Why are there no discount department stores and no power centers in San Francisco? (San Jose: buying, tenant)

[Huckleberry3911948]

the mall behemoths look for cheap land to build, its not there.

[Mach50]

How many urban 'major' cities have these?

Personally I am happy to be able to go somewhere and not see this kind of bloated discount commerce.

[the city]

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

450 10th Street.

Really amazing that you know all these cool words for shopping, and yet can't use a search engine to get to the Costco store locator.....

I saw the street address for the one in san francisco. but i havent seen it person to know if it's in a shopping center or just located on some street.

[the city]

Originally Posted by Mach50

How many urban 'major' cities have these?

Personally I am happy to be able to go somewhere and not see this kind of bloated discount commerce.

Lol. San Luis Obispo and San Francisco city and county are very strange. They took up the "smart growth" plan. San Luis Obispo decided being a college town it needed power centers, but also having alot of enviromentalists they wanted no malls in their downtown. San Francisco having a large upper class and many tourists thought having alot of malls would be beneficial. Since the middle class is smaller in San Francisco the need for a power center with a Walmart is less. I'm guessing that added on to the problem of having a large homeless population in the city too. All though, there are alot of homeless in any urban city.

[City Boy]

Originally Posted by the city

Lol. San Luis Obispo and San Francisco city and county are very strange. They took up the "smart growth" plan. San Luis Obispo decided being a college town it needed power centers, but also having alot of enviromentalists they wanted no malls in their downtown. San Francisco having a large upper class and many tourists thought having alot of malls would be beneficial. Since the middle class is smaller in San Francisco the need for a power center with a Walmart is less. I'm guessing that added on to the problem of having a large homeless population in the city too. All though, there are alot of homeless in any urban city.

People drive out to the suburbs if they want that. Daly City, etc all have those. How would the lack of a walmart have anything to do with homeless people? There used to be a big woolworths downtown right on market. There were still a ton of homeless people.

[sonarrat]

Wal-Mart has no place in San Francisco. It's not that no one would shop there, but it would neuter the flavor of the place. Incidentally, since Wal-Mart knows they will never be able to build there, instead they decided to build a very nice Wal-Mart close to the Oakland Coliseum where it is sorely needed. I went there once and I was very surprised to find that it was not crazy, even on the day before a Raiders game. The San Jose Wal-Marts are an absolute bedlam, but the Oakland store was a genuinely pleasant experience.

[uptown_urbanist]

One of the great appeals about San Francisco - and cities in general - is that there are no "power centers." You don't typically find them in any city, except for in unfortunate cases where they were developed as part of misguided "urban renewal" involving bulldozing of the large patches of land necessary to build them.

I'm middle class and I can tell you that the last thing I want in my neighborhood (in SF or anywhere) is more big box stores and sprawling parking lots. Why should that sort of development somehow be considered a benefit to poor or middle class people? "Power centers" suck the life out of communities. I don't see what "upscale tourism" has to do with this, and as far as smart growth goes, San Francisco developed long before the term was invented.

And I'm not sure exactly what's considered a discount department store, but there's a Ross in our neighborhood.

I'm guessing maybe the OP has never been to SF, and maybe hasn't spent much time in cities? If you haven't spent much time in an urban environment then that might explain some of this confusion; the modern outer suburbs (where so-called "power centers" exist) is a completely different world than a traditional city. People may throw around terms like "lifestyle center," etc., but those sorts of terminologies just sound silly when you're talking about a long established city or neighborhood that evolves organically over time. As far as shopping goes, I'm getting the impression that perhaps you think shopping takes place in malls? It does in many suburbs, but in the city most stores open onto streets (which have sidewalks, of course). Many people who live in and visit San Francisco prefer this sort of shopping environment - it's part of the appeal of a city. Not everyone likes this, and they typically choose to live elsewhere. Unfortunately for those who like the urban environment, you also often pay a premium to avoid living somewhere where you're stuck doing your shopping at a mall or in a "power center".

[bellalunatic]

Originally Posted by the city

Lol. San Luis Obispo and San Francisco city and county are very strange. They took up the "smart growth" plan. San Luis Obispo decided being a college town it needed power centers, but also having alot of enviromentalists they wanted no malls in their downtown. San Francisco having a large upper class and many tourists thought having alot of malls would be beneficial. Since the middle class is smaller in San Francisco the need for a power center with a Walmart is less. I'm guessing that added on to the problem of having a large homeless population in the city too. All though, there are alot of homeless in any urban city.

LOL San Luis Obispo and SF are nothing alike. Apples and Kiwis pretty much.
Let us know when you visit SF and take a look around at how different they really are.

[Stacy From Cali]

IMO nobody "needs" a Wallmart.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Most of the older malls getting redeveloped on the Peninsula are following somewhat of a power center paradigm. Will be interesting to see what is done with Stonestown, it's due for a makeover.