SF Attracts Finance, Tech Giants as Downtown Recovery Gains Momentum

At One California, a Citi flagship branch opened its doors, joining a wave of corporate commitments that are redefining the trajectory of San Francisco's long-struggling downtown corridor. The moves by Citi, Databricks, and law firm Sidley Austin represent some of the most concrete signals yet that Financial District recovery has moved beyond wishful thinking.

Sidley Austin, one of the country's largest law firms, relocated to 101 California, a glass tower that has become a bellwether address for professional services firms weighing their commitment to the city. Databricks, the San Francisco-based data and artificial intelligence company, expanded its office footprint, adding to a pattern of tech firms deepening rather than retreating from their downtown presence.

The clustering of financial and legal heavyweights along the California Street corridor carries particular symbolic weight. These are institutions with long lease cycles and high visibility: when firms of this caliber sign or expand, they tend to anchor surrounding blocks and give smaller businesses confidence to follow.

San Francisco's push to fill vacant storefronts has attracted notice well beyond city limits. Los Angeles, which faces its own version of post-pandemic commercial vacancies, has been watching SF's approach closely, a sign that whatever policy and outreach tools the city has deployed are being treated as a potential model rather than a cautionary tale.

The momentum is far from complete. Downtown San Francisco still carries elevated vacancy rates compared to pre-pandemic benchmarks, and foot traffic on many blocks remains well below 2019 levels. But the convergence of a major bank opening, a tech expansion, and a blue-chip law firm relocation within the same stretch of the Financial District suggests that the recovery, however uneven, is accumulating real institutional weight.