Among them is 650 California Street, a 34-story office building that has defaulted on its mortgage. Further on is 101 California, whose second-biggest tenant left last year and whose biggest is slashing staff and office space. Go around the corner, and Embarcadero Square is for sale for $90 million. Its owner bought it for $245 million in 2018.

Walk down Market Street, and you will hit San Francisco Centre, the city’s largest mall. An owner’s name was pried off the wall when it stopped loan payments, but traces of the logo remain. Last month the retailer

 closed its five-story flagship store there.

San Francisco’s downtown properties were some of the most valuable in the country. Buyers loaded up on debt to get a piece of the booming city. Now vacancies are approaching twice the national rate, according to CBRE Econometric Advisors. Owners are on the hook for nearly $12 billion of office bonds, according to S&P Global.

As landlords watch their loans mature, they will have a difficult time paying them off without willing lenders. Banks are already pulling back from making loans to office landlords, and commercial mortgage-backed security issuance plummeted this year.

Vacancy rates are rising at 600 California Street and 101 California Street while a national landlord defaulted on $1.7 billion of debt backed by properties including 650 California Street.

While the city’s office market recently showed signs of life with sales of properties resuming at much lower valuations, a wave of maturing loans already in distress threatens to extend the city’s economic turmoil. About half of the retail stores at Union Square, the city’s downtown shopping district, have closed, and government revenue has declined. Ridership last month on Bay Area Rapid Transit was down 61% compared with 2019.

Chime declined to comment.

’s goal is to exit underperforming locations and renegotiate leases to reach profitability, a company spokesperson said.

The glittering dome above Market Street is one of the last remaining structures from a century-old building that was replaced by a shopping mall, the San Francisco Centre.

The owners of San Francisco Centre handed the keys over to lenders after falling occupancy rates and low foot traffic at the city’s largest mall.

Last month the retailer Nordstrom closed a five-story flagship store at the San Francisco Centre.

The pandemic hit the mall’s retailers hard, and one of the complex’s biggest tenants, the anime streamer Crunchyroll, gave up its office space on the seventh floor. Occupancy at the mall is now below 50%. It was 96% when the $558 million mortgage was issued.

In June, the complex’s owners,

 and Brookfield Properties, stopped paying the mortgage. By July, the Westfield logo was removed, leaving traces spelling out the name. In August, Nordstrom closed its store. Developers are pitching plans to replace the mall with a soccer stadium.

Westfield cited declines in sales, occupancy and foot traffic as reasons for transferring the property back to the lender.

Higher interest rates have hit real-estate values. The investment firm Pacific Investment Management Co., known for its bond funds, got a double whammy at 650 California Street.

Tenants include the buy now, pay later lender

, which cut 19% of its workforce and is thinking about abandoning its lease. Higher rates, wrote Chief Executive Max Levchin in a letter to staff, “dampened consumer spending and increased Affirm’s cost of borrowing dramatically.”