Round1 Amusement to Take 50K sf at SF’s Stonestown Galleria

A Japanese fun center will take a chunk of a defunct Nordstrom store at the Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco.

Round One Entertainment, a Brea-based unit of Round One of Osaka, has leased 50,000 square feet of the former mall anchor at 285 Winston Drive, in Parkside Merced, the San Francisco Business Times reported, citing a city application.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The foray by the firm also known as Round1 Bowling & Amusement into the Stonestown mall would be its first entry into San Francisco. The company, which operated 100 stores as of 2021 in Japan, has indoor amusement sites in Concord, Hayward and San Jose.

Round1 offers bowling, billiards, karaoke, ping-pong, darts and exclusive arcade machines from Japan, along with food and drinks, according to its website.

It’ll cost an estimated $4.5 million to set up shop at the Stonestown Galleria, owned and managed by New York-based Brookfield Properties, according to the Business Times.

The Japanese amusement store would follow the lease of another Japan-owned firm into Stonestown. In the summer last year, Japanese discount store Daiso leased a 5,250-square-foot store for undisclosed terms.

The 800,000-square-foot Stonestown Galleria, which opened in 1952 north of San Francisco State University, is anchored by a Whole Foods Market, Target, Regal, City Sports and The Sports Basement, according to its website.

Its former Nordstrom anchor once took up 160,000 square feet. Since the Seattle-based department store closed in 2019, 60,000 square feet was taken by Target.

In 2021, another 26,000 square feet was earmarked at the former Nordstrom building for a ground-floor parcel delivery center, though it’s not clear if that ever moved forward.

Later that year, Brookfield filed plans to redevelop the 41-acre Stonestown Galleria by wrapping the mall with 3,000 homes, 400,000 square feet of offices, shops and restaurants and 6 acres of parks and plazas. The $2 billion project, now undergoing approvals, may take 20 years to build.

Last month, however, Brookfield’s Stonestown fell on watchlists for $180 million in loans set to mature Oct. 1. Brookfield bought the mall in 2018 through a $9.2 billion acquisition of General Growth Properties.

In June, Brookfield and Paris-based Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield announced they would stop making payments on a $558 million loan tied to the Westfield San Francisco Centre in San Francisco, and surrender the nine-story mall to its lender.

— Dana Bartholomew