Ross Dress for Less plans to open a second, 40,000-square-foot store on San Francisco’s Market Street.
The Dublin-based discount clothier will set up shop at 901 Market Street in South of Market, which Saks Off Fifth has listed for sublease since before the pandemic, the San Francisco Business Times reported.
The bargain retailer is at work on tenant improvements on the 10,300-square-foot ground-floor, storefront and 30,000-square-foot lower level.
An employee at Saks Off Fifth said the company was unaware of a closing timeline for the store.
Ross has a Union Square store a block away at 799 Market Street. It’s not clear whether the new store is a convenient move or a doubling-down on retail space.
The opening suggests a bold commitment to the Market Street corridor after years of big box desertions.
The building is owned by Hudson Pacific Properties. Broker Julie Taylor Colliers represented the Los Angeles-based company in the SoMa deal.
Ross is so busy that for years the company has shown interest in a second San Francisco store to shorten the lines in Union Square, a broker unaffiliated with the deal told the Business Times.
Customers often line up to enter, and the 55,000-square-foot store was described as one of the chain’s “top five” performing locations when Jamestown Properties acquired the building in 2012.
Ross Stores does little e-commerce, yet meets customer demand through its treasure-hunt style bargains. The publicly traded firm has 1,700 stores and aims to add 100 more each year.
In January, the company closed its Richmond District store at 5200 Geary Boulevard, bringing its San Francisco locations to three, including 2300 16th Street and 1545 Sloat Boulevard. The new SoMa store in SoMa will bring its presence back up to four locations.
Early this year, Ross put 74,000 square feet of its headquarters at 5130 Hacienda Drive up for lease. By shedding offices, Ross joins Chevron and Oracle in shrinking its Tri-Valley real estate footprint.
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In 2020, Hudson Pacific sued both major retail tenants at 901 Market Street, Saks Off Fifth and Nordstrom Rack, after both refused to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars of rent during the pandemic.
The landlord dismissed its case against Saks Off Fifth early last year just ahead of a scheduled jury trial, indicating a likely settlement. Similarly, Hudson Pacific dismissed its lawsuit against Nordstrom within four months of the complaint in 2020.
— Dana Bartholomew