New York
CNN
 — 

An enormous Whole Foods in downtown San Francisco that opened just last year is temporarily closing. The company said concerns about worker safety forced it to shut down. Incidents of theft in San Francisco have gained national attention, though crime has generally fallen over the past six years.

The nearly 65,000-square foot location at Trinity Place in the city’s Mid-Market neighborhood shut its doors Monday to “ensure the safety” of its employees, a Whole Foods spokesperson said. Although Whole Foods did not share any additional information on the conditions that led to the store closing, the spokesperson added that it was a “difficult decision to close the Trinity store for the time being.” Affected employees will be transferred to nearby stores.

The store at 8th and Market streets will not open Tuesday, the spokesperson said. The store’s website has also disappeared.

Heralded as a “flagship store” following its March 2022 opening, the Whole Foods was one of the largest supermarkets in downtown San Francisco. The store sold 3,700 local products and was designed with “nods to classic San Francisco,” according to a news release.

The San Francisco Standard, an independent news website, reported that this Whole Foods location had previously reduced operating hours last year because of theft and changed its bathrooms after employees found syringes and pipes.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Matt Dorsey said on Twitter that he was “incredibly disappointed” by the closure.

“Our neighborhood waited a long time for this supermarket, but we’re also well aware of problems they’ve experienced with drug-related retail theft, adjacent drug markets, and the many safety issues related to them,” Dorsey wrote.

Property crimes in San Francisco have garnered national attention because of several attention-grabbing videos of thieves in action. Though still well below 2017 levels, the city saw a 23% increase in property crimes between 2020 and 2022, wit