New IKEA Opening In San Francisco Highlights Heightened Security Changes Stores Face

A new 52,000 IKEA store opened on Market Street in San Francisco Wednesday, becoming one of only a few major stores to open in a city where many major retailers have left in recent years.

Since the beginning of the decade, retail stores have fled San Francisco because of less foot traffic, rapidly escalating crime rates, a faltering economy, the growing homeless issue, lack of criminal consequences, and a variety of other factors. In the last few years, Walgreens has closed most stores in the city because of the massive amount of crime. Higher-end stores like Cotopaxi have also cited break-ins and crime as major reasons for leaving. And since the beginning of the year, all Amazon Go stores, Anthropologie, several high-end Union square stores, and the flagship Whole Foods store all announced that their doors will be closing, along with multiple non-chain stores throughout the city.

In May, both Nordstrom and Saks Off 5th announced the closure of 3 main locations in the city, along with T-Mobile, Old Navy, and Williams-Sonoma also announcing closures. The last major departures, of Westfield leaving the San Francisco Centre mall and the Cinemark at the same mall closing down, as well as the AT&T flagship store leaving, came in June. Many stores that have remained, such as Gump’s, have also threatened to leave. On Tuesday, the City showed how much of a retail decline there is by releasing plans to replace the Centre Mall with an 18,000 seat soccer stadium.

Despite all of this, plans for the new IKEA in the city center continued to develop over the past several years, resulting in the IKEA opening Wednesday. Hundreds of people lined up for the opening of the smaller-scale IKEA, with Mayor London Breed cutting the ribbon to the store.

In 2018, we met with IKEA to pitch them on filling this empty space and now it's a reality. As we work to revitalize our Downtown, today's grand opening is great news for our economic recovery that will bring more jobs and excitement to Mid-Market. https://t.co/xpNA1qHS2C

— London Breed (@LondonBreed) August 23, 2023

“We know San Francisco has challenges, but we also know people want to be here,” said Mayor Breed at the ceremony. “We also know that this is one of the most beautiful, incredible cities anywhere in the world. That’s why the spotlight and attention is on us. And we are now, as a result of opening IKEA here today, showing the city a new model. But also, we are showing what we are made of and showing our resiliency. We are showing what we will do to bring back business to San Francisco.”

pic.twitter.com/x3NuEmLw3A

— Suzanne Phan (@SuzannePhan) August 23, 2023

Security challenges at the San Francisco IKEA

The owner of the building which houses the IKEA, as well as future businesses to open next year including a food deli, a co-working space, and other areas for other retailers to lease, acknowledged the challenges of opening up in the city. With crime and retail theft at the forefront of everyones thoughts, the IKEA was designed with security in mind. The location will have a large team of security guards and loss prevention workers, with a large security contingent being present 24/7. Multiple security firms also advised on how the layout itself should be designed, especially on how to place the entry and exit of the store.

Security experts told the Globe that the new IKEA would be an interesting test case, as previous new locations that emphasized security, such as the Flagship Whole Foods, had to later close down because of crime.

“Every story you’re seeing about the IKEA is mentioning the security efforts that were put into it,” said Frank Ma, a former law enforcement official who now works as a security advisor for businesses in San Francisco and cities in the Peninsula. “And it shows you how bad crime and shoplifting is in the city to do that. Ten years ago, no big store opening would mention security. Now it is almost like a feature.

“Also, this is a smaller IKEA. The usual warehouse-types are out in Emeryville and [East] Palo Alto. But that also means more smaller items and the greater likelihood to steal. So all that security and workers there watching like hawks makes a lot of sense.  We should probably give this IKEA a few months to work out all the security kinks as they will likely have some people try and take things and work out the best way to stop them. Security plans are never 100% on day one. They should really plan for flashmob robberies and other growing robbery types to see how they can stop them or at least mitigate them.

“It is good for San Francisco that businesses are still trying to make it work. IKEA put in a lot of effort and heightened security to such an extent that you really don’t see it much in retail. Let’s see what happens.”

As of Wednesday evening, no robbery attempts had been reported on the first day in the IKEA.