Tribune News Service: How Macy's, Sears may invite other retailers to take their spaces

[SamSpade]

I think The Oregonian only printed this due to light staff at the holidays and the fact that Macy's is shuttering its downtown Portland store, Sears re-negotiating its arrangement at Lloyd Center.
How Macy's, Sears may invite other retailers to take their spaces

[BillyGr]

Seems like it makes sense if they have extra spaces to make use of them somehow.

For instance, a local Sears here subdivided one corner of the first floor of a 2 floor store and Whole Foods opened in that. Sears was able to lose very little space, as their second floor had quite a bit of blocked off space (it had been some kind of offices, maybe even for a division back when the company was still 5 separate territories with divisions within those - I only saw it as one time they used it for clearance items) and they opened some of that up to the sales floor to replace what was lost by subleasing some of the first floor.

Also what they mention with Macy's having their off price division would work reasonably well in some locations, especially where they have several stories of space - making one level (or part of one even) separated off could work well, particularly if one had to walk through part of the "regular" store to get to it (hoping that you'd see something and purchase it en route - kind of like the supermarket trick of milk in the back corner).

[pseudo3d]

The reason why department stores (namely the big three) have struggled is that they relied too much on a model that relies heavily on clothing, meaning that there's a lot of underutilized space. Sears tended to have more departments than the other two, but mismanagement caused its downfall, and all three could've really been helped by "store-within-a-store" spaces. What I'd love to see is if (well, at this point, it makes a lot more sense the other way around at least for Sears, but in the mid-2000s could've really worked) a grocery store could be actually integrated with a department store (not that it hasn't been tried before, the Lenox Square Rich's had a gourmet grocery store inside of it).

[TW-Upstate NY]

Seems like it makes sense if they have extra spaces to make use of them somehow.

For instance, a local Sears here subdivided one corner of the first floor of a 2 floor store and Whole Foods opened in that. Sears was able to lose very little space, as their second floor had quite a bit of blocked off space (it had been some kind of offices, maybe even for a division back when the company was still 5 separate territories with divisions within those - I only saw it as one time they used it for clearance items) and they opened some of that up to the sales floor to replace what was lost by subleasing some of the first floor.

That's the Colonie Center store you're referring to and that second floor space once housed their Albany Credit Central offices sometime back in the mid to late '80's.

[BillyGr]

Seems like it makes sense if they have extra spaces to make use of them somehow.

For instance, a local Sears here subdivided one corner of the first floor of a 2 floor store and Whole Foods opened in that. Sears was able to lose very little space, as their second floor had quite a bit of blocked off space (it had been some kind of offices, maybe even for a division back when the company was still 5 separate territories with divisions within those - I only saw it as one time they used it for clearance items) and they opened some of that up to the sales floor to replace what was lost by subleasing some of the first floor.

That's the Colonie Center store you're referring to and that second floor space once housed their Albany Credit Central offices sometime back in the mid to late '80's.

OK - Thanks. Knew they looked like offices but wasn't sure what from.

[Brian Lutz]

Nowdays it seems like it is becoming more and more common for anchor store vacancies in malls (ones that are otherwise still in reasonable shape at least) to end up subdivided. Bellevue Square recently got rid of their JCPenney store (It is known that on at least one occasion Kemper Freeman tried to buy them out of their lease, and I suspect that's what ended up happening) and subdivided the space, which now has a 365 by Whole Foods store in what used to be the basement and five other stores (Zara, Uniqlo, Z Gallerie, Foot Locker/House of Hoops and a small Mini dealership) in the space. The former Mervyn's at Southcenter ended up becoming a Seafood City and a Round 1 Arcade. Everett Mall's former Mervyn's became first a Steve and Barrys and an LA Fitness, but eventually most of the space (along with some other mall space) got turned into a Burlington. I suspect there's a good chance Everett Mall could be losing both their Macy's and their Sears within the next year or two, and it would be interesting to see what they would do in that case.