Bloomie's to blend old with the new

New drawings show Bay Area's biggest mall-to-be

Dan Levy, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer

It's a huge curiosity -- wrapped in plastic on Market Street and looking like an immense, empty glass box along Mission Street.

But new renderings of the Westfield San Francisco Centre released to The Chronicle provide the first glimpse of what to expect when the $420 million downtown development opens in autumn 2006. Contemporary architecture, upscale fashion and a burst of new eateries will blend with historical echoes of the city's past in the Bay Area's biggest shopping mall.

The elements of the gigantic project are impressive even in an era in which developers nationwide have increasingly looked for downtown renovation opportunities. They include the 19th century Emporium store's dome, rotunda and facade, preserved and highlighted; a sleek new Bloomingdale's dominating Mission Street; and a riot of new stores on multiple levels offering diversions, from a food hall in the basement to a roof garden.

"This has given us a historic opportunity," said James Ratner of Forest City Enterprises, co-developer with managing partner Westfield, commenting on how the project would support the city's longtime goal of invigorating Market and Mission streets and uniting Union Square with the Yerba Buena redevelopment district. "This has got to raise the level of all boats."

For all the optimism, however, the imminent arrival of the center raises questions about the effect of so much new retail space downtown, not to mention whether the mall will draw shoppers away from stores in the neighboring San Francisco Centre, anchored by Nordstrom.

There are also concerns about a parking shortage -- no spaces are being added, despite the project's size -- and how the nine-screen cinema will fare against the wildly popular Metreon theaters down the street. Meanwhile, the center's office space will come on line amid a still-high, albeit falling, commercial vacancy rate.

One thing seems certain: The center will be a visual treat. The renderings show glistening marble and granite floors, soaring shopping arcades and sexy spotlighting. Given the sheer size of the project -- it's a 550- foot walk from Market Street to Mission Street -- the shopping experience will be something like strolling along vertical indoor streets.

Escalators will take shoppers up from the subterranean concourse level, past a food hall and high-end grocery store, and deposit them in the mall atrium. Cutouts between floors will give visitors spectacular views toward the light-filled dome and rotunda on the fourth level and, not incidentally, encourage the eye to ricochet off shiny merchandise displays.

The cinema on Mission Street will have its own multistory lobby. Visible from the mall interior above Bloomingdale's, the lobby forms one side of the four-story atrium space at the heart of the shopping arcade.

Floors generally will be arranged by price point. The street level is for luxury shops. Slightly less expensive stores will be on the second floor. Contemporary fashion will be on the third floor and restaurants and gift shops on the fourth floor, radiating around the restored rotunda.

Above that, the center is providing 235,000 square feet of Class A office space arrayed in a U shape around the dome on levels five through eight.

On Market Street, the niches in the old Emporium facade, which is almost the length of a football field, will be reopened with boutiques. "We'll have selected street-facing shops to replicate what was done historically and give it less of an imposing feel," Westfield leasing manager Keith Browning said. "It's all in keeping with bringing the street back to life."

The developers say the center will generate $400 million in new sales and attract more than 20 million shoppers a year.

Combined with the adjacent Nordstrom mall, which is also owned by the Westfield-Forest City partnership, the center's 1.5 million square feet will be bigger than either Valley Fair in San Jose or Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto.

Westfield, which joined the venture during uncertain economic times in 2003 and helped shoulder Forest City's financial and leasing burden, has begun aggressively marketing the center under its own name. It's the Westfield San Francisco Centre now, the company insists, not the Bloomingdale's project.

"At least for Market and Mission streets, it's going to be a huge boon," said Carolyn Diamond, director of the Market Street Association merchant group and a longtime project booster. "Bloomingdale's will bring in a different population of shoppers, younger and hipper than Nordstrom. And there will be a lot of curiosity seekers during the first year."

Westfield, which has interests in 129 malls in four countries and is one of the largest publicly traded companies in Australia, won't comment on the rents being charged or prospective tenants, saying only that 60 percent of the mall is leased, mostly to retailers who are new to the market.

However, Draeger's, the Peninsula-based grocer, is rumored to be negotiating for the 30,000-square-foot basement grocery space.

San Francisco retail experts, bracing for the flood of new merchants, say average base rents are likely to range from $150 to $300 per square foot, depending on the location in the mall. Luxury boutiques on the first floor closest to the Market Street entrance may go for considerably more.

"They are going to be leasing the majority of the center to everyday retailers that you would find at Valley Fair or Stoneridge (in Pleasanton)," said Julie Taylor, director of retail services at the Whitney-Cressman brokerage. Westfield's huge international presence and its relationships with retailers also mean that it can offer attractive rates, Taylor added.

"They have the ability to lease space in San Francisco at a loss if necessary, because they can offer retailers a portfolio deal," she said. "They can sign up stores to different projects, and the numbers will blend out for them."

Taylor said she believes Westfield is asking $200 to $225 per square foot for prime locations. But surcharges of $64 per square foot for taxes, maintenance and insurance -- four times the average for street-front shops outside the mall -- will push effective rents closer to $300 per square foot for prime space.

Rhonda Diaz, a retail broker at Terranomics in Burlingame, said retailers near Union Square may take a second location in the center, viewing the mall and the square as two different markets.

"Coach, Kenneth Cole, Aldo, Ann Taylor, Bebe, Guess, Lucky jeans -- they may decide to do it," Diaz said.

While most brokers expect the overall effect of the new center to be positive for merchants -- the rising tide theory promoted by Ratner -- Turner Newton, head of mall developer Capital & Counties USA in San Francisco, said stores on the periphery of Union Square may suffer from the new competition.

"The 200 block of Sutter Street won't be affected, but maybe the 100 block will as the center of retail gravity moves south," Newton said. "Powell Street is getting better, and Stockton will stay strong, but (Westfield) could take some business away from Stonestown."

One issue the developers don't like confronting is parking. No parking spaces have been added in the area except for the 450-space Jessie Street garage, across from Yerba Buena Gardens on Mission Street between Third and Fourth streets.

Finding a place to put the car is likely to be an ordeal, if not a nightmare, especially during the Christmas shopping rush and busy convention periods at Moscone Center, which relies on the same Fifth and Mission parking garage that Westfield says will accommodate its shoppers.

Westfield executives downplay the concern. "Our observation is that the garage is pretty accessible and rarely full," project manager Steve Eimer said. But the recent Semicon convention filled the entire 2,500-space facility and surrounding surface lots, causing much parking stress.

But for people who do find a spot or go to the center by BART, Muni or other bus lines -- as city officials insist they will -- this will be a new retail world.

"This is obviously a massive development," said Chris Martin of the Cannery shopping complex at Fisherman's Wharf. "Walnut Creek, Concord, Emeryville and Mill Valley have built their malls, but this is going to put San Francisco front and center again."