By Dave Anderson:
I have written about the Monroeville Mall a few times in the past year. It is the closest mall to the house, and when our daughter was miniscule, it was the best place for us to get out of the house to go for a warm walk. During these walks, my wife and I noticed the retail plunge. Last September, the mall had seen about an eighth of its retail frontage vacant. By the end of the winter, a quarter of the retail frontage was vacant.
We went to the mall last night as we needed to kill some time before a nap. During our walk, we started to notice that there was a wide variety of new stores popping up in the vacant spaces. Some of the stores were temporary holiday knick-knack stores, another was a calendar store. I expected these stores to return and they are not unusual. However there were at least three new stores that either are completely local in origins, or are part of chains that I have never heard of that had opened up in the past month. Another two store-fronts were undergoing final renovations before re-opening.
It may be that rent is getting so cheap again that risks are worth taking? Something to keep an eye on.
Sounds like an encouraging development. Tou may be right about either the rent OR lease terms. Both are negotiable.
ReplyDeleteYour post reminded me of a move I made about 1971 to Merritt Island, Florida. NASA had just had a severe budget cut and tons of people at Cape Kennedy (formerly Canaveral) had lost their jobs. The whole place was sad to see... empty houses and schools, service stations boarded up, classified ads begging anyone to take up payments and move in (furnished, boat in the canal, etc.) Heartbreaking to see. But within a few years the private sector filled in and the place recovered.
Merritt Square Mall was only half leased and we got a prime space on the main concourse, twice as big as we needed, for a rate no one could turn down. Interestingly enough, the people still at work could continue the same lifestyles and business was great from that limited population. The store was a sleeper and within a few months had one of the little company's volume leaders.
A sad footnote to malls: most people don't realize it is the small merchants who carry the load. Circumstances may have changed since then but developers typically offered big anchor units great terms to locate (no rent for years, etc.) And the "merchant's association" (sometimes no limits on charges for "common area maintenance"), made up of smaller merchants, often got the shaft. Even in retail the big fish eat the little ones.