The Exodus of High-Profile Retailers from Downtown San Francisco.

San Francisco's Union Square retail district is facing a high number of vacancies, including Nordstrom's announcement that it will close its mammoth department store atop Westfield San Francisco Centre. The pandemic has accelerated larger retail trends such as online shopping, making it hard to imagine these spaces filling back up smoothly. While ideas such as entertainment venues, higher education, housing, lab space, and pop-up retail have been suggested, there are not an infinite number of institutions, artists, and entrepreneurs to fill the ever-larger number of empty office and retail spaces. The challenge now is to craft a future where recovery and reinvention are linked.