A BAPE flagship opened in the former Dior Men's space at 216 Stockton, while a July 29 city permit at 100 Stockton — the old Macy's Men's building the Standard identified as Kith's — carries a $14.15 million estimated cost. Union Square's empty luxury boxes are refilling, one address at a time.

On Saturday afternoon the closest thing Union Square had to a crowd was on the 200 block of Stockton, where A Bathing Ape held a grand-opening block party outside its new flagship at 216 Stockton — the granite storefront that used to be Dior's men's shop, off Maiden Lane. It is BAPE's first San Francisco store and its second in California.

Union Square built its name on luxury: Louis Vuitton, Hermès, the department-store anchors. The brands refilling it now sit a generation to the side of that. The San Francisco Standard framed BAPE's opening, alongside a coming Kith store, as a shift to a newer kind of high-end apparel (external source, opens in a new tab) — streetwear moving into the boxes luxury emptied.

Two blocks away, the pattern is on the permit record. At 100 Stockton — the ground floor that was Macy's men's department until it closed in 2012 — a building-permit filing dated July 29 carries a $14.15 million estimated cost, according to the city's DataSF permit records (external source, opens in a new tab). Reviewing Department of Building Inspection filings, the Standard identified the tenant as Kith, the New York streetwear label, planning a 5,600-square-foot store with an adjoining restaurant space — its 21st U.S. location and first in Northern California. The paper reported the bay had sat empty since the Macy's men's operation left, one of five unoccupied retail spaces in the redeveloped building.

Momentum, the boosters call it: the Union Square Alliance's CEO, Marisa Rodriguez, used that exact word for Kith's interest in the Standard's account. The harder number, from a 2026 Cushman & Wakefield report the paper cited, is a district vacancy rate of 20% — down from 23% a year earlier. A dent, not a recovery.

Because the recovery is uneven by the block. A few minutes east on Market Street, the nine-story San Francisco Centre is still boarded, closed since January — the mall this desk covered when its September bid date came and went. Even on Stockton itself, the block is mid-sentence: at 48 Stockton, the old Barneys building we wrote about earlier this month has three alteration permits filed since late July in the DataSF records (external source, opens in a new tab), the largest at $2.2 million, none yet issued.

Someone walking Stockton tomorrow will see it in three stages at once: the LED ape head glowing over black granite at 216, the papered-over ground floor at 100 waiting on a filing still under review, and, a short walk away, plywood on Market that hasn't moved all year.