Stonestown Says 'Au Revoir, Nordstrom! Bonjour, Target!"

Courtesy photo

The Stonestown Galleria is going through another wave of changes. In 2018, the mall’s Macy’s store closed, and this year it will say goodbye to Nordstrom, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. But it’s not all bad news for the city’s southwest shopping center: Target will be expanding into the Nordstrom space.

For anyone who arrived in San Francisco after 2012, let’s get something straight: there was once a time when you had to drive to Target. It could be in Emeryville, Colma, or Serramonte Center, but there was a car involved. And yes, that may not seem like an ordeal because there’s Uber and Lyft, but Lyft only started in 2012, and Uber was hella expensive back then. The fact that we now have five stores in San Francisco proper is beyond convenient. You think a Target run to City Center is expensive? Imagine what it was like when you had to purchase enough to justify the time you spent in traffic.

But there’s still a difference between the Targets in the city and superstores in towns just beyond, and it all comes down to size. A Super Target—the biggest of the Target formats, is about 175,000 sq. ft, while a standard Target store is about 135,000 sq. ft. City Target—the format you see at Metreon and Geary, is approximately 80,000 sq. ft., and the TargetExpress stores can be as small as 14,000 sq. ft.

According to the Chronicle, Stonestown Target will triple from 30,000 sq. ft. to 90,000 sq. ft. following Nordstrom’s departure. (Plans for the remaining Nordstrom space, about 100,000 sq. ft., have not been announced.) The bigger, better Target will join a growing suburban paradise at Stonestown: there’s already a below-ground-level Trader Joe’s is under the current Target space and a Whole Foods heading to the former Macy’s space. Factor in the weekend farmer’s market, and Stonestown could be the next big weekend gathering spot in the city.