Macy’s flagship store in San Francisco’s Union Square faces chopping block: reports

Macy’s could potentially decide to shutter the Macy’s department store it operates in San Francisco’s Union Square area.

The iconic store appears to be facing the chopping block as part of the “bold new chapter” strategy that Macy’s said earlier Tuesday would involve closing numerous Macy’s locations, according to local media reports.

“There is a current evaluation underway comparing the potential real estate value and the future sales growth profitability potential,” a source at Macy’s said, adding that if the retailer decided to proceed with a closure of the 400-square-foot store at some point in the future “the soonest this will happen will be in 2025.”

The store is still welcoming shoppers at this time and, according to local reports, would keep doing so until it moved into new ownership.

MACY’S TO CLOSE 150 STORES BY 2026, OPEN NEW BLOOMINGDALE’S, BLUEMERCURY LOCATIONS

The sprawling Macy’s location has been in Union Square, part of San Francisco’s downtown area, for nearly eight decades. Over the past year or so, the city’s downtown has faced a slew of companies leaving locations, pointing to reasons varying from changing consumer habits to local business conditions to safety concerns.

Macy’s overall, newly-announced plan to shutter a slew of stores will affect about 150 “underproductive” sites nationwide. It said it aims to complete the closures by the end of 2026, with 50 slated to happen this year.

CEO Tony Spring said the roughly 350 Macy’s stores it will keep operating “outperformed non-go-forward locations by approximately 500 basis points” in comparable sales and “the four-wall adjusted EBITDA rate outperformed by about 950 basis points” during fiscal 2023.

Under the “bold new chapter” initiative, the retail giant said it will focus on investing in the Macy’s locations it will maintain and “continued expansion” of small-format stores. It also aims to further embrace its more luxurious Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury brands with additional stores.

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The company’s retail footprint spanned 718 stores as of February 3. That total included about 500 under the Macy’s brand, nearly 60 under Bloomingdale’s and nearly 160 under Bluemercury.

Shares of Macy’s have posted a more than 3% increase since the start of the day as investors take in the news of Macy’s news strategy. That has helped put its market capitalization around $5.49 billion.

Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.