Retail Watchers

NW Indiana is not that integrated with Chicago. National, Jewel and Dominick's never had many stores there. Strack & Van Til probably were able to survive in part because Jewel only has 4 stores in the area, all in peripheral areas and 2 of them near the Illinois line. There's no tradition of In...

Here's a list of the most recent closures. https://www.fastcompany.com/91091797/rite-aid-stores-closing-list-map-april-2024-update. I'm guessing they couldn't re-negotiate leases because the locations are such a mix of urban, suburban, small town in the middle of nowhere, etc., although no place jum...

They have these in scattered places and they probably recognize some sort of location advantage. There's one I regularly pass on Van Aken Blvd in Shaker Heights, Ohio. It's part of a strip that went up in the early 50s. It's probably the very short-lived Krogerthat became other businesses including ...

It's not a law, it's the decision of a professional board. They are given regulatory power over the profession by law, but this kind of rule making takes them into areas that probably are more difficult for them to enforce. It's not like setting standards to sit for a licensing exam or be able to re...

Away from Portland, Eugene and a few other places, Oregon has any number of cities where they should have been able to do fine. They are more of a breakfast place, although I think they get an early bird special type clientele for dinner, so closing at 9:00 won't lose them much business.

I was there not long before COVID. There was some retail development around the big hotels, but nothing really memorable. It's clear that the downtown business district once spanned close to a mile along 16th and adjacent streets toward Union Station--I stayed in a repurposed warehouse/industrial bu...

A small-format Amazon Fresh in Seattle is closing: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-to-close-fresh-grocery-store-on-pike-street-on-capitol-hill/ A similar format DC store closed today. They did a 75% off clearance. The store closed on very short notice and not everyone was able t...

A few annotations and observations: Colerain= Cincinnati area - NW suburbs Union = Dayton area Boardman = Pennsylvania is irrelevant; it's suburban Youngstown and is a major retail hub; this is the same media market as New Castle, PA Several Maryland stores are in the Baltimore area (Owings Mills, G...

My impression of St. Mary's is that it's growing but that the incomes are pretty disparate, depending on the town. The economy depends a lot on a Navy base and regional tourism, as well as retirees. Retired people, even if they're well-off, tend to be price conscious and if you add-in people in seas...

The weather is probably also a factor. There is higher demand for indoor malls in places where it is too cold to walk around outdoors for a portion of the year. That was always supposed to be the saving grace of malls, but it doesn't work that way----look at all the dead enclosed malls we have rega...