Posted on 05/13/2014 3:28:27 AM PDT by John W
NORFOLK, Va.—With J.C. Penney Co. and Sears Holdings Corp. racing to close stores, America's weakest malls are being pushed to the brink.
Nearly half of the 1,050 indoor and open air malls in the U.S. have both of those struggling chains as anchor tenants, according to real-estate research firm Green Street Advisors. Of those malls, nearly a quarter are struggling with sales below $300 per square foot and vacancy rates above 20%, meaning they will have a hard time finding new tenants if old ones leave.
For an already-weakened mall industry, the negative turn for two once-reliable anchors is promising more stress at a time when the Internet is steadily stealing traffic. And the pressure is only growing. Sears Chief Executive Eddie Lampert last week said he plans to close more stores to help return the company to profitability.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
The Landover Mall in Maryland (right on the DC Beltway) went under because of the feral Amish youth problem.
Back in the early 80s when I was stationed in the Midwest and my wife was stationed with the Joint Staff in DC I would drive to see her at least once per month and we would spend a day wandering the few local malls. In the beginning the Landover Mall was quite nice but around 1985 we went there and the hordes of feral Amish youth made us very uneasy. They would yell and make nasty comments about my wife and since I was not armed and outnumbered 20 or 30 to one I just kept my mouth shut.
That mall does not even exist any more and all but the Sears building has be bulldozed.
Both JCPenny and Sears are mismanaged companies. Sears should spin off K mart and JCP should focus on basic goods.
After my sister left the Air Force in the mid 70s she went to work for Sears. I watched, and listened to her, as they started to do all the right things to kill a major business and I started to dislike them.
I still frequented Sears because I wanted to support my sister but when she finally retired (she got screwed royally but that is another story) I stopped all of my visits and have purchased nothing at Sears in about nine years.
Not since the 1930s have we had such a prolonged economic abyss. If it weren’t for EBT etc, we would have people starving in this country.
If it weren’t for malls, where else would gangs hang out?
Hydra was a great album. It actually rocked out much more than their more "pop" stuff.
Exactly.
Let's pass amnesty, er, I mean immigration reform. That will allow tens of millions to come out of the shadows and bring in their relatives. With 70 million new shoppers in the country we can give the malls a boost and pick up our economy!
As an added benefit, the GOP will also pick up millions of new voters and big donations from the Chambers of Commerce.
It's a Win-Win for America!!
I suppose I would as I have purchased tires there several times and tools a few times.
Beyond that I’ve never understood their floor setup, sales strategy, target market, etc. It seems to be a time warp of sorts with ‘departments’ haphazardly laid out.
It’s ironic that they have been stocking cheap Chinese tat for many years and are being driven out of business by so-called upscale retailers (physical and virtual) now selling the same rubbish.
You have struck gold. Discretionary income is being consumed by energy purchases and higher food costs. Costs of coal-fired electricity are “necessarily skyrocketing.” Base load electricity is becoming scarcer and more expensive as cheap coal is forced offline. Filling up a car gas tank is costing twice the dollars per gallon as it did than in W’s last year. As energy prices increase, and everything sold in the country moves in a truck from someplace to another place, transportation costs escalate, making food more costly. If folks can barely eat, pay the rent and get to and from work, there isn’t much opportunity for random wants or impulse buying.
Malls have been going downhill for many years. Sears has lousy service and crappy selection. I don’t know when the last time I set foot inside a JC Penney store. Maybe in the 1990s?
Many malls have relatively high crime rates. Many/maybe most don’t allow concealed carry on the property. I am not walking my small children past a bunch of hoodlums at the mall entrance unarmed, just so that I can get my car broken into while I am inside, and my senses assaulted by rap music and idiots smoking whatever they happen to be smoking.
And by the time you buy two gallons of gas to get there and back and drive all the way to wherever the mall is, you could have gone online and bought your whatever, and saved the $7.00 in gas money, plus whatever discounts you can find online.
Viva la Internet.
Add: Burlington Coat Factory moves in. Kiss of Mall Death.
On the radio I just heard that people are shopping less on line. When you consider credit card theft, your package being stolen from your front porch, getting the wrong size/wrong thing and having to send it back and start over, I never shop on line.
I don’t go to malls either. I shop at stores that I can drive up and park in front of the front door and walk a few steps and go inside. That may not work for everyone but it works for me.
I’ve often considered government as creating jobs which provide a middle class lifestyle for otherwise unemployable people.
Pretty soon, this is the only way people will remember malls.
Blues Brothers Mall Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTRXnuoK1ss
Sear’s and Penny’s were dying long before Obama.... grasping at straws to put the blame for these chains problems on him. Not defending his economic policies, but these stores problems are systemic to their management and position, even if the economy was booming they’d still be in decline.
Sear’s and Penny’s were dying long before Obama.... grasping at straws to put the blame for these chains problems on him. Not defending his economic policies, but these stores problems are systemic to their management and position, even if the economy was booming they’d still be in decline.
“And urban ferals start using it as a fight club.”
That too!
And I don’t have to watch *sses & boobs hanging out everywhere from people who should take a look in the mirror before leaving home.
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