Adidas Exit Stokes Downtown San Francisco Tailspin
The latest brand to quit the San Francisco retail market, Adidas will close its only store in the city on Saturday.
The sportswear giant announced that it plans to shutter its two-story flagship at the San Francisco Centre mall in Union Square. It’s liquidating much of the inventory there at 50 percent off, a spokesperson told Sourcing Journal. The closest remaining Adidas store will be the San Francisco Premium Outlets in Livermore, some 45 miles southeast of the city.
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Adidas joins brands like Gap, Express, Target and Old Navy in exiting a troubled retail environment. Citing “challenging operating conditions” downtown like decreased foot traffic and an uptick in shoplifting and violent smash-and-grab robberies, Westfield surrendered the 20-year-old San Francisco Centre property to lenders and defaulted on a $558 million loan last summer. The departure of anchor tenant Nordstrom was the straw that broke the camel’s back, leaving more than half of the mall’s space was un-leased.
The fate of the location remains up in the air. Wilmington Trust and Wells Fargo, which supplied the loan to Westfield and its co-owner, Brookfield, tried to force the mall into foreclosure in September. Weeks later, a filing in a San Francisco Superior Court appointed Trident Pacific Real Estate Group president Greg Williams as the property’s receiver in charge of managing until a buyer emerges. San Francisco Mayor London Breed has suggested in recent months that the property be razed and rebuilt as a soccer stadium.
California retailers and legislators are focused on fighting rising retail crime. Last week, the California State Assembly Select Committee on Retail Theft‘s inaugural meeting gave researchers, analysts, trade associations and other retail industry stakeholders a platform to speak about how issues like underreporting, a lack of statewide data and lax penalties for shoplifters have exacerbated the issue.
On Tuesday, the California Contract Cities Association held a press conference with more than 100 elected officials at the state capitol in Sacramento. Representatives addressed the impacts of retail crime on their jurisdictions and discuss policy solutions that could boost safety measures for both retail workers and customers, as well as address losses and store closures.
The San Francisco exit isn’t the only big news at Adidas.
Three months after it announced Rupert Campbell was stepping down as president of North America, the athletic giant has found his successor.
The company, which is in the midst of a turnaround effort, said on Monday that it has appointed John Miller as president of Adidas North America, effective immediately. Miller will be based in Portland, Ore. In this role, Miller will be tasked with overseeing operations in the United States and Canada, and report to Arthur Hoeld, Adidas executive board member responsible for global sales.
Miller, who has worked for Adidas in sales leadership roles in the past, most recently served as SVP of wholesale for Puma. His career also includes stops at Nike, G-Form and Salomon, where he held leadership positions in sales, marketing, wholesale and merchandising.
“We are happy to welcome John back to Adidas as our new president of North America. John is a consumer-driven leader who has a strong record of success in executing growth strategies, repositioning and accelerating brands throughout his career,” Hoeld said in a statement. “John is passionate about people and building a strong team-based culture. We are confident that his deep knowledge of the U.S. marketplace along with his ability to build and lead effective teams will foster growth in North America.”
Miller is replacing Campbell, who had two separate tenures with Adidas. Campbell’s most recent stint began in 2018, assuming the managing director Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan before being named president of North America in January 2022. WWD learned in October 2023 that Campbell was leaving Adidas “to pursue other opportunities.”
There has been a lot of movement in Adidas’ leadership ranks in recent years. Most notably, Adidas announced in November 2022 that former Puma CEO Bj?rn Gulden would become its next CEO, and the executive just concluded his first year on the job.
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