San Francisco’s drug-addled Union Square gets a – Latest News
Just two years in the past, downtown San Francisco’s business real estate was in a grim place.
Retailers fled, and empty storefronts had turned Union Square — as soon as the town’s crown jewel — into a state of disrepair, with open-air drug markets, homeless zombies and crime pushing out prospects.
Downtown workplace real estate gross sales in 2024 slumped to $310-per-square-foot on average — virtually two-thirds beneath the $861 average of 2018, in line with CBRE.
However, Union Square’s fortunes at the moment are within the course of of a dramatic reversal — due to good governance and personal investment.
“It’s really a full gut remodel of Union Square … We’re going to have fresh brands in every door,” Julie Taylor, the realtor Uris has used to buy property, stated. credit Rachel Pagan
Clothing model Uniqlo, which had left Union Square in 2021, has signed a lease and is set to reopen later this yr. Zara is set to increase to a four-story, 40,000-square-foot flagship store. They will be part of a Nintendo store, which has commanded traces across the block, The RealReal, Aritzia, Pop Mart and AT&T. Kith has signed a lease and Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s are stated to be eyeing space.
In the center of that outstanding turnaround is a nascent firm, Uris Acquisitions, helmed by Max Raskin, 36, and Ian Jacobs, 49. The pair started snapping up real estate simply months after Mayor Daniel Lurie took workplace in Jan. 2025.
Their conviction was that San Francisco wasn’t lifeless, however struggling — with issues they believed Lurie may quickly repair. They started raising capital forward of his marketing campaign and have deployed virtually all of it, $75 million, in simply the final 15 months.
“Forget blood in the streets,” Raskin joked — a reference to a common investment maxim. “We bought when there was feces in the street.”
Jacobs is from a household of real estate buyers, however had first centered on finance at Goldman Sachs, then later as a Warren Buffett analyst, picked after writing him a fan letter.
Downtown workplace real estate gross sales in 2024 went for $310 per sq. foot on average — virtually two-thirds beneath the $861 average of 2018, in line with CBRE — and luxurious storefronts boarded up or moved out fully. AP
Raskin labored as a journalist at Bloomberg and Morgan Stanley earlier than touchdown at law college, then the Treasury Department. He has a good head for politics — and a perception that the best cities on the planet at all times make a comeback. Although he now solely often writes, he met Lurie when interviewing him for a story.
Their relationship with Lurie has confirmed key to their success. “It is a public-private partnership,” Raskin explains. “I discuss to the mayor fairly steadily, and it’s simply, ‘Hey, what can we do to help out?’
The window of steep reductions could also be beginning to close — 200 Powell, as an example, which Uris purchased for $7.4 million final yr, would have offered for practically $40 million at its earlier peak. credit Rachel Pagan
“It’s not rocket science. It just takes a lot of willpower… You just arrest the criminals and you don’t give them drugs.”
Mayor Lurie, for his half, is obvious that, “If we make the streets safe and clean, people will want to be here. When people don’t feel safe, nothing else matters.”
“Government needs to do its job, which is providing the basics. If we provide the basics, the city can sell itself.”
Lurie isn’t solely taking Raskin’s calls. When Jamie Dimon was on the town for JPMorgan’s 2025 annual healthcare convention — an occasion which, in 2021, The Post reported execs had been “pleading” with the company to cancel due to the out-of-control crime — Lurie invited him to City Hall afterward. It was Dimon’s first time inside the building.
Homeless people pictured on the nook of Powell and Market Streets in San Francisco have been a common sight downtown for many years. Hearst Newspapers by way of Getty Images
“It’s not rocket science. It just takes a lot of willpower,” Max Raskin stated of cleansing up San Francisco. “You just arrest the criminals, and you don’t give them drugs.” San Francisco Chronicle by way of Getty Images
JPMorgan then lately introduced it’s not simply increasing its workplace but additionally making San Francisco its twenty fourth company middle and placing $200 million into a waterfront housing project.
All of these calls have helped Lurie implement common-sense reforms — like making it far simpler to get building permits, which beforehand had stood in the way in which of new development.
“Retailers have been dating San Francisco, waiting to fall in love again … waiting for an indication that the time was right and that the frog had turned back into a prince,” joked Julie Taylor, the realtor Uris has used to buy property.
“It’s really a full gut remodel of Union Square… We’re going to have fresh brands in every door.”
Since early 2025, Uris has acquired 5 buildings in and round Union Square: 200 Powell, 35 Powell, 71 Powell, 120 Maiden Lane and 233 Grant. They are additionally below contract for 2 more buildings in Union Square.
Since early 2025, Uris has acquired 5 buildings in and round Union Square: 200 Powell, 35 Powell, 71 Powell, 120 Maiden Lane and 233 Grant. They are additionally below contract for 2 more buildings in Union Square.
Of course, there are nonetheless challenges with homelessness and crime and people who’re cautious of change. And whereas Uris made the guess that efficient authorities may resolve the largest issues, there may be not a guarantee that kind of governance will final.
But Raskin says his optimism and positivity have helped.
“We didn’t know it was going to be the AI boom, but we knew something was going to boom… We just bet on people. We bet on smart people, and we bet on cities.”
