The good news – yes, there is good news – is that if you want to build a new store, there’s plenty of available space at the mall. Vacancies are at their highest point in almost a decade. And many mall owners are making the best of it, with interesting if unorthodox solutions. Where big, multi-level anchor department stores used to stand, there now might be a Dick’s Sporting Goods on the ground floor and a Best Buy upstairs.
Temporary stores are popping up. Kiosks in the aisles are moving into hard walls. Smaller stores are being given inducements to take over larger spaces.
Here and there, too, as a Circuit City or a Linens ‘n Things goes out, a Big Lots goes in. Mall owners who would once have disdained such a downscale tenant are now welcoming anyone who can pay the rent.
Several malls across the country are reportedly planning to install a simulated wave machine called the Flowrider in vacant retail spaces. The Mall of America is putting a Chapel of Love in an open spot between a LensCrafters and Bloomingdale’s. Landlords are considering bringing in grocery stores, medical facilities, dance studios and even community or technical colleges.
With Americans buying less, many retailers are getting rent reductions, only adding to the malls’ financial woes. General Growth Properties, as an example, has more than $25 billion of debt, has missed payment deadlines on its bonds and is now trying to avoid filing for bankruptcy protection.
You might say they have only themselves to blame. Even in good years, mall developers expanded way beyond the growth in retail sales. But if malls begin to dry up and disappear, what do you think will replace them on the retail landscape? Other than wave machines?