"Bloomingdale’s was the last straw" says one employee at an SF Centre retailer that closed Monday, and eight other stores are either set to close or have already closed at the beleaguered mall.

Just six or eight months ago it seemed like there was a chance for a near-term revival of the SF Centre mall on San Francisco's Market Street. But the mall formerly known as Westfield just lost its second anchor tenant with the closure of Bloomingdale's, and a swath of other retailers aren't sticking around to see what happens when the whole property gets auctioned off.

As the Examiner reports, the Coach and Kate Spade stores will be the next to shutter, on April 11. And already closed in just the last week or so are Rolex, Bucherer, Panerai, IWC Schaffhausen, and computer store Razer. Within the last several weeks the mall also lost its Sunglass Hut, and the store Psycho Bunny.

It was a sales assocate at Razer that told the Examiner, "Bloomingdale's was the last straw," noting that the store was only seeing seven to ten customers a day these days.

It won't be long before there is little to draw anyone to the mall except the food court — and I feel especially bad for the stellar Pakistani food stall there, called Pakistani Restaurant, which just opened last year and caught the attention of the Chronicle's food critic.

The death knell of the mall began tolling with the departures of Nordstrom and the Century Cinema, but those closures both date back two years now. The mall property's court-appointed receiver, Gregg Williams of Trident Pacific Real Estate Group, took control after former owner, the Westfield Corporation, decided to walk away from its loan in 2023, right around the time of the Nordstrom announcement.

There was talk back then of completely reimagining the mall — ideas floated included an urban soccer stadium, and a Legoland complex. But the mall's future will be in the hands of whoever submits a winning bid at auction — an auction that has now been delayed four times, after originally being scheduled for November.

The foreclosure auction was supposed to take place last week, as the Chronicle reported, but it has now been delayed again until June 17.

Foot traffic at the mall was in decline even before the pandemic began, and while some cited downtown crime and the sorry state of SF's streets as the cause, there is also a larger retail apocalypse happening nationwide. Bigger, department-store retailers have been suffering as more people turn to online shopping, and the Macy's corporation plans to exit SF's downtown area entirely once it sells its flagship Union Square property.

The company announced it would close the Bloomingdale's store last month that has been at the SF Centre since it opened in 2006, despite retail expert reports that the Bloomingdale's brand continues to thrive, at least relative to parent company Macy's.

Elsewhere in the Bay Area, department store Kohl's just shuttered five locations last week, and these were among 27 stores the company closed across the country.

Previously: Bloomingdale's to Close at SF Centre, Ushering In Further Bleak Days for Beleaguered Mall