Massive San Francisco Hilton on Union Square to be surrendered to bank as owner decides to stop repaying loans

I can't imagine San Francisco becoming like Detroit or other has-been midwest cities.

It's like watching the Visigoths sacking Rome.

It happens all the time…normally it doesn’t make any news beyond esoteric real estate publications.

There goes the neighborhood. This will continue.

Wait till tech leaves, it will be like the The Last of Us

YYAYYYYAAY. 2,945 rooms freed up that now we can stuff Mexicans into.

Is that the Hotel where What's Up Doc was filmed? I once stayed in that one.

The property was sold less than a decade ago. Then we had the pandemic. Then a ridiculous DA was elected only to declare that crime (less than $1000 worth, anyway) won't be prosecuted, which resulted in the police deciding that they wouldn't do their jobs and arrest anyone. Meanwhile, red states buy one-way bus tickets as a solution their homeless problem, dumping tens of thousands of unemployable, addicted, mentally ill and/or criminals on San Francisco (and as many on LA), and it turns downtown SF into a slimy, smelly teeming mess... and we wonder why people don't want to go vacation there or hold conferences there or even drive into the city when they have an overnight flight layover, so the hotels go bankrupt, including this one which probably had to maintain an 80% occupancy rate just to break even given the mortgage payments and operational costs.

It's sad, but it's entirely predictable. And it's just business.

^Real estate expert from Mars, or is it Mar-a-lago?

That Hilton is the gateway to the Tenderloin. Parc 55 is marginally better, but too close to the rotten part of Powell Station for comfort.

SF fucked itself royally, with a lot of outside help.

Let’s hope they don’t open a huge homeless shelter there.

Jesus R8, what's your excuse?

It ain’t crime or the former D.A., that’s fir damn sure. Commercial real estate loans are short-term and often variable rate. If you can’t refinance in a much higher interest rate environment then you hand the keys, so to speak, back to the bank. This same thing is happening to hotel and office building owners all across the US’s larger cities…hardly just S.F.

N.B. Read the news: the National murder rate has dropped dramatically in the first 5 months of 2023. One of the largest / fastest declines on record.

[quote] the National murder rate has dropped dramatically in the first 5 months of 2023. One of the largest / fastest declines on record.

It's not a Murder if you can't find the body. It's just a Missing Person.

Is that the same hotel where Alex trebek chased some burglar in his underwear and stuff.

It’s not looking good for SF. Commercial real estate is in the toilet. It would take years to convert all that space into residential, even if it was financially or physically possible to do so. I don’t think anyone has a clue what to do. They have to simultaneously get tenants, create jobs, and get rid of the homeless. That could take a decade or more.

The Doom Loop.

I am in a hotel in san francisco as I type this, traveling for work. Yes, there are innumerable empty storefronts, and seemingly as many empty large office buildings. Someone told me today that even the Salesforce tower (the tallest, and among the newest in the City) is mostly empty.

However, the city feels SO much more inspiring to me now than it did 4 years ago, when it was flush with all of that easy tech money. "BUST" san francisco is so much more gritty, free, and alive than "BOOM" san francisco - which was really just filled with obnoxious, psuedo-intellectual rich WASPs.

The thing that SF has going for it now POTENTIAL. The city can be born again, with a new identity. It's like 1906 all over again.

[quote] The city can be born again, with a new identity.

Si

The San Francisco Hilton is dead to me!

Maybe the Academy of Art University can buy the hotels and turn them into more dormitories for dumbasses.

[quote]Meanwhile, red states buy one-way bus tickets as a solution their homeless problem, dumping tens of thousands of unemployable, addicted, mentally ill and/or criminals on San Francisco (and as many on LA).

What the Republicans are doing, putting immigrants on one-way trips to New York and San Francisco and other places is indefensible. But New York City did it in 1998. to Louisiana. Instead of taking care of homeless people, they bought them one-way plane tickets to New Orleans because each family they deported saved them $36,000 a year. Thousands of people. But at least they let them fly instead of take a bus..

I’m not making a Trumpian “there were some good guys on both sides” argument, just want to remind people that a Democrat did it first. And I am a Democrat and thought it was incredibly unethical when New York was doing it.

But whatever. I think I‘ve stayed in every single hotel around Union Square in San Francisco except that Hyatt. I got so sick of them all I actually started staying close to the Tenderloin. That was fun. Gorgeous old hotels and you could walk around the corner and watch people shoot up. And some of them were very kind and offered to let you join them! I lived on the East coast, but worked for the University of California (weird story), so I was there at least once every month, often two or three times, for about eight years. I never wanted a job where I had to travel, so as much as I love San Francisco, it really made me hate flying. I still have tens of thousands frequent flyer miles that I do not even want to use. United. So they didn’t even give me the courtesy of letting them expire.

I don’t think I’ve ever even been in that Hyatt. Was it a nice hotel? Or was it just a dump?

Who was mayor of NYC in 1998? Hmmm💩

You should donate the miles, R21. Some sick kid could really use them.

In 1998 the Mayor was Rudy G., pre-shoe polish hair; back then it was just an ugly combover. That’s Trumpian!

That hotel is ugly AF. I always hated it.

[quote]I’m not making a Trumpian “there were some good guys on both sides” argument, just want to remind people that a Democrat did it first.

Well, perhaps you should consider a couple of facts: 1) Rudy Giuliani was (unforgettably) mayor in 1998, and he was not a Democrat; 2) attempting to both-sides the argument is exactly what you're doing, and not very well.

[quote]And I am a Democrat

Uh huh.

Can’t they convert the empty space to areas where people can take a shower and get meals, and even stay overnight, but they have to work 40 hours a week? Sorry if this sounds harsh.

R27 and what work will they be doing?

Wearing Apple VR headsets and masturbating to generate electricity.

The last I read on this, they were trying to come up with “fun activities” that could draw people back to downtown.

Like Taffy Pulls and Apple Bobbing and Children's Face Painting, R30? What fun!

[quote] they were trying to come up with “fun activities” that could draw people back to downtown.

Competitive catalytic converter theft races?

Isn't there a mall being built with IKEA as the main anchor on Market Street? Yeah totally sounds like Detroit in the 90's. Portland Oregon is another MAGA talking point about horrible liberal cities. Meanwhile The Ritz Carlton is putting the finishing touches on a 300 million dollar high rise in downtown Portland. Things are so bad in these cities that corporations are spending millions to open up shop there.

Treasure hunt for used needles and different ethnic poo.

Until they deal with homelessness and drugged our zombies, you can’t build any retail space or hotel on Market Street.

R17 I was there a few weekend ago and had the EXACT same feeling about the place. There’s a real air of opportunity now that the tech losers have moved on (to a degree hah).

And the polititions watch as San Fran burns.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

i don't see San Francisco addressing its problems anytime soon.

[quote] And the polititions watch as San Fran burns.

This deserves the most Oh Dear all the way from OhDeardom!

It’s refreshing though to see that Alabama has internet and isn’t filtering the sites their mouth breathers can surf.

Maybe you should understand that Downtown / Market street does not equate to the rest of The City.

The recovery has already started to pick up.

San Francisco’s once thriving hotel market is suffering its worst stretch in at least 15 years, pummeled by the same forces that have emptied out the city’s office towers and closed many retail stores.

Hotel owners in New York and Los Angeles are filling nearly as many rooms this year as they did in 2019, according to hotel-data firm STR. Their revenue per available room exceeds what it was before the pandemic.

But in San Francisco, hotels are still struggling badly in both occupancy and room rates compared with before the pandemic. Revenue per available room was nearly 23% lower in April compared with the same month in 2019.

San Francisco was my favorite city in the US to visit. Now I would not go there. Very sad.

Has the rot on market st. creeped up to the Castro yet?

SF today sounds what my city was like 50 years ago, when everyone escaped to the suburbs ('the great white flight'). All the department stores closed one by one, the hotels were boarded up, the high end restaurant spaces were vacant. Movie theaters gone. Everyone left the downtown to go to the suburban 'malls' . The downtown was filled with junkies and homeless people and stuck of urine. No matter how many times the re-bricked the sidewalks and hung planters off the light poles, it brought nothing back to downtown (even the major bank headquarters and offices flew to the suburbs).

Forty years later, the old department stores , office buildings and hotels got a new life by being repurposed. The department stores became loft condos, the hotels became 'boutique hotels' and the empty storefronts became 'mom and pop' artsy boutique stores. The big restaurant spaces were re-purposed into smaller 'cafes' and 'vegan markets'. The office buildings remain empty for now, but there's talk of these high-rises becoming dorms and affordable studio apartments.

There's hope for SF.

Mid-range hotels I'm downtown SF are still charging $450 a night, and they're tanking? Who knew?

R46 the difference is that White Flight made central cities affordable for people to move back in.

San Francisco is still one of the expensive cities in North America, if not the most expensive.

Last stage capitalism.

𝑺𝒂𝒏 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒐 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒖𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒆𝒅 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔

A GMA reporter covering San Francisco's Westfield Mall closure has admitted his bosses told him not to appear live from fentanyl-ravaged downtown early in the morning because it was 'too dangerous'.

Chief national news correspondent Matt Gutman told viewers he had been advised against appearing live from Union Square or the mall for ABC's 4am Good Morning America segment on Thursday.

The veteran broadcaster instead reported on the latest in a long series of downtown retail closures from a separate part of the west coast 'zombie city'.

'It is worth mentioning that we are not at Union Square or the Westfield Mall this morning because we have been advised that it's simply too dangerous to be there at this hour,' he told viewers.

Back in the studio, Michael Strahan said Gutman's admission was 'saying a lot'.

Also criminal activity in the area has been on the increase this year - with police data showing a 5 percent rise in robberies, arsons, grand theft autos and homicides in 2023 compared with the same period in 2022.

Drug-related deaths also sky-rocketed by 41 percent in the first quarter of 2023 compared with the same time last year, mostly due to fentanyl.

Some 200 people died due to overdoses between January and March - or one death every 10 hours - compared with 142 deaths in those months the previous year in the California city.

Well, when you've lost Michael Strahan...

These over leveraged companies always want to blame 'street conditions' for their defaults, and the media loves trumpeting the demise of San Francisco.

"Park Hotels only owns the properties. The hotels themselves are operated by other companies, and when Park Hotel defaults on a mortgage and walks away from the property, it means ownership of the property will change. That’s all it means for the hotel. The operating company remains the same.

This default has no impact on San Francisco. But Park Hotels is screwing your bond mutual fund and pension fund."

I think one thing to remember is the next pandemic we'll find its root cause based upon all of this illegal immigration.

Where did all the gays go who once lived in SF ? Have they moved due to what's been going on the past few years ?

Bankers could turn the hotel into a VR crypto money amusement park. A virtual Casino call it wall street of the west. Virtual Silicon Valley start up Casino. Give me a call banker bros I have ideas.

This will be turned into over-priced studio and one-bedroom condos. And they will sell.