San Francisco’s dead mall at Fifth and Mission is a real estate investor’s nightmare: a marbled monument to a bygone retail era that disappeared down the escalator years ago along with the center’s many shoppers.
But what can seem like a longshot to a developer is a rare chance to dream big for city architects, who have no shortage of ideas about what to do with six acres at one of the most high-profile intersections west of the Mississippi.
The former mall is made up of three buildings: The six-story Bloomingdale’s building covers about 2.4 acres; the seven-story Nordstrom building covers a little less than two acres and the old eight-story Emporium is also just under 2 acres.
So far most of the public input about future uses of the 1.5 million-square-foot mall break out into two broad categories: convert it to an entertainment and arts center or a college campus or casino or housing; or tear it down and build something from scratch, like a group of residential towers or a soccer stadium…