Downtown San Luis Obispo is emptying out. And over the past several weeks, the exodus of businesses, years in the making, has only accelerated.

For generations, the downtown has played multiple roles: a tourist destination, college town hangout and the place where locals go to shop, dine and be entertained. Today, it’s littered with empty storefronts marked by darkened windows and for lease signs.

Unlike many other places on the Central Coast that are destinations that depended on tourists, SLO’s downtown was vibrant because of the locals and students who live here full-time. But like many California downtowns, it has seen tariffs, recent rent spikes, and a decrease in foot traffic after the pandemic. Higher cost of living expenses, especially housing, have also throttled the disposable income needed for jaunts to the city’s urban core. Coupled with missteps from the city on parking, merchants now say that it’s a perfect storm that has led to the decline.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

Gaia’s Gallery had the perfect location, the perfect space, in the perfect building.

Located on the 700 block of Higuera Street, next to a crosswalk that bisected the downtown main drag’s busiest block, it was a “dream come true” when gallery owner Christine Branca was able to open her art, crystal and jewelry shop here in the spring of 2022, she told SFGATE.

Large storefronts on Higuera Street, downtown SLO’s main drag, have sat empty for months or longer. Pictured here on Sept. 30, 2025.

Charles Shoes, a midcentury staple in downtown SLO, has sat vacant for years. Pictured here on Sept. 30, 2025, it is just one of the major storefronts in downtown SLO that sits empty.

The space is as idyllic as she made it seem: a shotgun-style gallery, with an exposed brick accent wall running along the southern end of a historic building. Natural light beams in from the plate glass windows at the storefront.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

In those three short years, Branca said the business — which she originally took over at a different location in 2017 — was always susceptible to ups and downs of doing business in a place that was dependent on disposable income and whether college kids were around. She explained that this time there were “lots of factors” in play that eventually drove her to the brink, and then to the decision to close her doors for good.

She spent Sept. 30, the last day of the store’s lease, clearing out the rest of her inventory and cleaning up the space. The decision became obvious, she said, when the year began with a slowdown in business, and then an increase in wholesale costs for her wares. A rent increase took her rent to more than $8,000 a month.

“2025 was like, ‘What the heck happened?’” she said. She noted that downtown’s slowdown has impacted everyone, but particularly, in her opinion, higher-end galleries and retail stores like the one she ran: “There’s just not that much discretionary income with everything rising.”

Christine Braca and Steven Wick, both downtown SLO merchants, pose in front of Gaia Gallery, Branca’s business, on its final day on Sept. 30, 2025.

A farewell note at Gaia’s Gallery in downtown SLO. Pictured on Sept. 25, 2025, the gallery is just one of a slew of recent locally owned businesses that have shut down here.

To stem her own costs and to see if she could make it through the upcoming holidays, Branca said she was still selling inventory from last year’s holiday season. But when she started looking at replenishing stock, she realized those costs would be so prohibitive that she was left with no choice.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

“For me, I just felt it was the right time to leave,” she said, using the crystals she imports from Brazil as just one small example. “If I was to replenish, the cost would be double if not triple. It’s not just tariffs that go up, it’s the labor, other import fees, brokers — it wouldn’t make any sense for me to then pass that to the customer. It would price itself out.”

Toward the end, she received........

© SFGate