MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT: Once-bustling mall worth $1.2b is sold for fraction of the price after being laid to waste in crime-ravaged blue city.

An iconic mall in San Francisco foreclosed for a fraction of the billion-dollar valuation it once commanded as Covid shutdowns and out-of-control crime left the seven-story behemoth a shell of its former self.

Valued at $1.2 billion nearly a decade ago, the San Francisco Centre Mall, previously known as the Westfield Emporium, was sold at an auction on Wednesday to lenders Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the mall served as a shopping hub in San Francisco, with residents and tourists flocking to its vibrant energy and big-name brands.

As consumers turned away from the city’s sketchy downtown and toward online shopping, however, the mall’s value declined drastically. An appraisal at the end of 2022 valued the property at only $290 million, a 76 percent drop from its height before the pandemic.

But lenders purchased the property for even less than appraisals, with the final sticker price for the sprawling 1.5 million square-foot mall only $133 million – or just 11 percent of its top valuation.

CTL-F “Shoplifting” brings up zero results, though the Daily Mail article does note, “Westfield blamed ‘unsafe conditions’ and ‘lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity’ for the mall’s decline,” not to mention the decline of San Francisco as a whole.