Wet Seal closing 2/3 of stores

[tonypep]

Another victim of mall implosion. 300 stores closing costing 3,700 jobs. I know who does their printing and it won't even make a tiny dent for them but still sucks.

[mk162]

malls for the most part are dying...with exception of latino shopping malls...they are booming.

[royster13]

Our local mall is over 50% empty......No sign that is will change anytime soon....Rents are just too high to get anyone new trying to open a store.....

[T Shirt Farmer]

The malls in Silicon Valley are full to the brim with open stores, packed parking and folks spending money like no tomorrow...go figure

[royster13]

The "one percenters" are still doing well....

[prozyan]

The "one percenters" tend to not shop in malls...

[screenxpress]

Our local mall is over 50% empty......No sign that is will change anytime soon....Rents are just too high to get anyone new trying to open a store.....

And what do the idiot landlords do? 

Why of course.  Raise rents to try and stay level which continues the spiral of driving more renters away (or bankrupt).  And so it continues.

Here's a classic story from someone I know who had a local watering hole with pool tables, etc.  Revenues were down and the landlord raised the rent.  My friend had to finally close up.  That was 3 years ago.  Guess what, the place is still empty.  Wonder if the landlord realized he screwed up.  1/2 (or 3/4) of something is better than all of nothing.

[mk162]

i see that too, we have a place here called restaurant death row.  At one point there were 5 or 6 good/great places to eat...now there might be one left.

The rent kept going up on all of the buildings, so the tenants bailed, now there is virtually zero revenue there.  Doesn't make much sense.  It's been declining for about 8 years and it's been down to one place for over 2 years now.

This has nothing to do with "one-percenters"  you have a lot of young tech folks moving to places like silicon valley for jobs...very good paying tech jobs.

At least that is private enterprise...the wealthiest suburb in the US is now DC.

Malls have been declining for years, but also, if rent in them drops the quality drops.  Ever see stores and think "how did you afford this" or "that doesn't fit in here at all?"  I see it at our mall here, and it's clear the place is heading for closure...eventually.

[GaryG]

Yeah one mall around here actually charged a percentage of sales too!
Can you believe it? Store after store left. It's like real estate / mall owners are so well off
or large they don't get it.

[bimmridder]

That's what happened to one of the two malls here. Now the are literally demolishing it. Two of the "anchor" stores are standing amid the rubble. Strange sight indeed.

[Colin]

I wonder how many of the mall/building owners are gambling against insurance paying off on empty space.  I  do not know the details, but I know a buildings owner can get insurance against un rented space....

[Frog]

Here in suburban Walnut Creek, we had a large Grocery store, one of the Berkeley Co-OP chain.
It seemed to be doing well, and was the only grocery store in walking distance (about a mile) for us besides the Gemco (now Target) with its Lucky market inside.
At any rate, it closed around 1985, and the huge building sat empty for 25 years! We all speculated that somehow, the owner of the property knew how to work this to his advantage.

[tonypep]

JC Penny just announced they are closing 40 stores this year

[Command-Z]

It's more of a matter of architectural trendiness than anything. Phoenix area malls built in the 70s have been in decline starting at the last real estate boom here in the mid-2000s. Hipsters and Yuppies, if I may use the generalizations, are preferring a more "walkable" and old-school downtown feel to do their shopping and pub-crawling. This has led to a revitalization of old downtown areas as well as the trend of new shopping centers that are centered around parking lots, free standing buildings and outdoor walking lanes with storefronts facing them, rather than a totally-enclosed indoor mall such as the ones built in the '70s... which are being abandoned, torn down and the land repurposed into grocery stores or housing developments.

So the stores that anchored the 70s-era malls have simply moved to new locations. As for the one-percenters, malls targeted to them are still flourishing with architectural details being changed to match the new trends as well as new shopping centers being built in the newly built affluent areas. The other malls that still thrive are ones that border lower-income areas.

Wet-Seal is just finding it hard to compete with the new wave of 20-something stores like H&M and Forever 21, that are thriving in these new shopping centers, that's all.

[royster13]

Just heard a car dealer was going to take some space in our half empty mall.....Zellers, a Canadian chain closed over 2 years ago....Knowing the owner, I am sure he bargained very hard.....