Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
The ones I'm familiar with had premium, high-traffic locations.
Problem is rents on premium high-traffice locations are way high. Especially when most of the Border leases ran 20-plus years and were negotiated as far back as the turn of the century. A lot of them where standalone structures; others were Mall "anchors".
Those kinds of facilities don't get easily repurposed. In one case I know the Mall operator/landlord tried to buy the store to keep it open themselves under a different name. But that would be the exception; most stores simply didn't generate enough revenue from book sales to justify the premium high-traffice square footage. 
Few business can. Hence, they remain empty. |
I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the concept of a mall "anchor". Would that be the large retailer (Sears, Target) at the opposite ends of the mall?
If they were at premium high-traffic locations, wouldn't that imply that some new vendor would like to grab that location?
If mall owners charge exorbiant rents I would assume more reasonable malls would appear? A huge empty space, like x-Borders, is not only lost revenue for the owner, but I would imagine it having devastating psychological influence on the consumers mall experience. Vendors next to the x-Borders would loose a lot of foot traffic, the dark gaping hole doesn't exactly insipire wild shopping sprees either, does it?