The Teenagers of Tomorrow Will Hang Out in Abandoned Department Stores
One could almost feel sorry for the teenagers of tomorrow. They won't have malls to hang out in, to go on crappy dates in, to shoplift from, to get caught shoplifting from. Sure, they'll have the fabulous Internet and their Snapchats, Oculus Rifts, and 3D printers, but they'll never have the opportunity to get dropped off at Hot Topic, because malls are dying. Today there's more grim news about the death of the American Mall, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that real estate research firm Green Street Advisors has released a study saying that department stores need to close hundreds of locations if they would like to survive. Green Street estimates that "the closures could include roughly 800 department stores, or about a fifth of all anchor space in U.S. malls."
In other words: Not good news for department stores, and not good news for malls either, since they'll loose a fifth of their storefronts. And not good news for teens who will now have big, empty, abandoned buildings to hang out in, rather than stores. Actually, now that I think about it, that sounds like an awesome place for teens to hang out.
The numbers are pretty depressing: Sears Holdings Corp. needs to close 300, or 43 percent, of its locations to return to the sales per square foot it had in 2006. JCPenney would need to close 320 locations, or 31 percent of its stores. Macy's would need to eliminate 70 locations, or 9 percent of its stores. Overall, sales at department stores across the country have dropped 26 percent since 2006.
And these poor doomed retailers are doing everything they can to dump the unprofitable locations. In January Macy's announced that after a year of abysmal sales, it would shut 40 stores and cut thousands of jobs. JCPenney has also worked to board up locations, while last week Sears announced it would close 78 stores, including 68 Kmarts, this summer.
Maybe the malls can just start charging teens by the hour to hang out in these empty department stores, or maybe the malls can start focusing on higher-end retailers.
