy’s Inc. announced that it will close 50 stores “by the end of the fiscal year,” with all 150 closed by the end of 2026. A news release from the company said it is closing its “underproductive locations” and “modernizing” the remaining stores.Advertisement Article continues below this adShortly after the announcement, local politicians, including Mayor London Breed, said on social

media that the San Francisco location is not part of the first wave of closures, but is looking to sell its retail space. In a lengthy statement, Breed added that “the City will continue to work closely with Macy’s and any potential new owner to ensure this iconic location continues to serve San Francisco for decades to come. The City is committed to fostering the building’s best possible future, including through the use of potential tools such as zoning, air right contributions and transfer tax revenue.”A spokesperson for Macy’s previously told SFGATE that they could not provide a

list of the stores slated to close in California.Customers departs Macy\'s Union Square location in downtown San Francisco, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Charles Russo/SFGATEThe Macy’s employee said the Union Square store is usually busy during the holiday season, thanks to its festive windows and gift-buying customers, and often filled with tourists during the summer. On Tuesday afternoon, though, he said things were slower than usual, calling it “not normal.”Advertisement Article continues below this adLocal customers and tourists told SFGATE they believe the Union Square closure is a major loss for the city. Though the Macy’s closure is not specific to San Francisco, it’s joining a number of businesses in the downtown area that have called it quits recently.Victoria Gill, a frequent customer and employee at a nearby business, was shopping Tuesday afternoon. Gill told SFGATE that she comes to the Union Square Macy’s on her breaks and had many questions when she first learned about the pending closure.“What’s going to come back here in this spot? What’s going to happen to Union Square?” Gill said.Kasia Grimm, who also works at a nearby business and was shopping with Gill, told SFGATE that she’s seen numerous stores in the area close, which she believes is due to crime.Advertisement Article continues below this ad“We kind of got used to seeing the dirt, the drug use, the theft because we see that almost all the time,” Grimm said. Still, she said, Macy’s is “not just another business. It’s also iconic.”Pedestrians walk past Macy\'s Union Square location in downtown San Francisco, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Charles Russo/SFGATECarolyn Bart, a tourist from Australia, told SFGATE she was excited to visit the Macy’s because she can’t easily shop at classic American stores in her hometown. She said she was surprised to hear it was closing, and said that while she didn’t know much about San Francisco or Union Square prior to visiting, she has noticed retailers in her hometown are also closing.Several retailers and restaurants, including Nordstrom, have cited crime as a reason for closing locations in recent years. Breed told KRON4 that safety is not a reason for the closure, and that crime rate near Union Square declined last holiday season compared to previous years. In recent years, the San Francisco Police D