Soccer stadium proposed for San Francisco’s Westfield mall

SAN FRANCISCO - The departure of Nordstrom on Sunday will leave 312,000 square feet of the Westfield center in San Francisco empty as dozens of other stores in the mall have also closed.

In June, the Westfield Groups turned over the operation to its lender and stopped making payments on a $558 million loan.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has suggested potentially tearing down the mall and using it for something else, Including a possible soccer stadium, as part of revitalizing the downtown core.

"I go back to this in terms of a soccer stadium in the heart of downtown," she said on Tuesday. "Not just soccer, but concerts and activities. How do we make downtown more than a financial district, with housing, with all kinds of other spaces?" 

Breed said that the city is already working on drafting a concept for a downtown soccer stadium with an architectural firm.