As More US Retailers Fail, Malls Could Be Next Victim

CNBC ^ | 12/30/2008 | Staff

[Red in Blue PA]

The dismal holiday shopping season may sink some retailers and could take down some U.S. malls struggling with rising vacancies, softening rents and their own large debt loads.

"This is probably going to go down as the worst season in history as far as retail sales," said Victor Calanog, director of research for real estate research firm Reis. "The difficulty of ascertaining what the effect would be at the property level is because we're already heading toward a train wreck."

At the end of the October, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) forecast that national chains would announce 6,100 store closings in 2008 and 3,100 in the first half of 2009.

[WayneS]

But the flip side is, that with malls closing at an unprecedented rate, there is likely to be an associated increase in the filming of zombie movies.

[IrishMike]

Commercial property the next big shoe to fall ?

[griswold3]

Such is the ‘Progressive’ plan, non profit consumption.
Sorry, I can’t help the retail industry, I am on a Capital Strike. I have to save my money for the tax increases that are coming.
No, I’m not in the top percentile. But you know it’s coming.

[kabar]

The next one will be credit cards and personal debt.

[Star Traveler]

Ummmm..., I’m sure I’ve been reading on these FReeper threads that this “economic disaster” really isn’t a disaster at all — because they say that the holiday sales have been *great* and people were shopping like crazy...

Why would the article call this a “dismal holiday shopping season” if holiday sales have been so great??

[ejonesie22]

Yeah, but we could be hit with a Blues Brothers remake as well...

[Star Traveler]

You said — “The next one will be credit cards and personal debt.”

But, I’ve been hearing from a lot of FReepers, posting on this board, that they are having no problems with credit cards and debt and that everything is fine, and that the economy is fine.

So, where would these problems come from that you say are creating the problems with credit cards and personal debt??

[dfwgator]

But the flip side is, that with malls closing at an unprecedented rate, there is likely to be an associated increase in the filming of zombie movies.

Gangs will be deeply saddened.

[Texas_shutterbug]

Now that would be horrible for the old folks around here. Where will they do their morning walk in this heat?

Just another way of looking at things...

[Clintons Are White Trash]

I agree - I think a lot of this crap is manufactured by the press. Shopping was hella crazy here in St. Louis. Amazon posted yesterday it had it’s best Christmas season ever...I’m not seeing all this doom and gloom.

[Global2010]

When we moved here decades ago it was and has remained a mall free zone.

Just is no reason.

Have to say we survived with no side effects of not having access to one.

If Malls go empty do to retailers going belly up perhaps the new govt will set them up as indoor refugee camps.

On a happier note I had a dream I was in the Middle East and it was in total Peace. Big juicy Oranges were being brought down a hill side and I wore the local attire long dress and head scarf but went to a Catholic school were everyone dresses in the local culture attire very modest not the burka crap.

[Borges]

Malls are suffering because online retailers like amazon are doing well.

[Texas_shutterbug]

I’m not a big shopper; in fact, I mostly hate to shop, but in the heat here, a mall is a blessing for 100 + heat.

[Bloodclot]

With everyone working at all the jobs created by Obama we won’t have time to shop anyway.

[demsux]

Malls ARE the next to fall.

I just closed my mall based store that had been open for over 5 years....sales were down 40% from last year (and last year was not great)...mall owner would NOT renegotiate rental rate and that was it for me.

Short CBL stock and capitalize on their ineptitude.

[marshmallow]

There has been a "mall bubble" just as there has been a "housing bubble", a "credit bubble" and a "stock market bubble". Shopping precincts have been sprouting like mushrooms for the purpose of supplying Americans with huge amounts of Asian imports. All in the belief that the orgy of spending and consumerism was going to continue.

A little dose of reality may be on the horizon and it's about time.

[EnglishOnly]

Maybe there is a reason that people don't go to the malls?

Could the fact that auto theft from malls has increased to levels never even dreamed of, and maybe people don't want to be confronted with Gang Bangers while shopping?

Letting the malls and commerce areas become enthralled in crimes committed largely by Illegals here in this country was not such a good decision by local politicians. Yet it continues.

So does the reluctance of the savvy shopper to venture into nothing short of a third world country to purchase Christmas Gifts. I know and speaking from my own personal experience that my days of going to the shopping Mall are over. I don't relish all the confrontation with the similarity of shopping in what appears to be nothing short of a Tijuana Bus Station.

[kaylar]

I wonder if they saw packed malls and ASSumed there were shoppers, without noticing that the amount of bags the mall walkers were carrying were few or none, or at least fewer than previous years?

I can tell you I hit one of the biggest malls in the KC metro area the first weekend in December, and it was NOT packed, but pretty sparsely populated-quite a few empty stores, too. I also was at a huge mall in the Chicago metro area the first weekend of November (possibly too early for Christmas shopping) and it was a Dead Zone. There was hardly anyone else in the mall-seriously.

[SamAdams76]

I go out of my way to avoid malls. There are so many things undesirable about them that I can't possibly list them all here. But just from the top of my head, you got the jockeying for position in the parking lots, the groups of sneering teens that loiter inside, the overpriced merchandise, the obnoxious people in the center of the main aisles that are peddling cheap perfume, cheap jewelry and bad art, the filthy bathrooms and the unsanitary conditions in the food court.

During the few times I shop, I like to get in and out quick so that usually means standalone big-box stores like Wal-Mart, Kohls or Best Buy that usually have huge parking lots you can quickly get in and out of.