There's been a cause for concern among planners for a while now. See, this IS going to happen, and there's something different this time.
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. retailers face a wave of store closings, bankruptcies and takeovers starting next month as holiday sales are shaping up to be the worst in 40 years.
Retailers may close 73,000 stores in the first half of 2009, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. Talbots Inc. and Sears Holdings Corp. are among chains shuttering underperforming locations.
More than a dozen retailers, including Circuit City Stores Inc., Linens ‘n Things Inc., Sharper Image Corp. and Steve & Barry’s LLC, have sought bankruptcy protection this year as the credit squeeze and recession drained sales. Investors will start seeing a wide variety of chains seeking bankruptcy protection in February when they file financial reports, said Burt Flickinger.
“You’ll see department stores, specialty stores, discount stores, grocery stores, drugstores, major chains either multi- regionally or nationally go out,” Flickinger, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a retail-industry consulting firm in New York, said today in a Bloomberg Radio interview. “There are a number that are real causes for concern.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aGQ__icNMvzI&refer=worldwideYes, this has happened before, stores failed, they closed, and...their buildings, from brick to stone and the like were occupied, subdivided, and re-used by other stores.
A defunct bakery became a hat shop became a clothier became a hair salon became an agency became an office became a storefront church became a cafe became a... You get the idea, there.
Smaller stores are infinitely re-useable. Even supermarket size is. Malls are.
Big Box supercenter architecture? Not so much. Massive steel shell, massive parking lot, very expensive to heat and cool. When one folds, it tends to remain empty. And remain empty. And remain empty. If a whole bunch in an area do it, you have blight, parking lots with drifting trash, and...nothing.
It's really hard to re-use that architecture for something else, since they are built to each retailer's specs. You can tear them down, but then you have abandoned parking lots and feeder roads for a big thing that isn't there, and...well...it's going to be an ugly mess, I think.
Some planners have come up with an idea that if a big box is to be given special variances and breaks to come into a community, if it's going to require expenditure by that community for roads to make the traffic pattern work...that that retailer should sign a contract that if they close, they will clean up the mess, even knock down the building. That, or encourage the retailers to go for more re-useable architecture instead, things that are more easily divided, better insulated, more traditional in profile, not the massive empty shell that's left.
What do people think of that? I'm not sure, really.
