Just two days after Westfield said it would give up its Downtown San Francisco Centre, the shopping mall’s movie theater has announced it will close this week.
The Cinemark movie theater complex sent an email to its customers announcing its final films would play Thursday, and the complex would close on Friday.
In a statement to The Standard, Cinemark confirmed the decision to permanently close the Century San Francisco Centre 9 and XD theater shortly before the conclusion of its lease term, attributing the shutdown to a “comprehensive review of local business conditions.”
In the theater lobby just after 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, a lone employee stood behind the ticket counter asking a coworker to check on online ticket orders, while a moviegoer wearing a San Francisco Giants jacket and cap asked for a large order of popcorn with extra butter.
Yongjian Tang and his friend Yani were at the theater to catch a Spider-Man matinee. Tang said he was surprised to hear of the closure and said he had visited the theaters off and on for four or five years.
The area surrounding the shopping center has been increasingly troubled. Cinemark theaters are accessible via a set of elevators in the Westfield mall where human waste has been found regularly, according to mall employees.
In the San Francisco Centre, nearly half of the storefronts and eateries that were open in 2020 have since closed.
The news is yet another major blow to San Francisco’s Union Square shopping district overall. The imminent Cinemark closure news adds a 24th major shutdown in the area since the start of the pandemic, including the recent announcement that Old Navy will close its longtime Market Street location on July 1.