Changes in the retail landscape that were exacerbated by the pandemic might have presented a major stumbling block for BXP, Inc.’s (NYSE: BXP) Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. Instead, BXP reacted to the loss of several national retail tenants by embarking on a creative, multi-pronged outreach effort that has attracted a slate of vibrant, popular local businesses to the property.
The strategy has enhanced Embarcadero Center’s appeal to its office tenants and forged stronger connections with the wider community.
Located in the heart of the city’s commercial district, Embarcadero Center is a four-building complex with about 3 million square feet of office space and approximately 300,000 square feet of retail. The retail offerings are situated on the bottom three levels, and the office tower lobbies are on the second level. BXP has owned Embarcadero Center since 1998.
Christine Yuen, senior vice president of leasing at BXP, describes the retail element as especially important to Embarcadero Center because “first of all, we have a lot of it. And secondly, it’s the front door to our office space.”
As a long-time owner, BXP has continued to invest in Embarcadero Center, from remodeling and expanding the office lobby spaces to adding Mosaic, an 11,000-square-foot indoor-outdoor event space designed by Gensler that can accommodate more than 550 people.
Overcoming Challenges
Yuen points out that the pandemic was particularly challenging for San Francisco. The city shut down longer than most other markets, and the rise in remote work resulted in higher levels of office and retail vacancies. Embarcadero Center was not spared. “Despite us offering assistance to some of these retailers, they had other fixed costs that made it hard without the foot traffic downtown, so we lost a few.”
Changes to retail had been in motion prior to the pandemic, notably the uptick in online shopping. “The pandemic really accelerated all of that for our national retailers. We had to get creative in how we looked at retail in order to still be able to provide the amenities that our office tenants look for.”
BXP was able to retain almost all of its full service restaurants at Embarcadero Center but needed to fill spaces left vacant by its national brand clothing and beauty product retail, and grab-and-go food retail tenants.
In response, Yuen explains, BXP turned to “the people that knew San Francisco really well and believed in the city. And those were the small local businesses.” Unlike national tenants however, these retailers typically do not work with a broker, which meant the approach had to be different.
Yuen says her team reached out to approximately 70 colleagues in the office and said, “You guys all live here, go talk to your network. And almost every single department came back with a lead that led us to a signed lease.”
Much of the outreach involved visiting local businesses in person, going to the farmer's market, talking to vendors, direct messaging through social media, emails to local businesses’ websites, and conversations with the community, Yuen says.
Local Connections
As a result of these efforts, last year, BXP signed 10 new retail clients, with eight signed in 2025 to date. Recent food business tenants include patisserie Boho Petite, food truck Burger Littles, toffee company Cheeky Bits Sweets, and sandwich shop Jerry’s Roast Pork. Other new tenants include women’s clothing boutique Ambiance, naturopathic practitioner B12 LOVE, pilates studio Elevate Pilates, and Puppies & Yoga.
Yuen says the Burger Littles connection was made through her own experience enjoying “amazing smash burgers” at their Mission Bay food truck park location. “I gave them my card and messaged them on Instagram. They came and looked at space and they opened at Embarcadero Center a few weeks ago.” In another instance, Yuen says, BXP’s legal in-house counsel got a chocolate toffee gift for Christmas that looked like it was from a local candy maker. BXP reached out and the business opened a candy shop in July, moving into the space previously occupied by See’s Candies.
“It's been really successful for us. Almost all of these business owners are either San Francisco natives, or they've lived here for a long time, or they have a couple other locations in local neighborhoods and they're interested in what downtown has to offer,” Yuen says.
While not disclosing terms of the various deals, Yuen says BXP remains flexible on its leasing terms. “We want every single one of these businesses to succeed. If a group came to us and they wanted to go long term, we would figure out a structure to keep them long term. If there is a business that is just testing the market and they want something short, we can go short with them,” she notes.
Brighter Future for Downtown
As for reaction to the new retail line-up, Yuen says reviews so far suggest that BXP’s strategy is paying off.
“Our tenants love it. They have more lunch spots to go to. They have places where they can get a gift downstairs. We only get positive feedback from our tenants about what we're doing here,” she says. Meanwhile, “the community also sees this effort very positively because we're not only helping a small local business, but we’re also putting in the effort to revitalize downtown in a way that makes sense for people.”
Yuen is optimistic that the efforts made by BXP, alongside the city’s plans to add entertainment zones and create a 24-hour destination environment—in addition to a new world-class park adjacent to Embarcadero Center—will make a “tremendous difference” for the future of downtown San Francisco.
“People want to be in a vibrant environment. Nobody wants to go to an empty building. So making sure we create that type of destination is really important. We were doing that before the pandemic, but now I think that's more important than ever,” Yuen says.