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  #81  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2010, 8:47 AM
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Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
But really how often do you all shop? A number of you go on about online shopping sending stuff to your house and all that.

But to be honest, I don't shop that often. And the once in a while I do, I like to go out, stroll through the streets, or the mall, etc. I just don't find it a chore to go to a bookstore. I infact like it, and don't do it as often as I would like to.

But overall we don't shop that much. Clothing a couple times a year, the odd gift here and there, a book, etc. But it is not like we shop for non food items every single day.
How often do we all shop? Well lets see, most families need food at least once every two weeks. And then go out for the odd thing that has perished between set shopping dates. Like my family does.

Also, I dont know about you, but I would die if I couldn't shop for clothes more than 2-3 times a year. Im out, almost every day picking up something new to wear.. getting something to eat from the local store, or picking up a coffee from any tim hortons that is near.

However, i'm 16. Which brings up an odd point, but a very good one. We are not all the same age. And there are many teens who like to go out and spend everything they have. There are many retired people who stroll around stores every day. There are many people who don't have that luxury while they are going to school, like you. There are people who are frugal with their money and only go out every few weeks or so.

And to answer your question about how many of us shop... when you go out to stores and when you go shopping, do you see lots of people out? Do you have to stand in line and wait to spend your money? If you do then you must be able to see how justifiable it is to have so many stores.
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  #82  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2010, 6:17 PM
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Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
But really how often do you all shop? A number of you go on about online shopping sending stuff to your house and all that.

But to be honest, I don't shop that often. And the once in a while I do, I like to go out, stroll through the streets, or the mall, etc. I just don't find it a chore to go to a bookstore. I infact like it, and don't do it as often as I would like to.

But overall we don't shop that much. Clothing a couple times a year, the odd gift here and there, a book, etc. But it is not like we shop for non food items every single day.
I buy something every day. The most common purchases are food, of course--I eat lunch out nearly every day and dinner several times a week. But I buy enough other things for home maintenance, entertainment (books, movies, music, electronics), health (medications, vitamins, tooth paste etc) and just because I see it and want it.

You have this constant tendency to assume your lifestyle is like everyone else's. It isn't.
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  #83  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2010, 7:27 PM
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I did not assume everyone is like me.
My question is actually very valid.

Except for food, how many people really go every single week to clothing shops, furniture shops, bookstores, etc?
If all bought something every single week like that, we would not have any room in our homes left.

People may go out and stroll in a mall(maybe because they have nowhere else to stroll). But how many people actually buy goods besides food every single week?

I have worked in retail. Large numbers of my customers only do two three shopping trips a year(mostly me who don't like to shop).

And this brings us down to the whole overretailed part. You can not sustain stores on people just browsing and not buying. And can we sustain this idea that we all have to go shopping every single week for clothing and other items, besides food.
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  #84  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2010, 8:14 PM
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Did I not just explain to you, that I am one of those shoppers that goes out everyday and buys something new to wear. And if there is someone like me doing this, there must be millions of others doing the exact same. Also, BTinSF just explained how he goes to get lunch and dinner several times a week.

Now let me ask you this miketoronto. Does he have to go to a restaurant to get it? No he doesn't. He could go to Walgreens, CVS, Shoppers, Jewel. And even if he went to a different place everyday, thats all it takes to keep a place open. Those customers of yours, they may have only entered your shop once or twice a year. But let me tell you they went other places too. And more than you might think.
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  #85  
Old Posted Jun 20, 2010, 11:31 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
Except for food, how many people really go every single week to clothing shops, furniture shops, bookstores, etc?
I do.

Quote:
Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
If all bought something every single week like that, we would not have any room in our homes left.
Only if you never throw anything out.

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Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
And this brings us down to the whole overretailed part. You can not sustain stores on people just browsing and not buying.
I am fairly certain that Wal-Mart does not generate more than $400 billion in annual sales because people are browsing and not buying anything.

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Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
And can we sustain this idea that we all have to go shopping every single week for clothing and other items, besides food.
People have busy lives and they need things. When you are in the real world, and you have a job, and possibly even a wife and children, you will understand.
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  #86  
Old Posted Jun 21, 2010, 1:41 AM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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I think mike acts like this deliberately.

Is that not the definition of trolling? Mods? Admins? Anybody?
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  #87  
Old Posted Jun 21, 2010, 1:59 AM
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He's not at the trolling level. There's usually an element of truth in his posts. You just have to watch for his misunderstandings and exaggerations.
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  #88  
Old Posted Jun 21, 2010, 1:12 PM
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Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
We have the same discount style stores we had 40 years. WALMART is just a new and meaner version of Woolworths.
There were a ton of discount stores before, as well as middle market places. Infact almost all the major downtown department stores even had a discount basement department store.

So cheaper goods were always available.

Look at Filene's Basement. That is a discount store known in many parts of the USA. Well the first store opened in downtown Boston in like 1905. The idea that we only get cheap items now is a myth.

It was a lot more specialized a couple decades ago. Like my parents were saying if they wanted a new winter coat, they would go down to Spadina Ave in downtown Toronto and there were dozens of discount warehouse clothing stores in a row. You could check out all different styles and barter prices, etc.

Like I said, almost all the big cities had discount stores, as well as whole districts full of discount shopping.

Some of these areas still live on. Manhattan still has some of it. And even Toronto's old garment area still has a number of discount clothing shops which sell high quality stuff for cheaper than the chain stores.

But the idea that Walmart and Costco have brought us cheap items is a total myth that American's have really bought into.

American's have always had discount goods. Woolworths, 5 & Dime, Kresege, etc.

In fact today we have less discount stores and who is to say we really are getting the best price? I remember when I was growing up, we had way way more discount options than today.
In other words, you are contradicting your original anecdotalisms.
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  #89  
Old Posted Jun 21, 2010, 4:07 PM
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In 1950, cheap goods meant factories in the US. In 2010, cheap goods means jobs shipped overseas.

Though those US factories caused environmental problems and were often terrible workplaces, at least we weren't sending our money overseas just so we could buy more crappy stuff.
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  #90  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2010, 6:24 PM
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As Demand for Space Increases, Retailers Ask for Fewer Handouts


Jun 22, 2010

By Elaine Misonzhnik



Read More: http://retailtrafficmag.com/news/con...nish_06222010/

Quote:
As the retail sector shows increasing signs of stability, the flood of concession requests that marked much of 2009, seems to have subsided. “I can tell you that requests for rent relief have dropped off a cliff,” says John Bemis, executive vice president and director of leasing with Jones Lang LaSalle Retail, an Atlanta-based third party property manager. Bemis estimates that today Jones Lang LaSalle is getting approximately 90 percent fewer requests than it did at this time last year. Todd Caruso, senior managing director in the retail services group and leader of the retail agency practice with real estate services firm CB Richard Ellis, estimates that relief requests throughout CBRE’s portfolio are down roughly 85 percent.

“I think with the stabilization [in the market], along with the weeding out of several weak performers, the process has for the most part run its course,” Bemis notes.

While sales are not exactly robust, same-store sales have been much healthier in 2010 than they were a year ago. In addition, cost-cutting measures that retailers implemented in 2008 and 2009, such as lean inventory strategies and reductions in head counts, have also aided retailers. Moreover, retailers who got concessions last year don’t need further assistance this year. As a result, rent concessions are no longer necessary for retailers to survive, say industry sources.

The tenor of conversations has changed. Retailers who approach their landlords today are looking to have discussions about long-term strategies, such as optimizing the performance of existing stores, says Branson Edwards, executive vice president and managing director of retail occupier services with brokerage firm Grubb & Ellis. In this context, there is more of a give-and-take occurring. Tenants may still ask for reductions in rental rates, but when they do they are often willing to give up kick-out, exclusivity and other tenant-friendly clauses in exchange.

Meanwhile, tenants with more leverage—anchors, junior anchors and other retailers that generate traffic—have a better chance of securing concessions, says Rick Burke, founder of Lease Administration Solutions, a Marblehead, Mass.-based lease administration and auditing firm. (Burke is also a founding member of the National Retail Tenants Association). They can, for example, negotiate fixed common area maintenance (CAM) charges. But in exchange they have to be willing to agree to longer lease terms or be ready to renew existing leases ahead of schedule.
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  #91  
Old Posted Jul 16, 2010, 8:48 PM
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Downtown tour aims to fill retail vacancies


July 14, 2010

By Donna Goodison

Read More: http://www.bostonherald.com/business...&position=also

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Hub officials hope yesterday’s tour of Downtown Crossing, the Rose Kennedy Greenway and South Boston waterfront will help fill vacant spaces with the right kinds of retailers. “I’ll tell you what we don’t want (in Downtown Crossing): no more cell phone stores, no more mattress stores and no more sneaker stores,” Randi Lathrop, the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s deputy director of community planning, said during the city-hosted walk for retailers, brokers and developers in town for an International Council of Shopping Centers conference.

Lathrop denied that Downtown Crossing - scarred by the stalled redevelopment of the Filene’s block - was “beleaguered,” before pointing out numerous empty storefronts for lease. More than $1.2 billion of development is in the works, she said, and 36 new businesses have opened since 2008, with 16 more slated by year’s end. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino had led ICSC delegates on a 2008 tour of Downtown Crossing, which was capped with Midwood Management’s announcement of a new 28-story project with 276 rental units, retail and 200 parking spaces at Bromfield and Washington streets. The New York developer filed its plans that October with the goal of breaking ground earlier this year, but the $200 million project is still under city review.
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  #92  
Old Posted Jul 16, 2010, 8:53 PM
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Boston's Downtown Crossing may be one of the few U.S. downtown shopping districts that has actually declined in recent years.

It was one of the better retail urban centers in the U.S. as recently as 10 years ago. It's pretty shabby now, and there's really nothing of interest outside of Macys.

Downtown Boston as a whole, though, is doing just fine, and shopping is thriving to the west, in Back Bay.
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  #93  
Old Posted Jul 16, 2010, 9:54 PM
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Is it true that Boston's downtown core (ie., excluding Back Bay) only has one department store left?
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  #94  
Old Posted Jul 16, 2010, 9:59 PM
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Yep, only Macys.

If you don't count Bay Bay as downtown Boston, there isn't much shopping anymore. Downtown Crossing is pretty shabby right now, and the area just to the south (old Combat Zone porn area) while revitalized, doesn't really have retail.

But I think Back Bay probably counts as downtown Boston to most. Back Bay has lots of high end retail on Newbury St., some more on Boylston St., and two higher-end shopping malls, both with department stores.
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  #95  
Old Posted Jul 17, 2010, 1:54 AM
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Originally Posted by mhays View Post
In 1950, cheap goods meant factories in the US. In 2010, cheap goods means jobs shipped overseas.

Though those US factories caused environmental problems and were often terrible workplaces, at least we weren't sending our money overseas just so we could buy more crappy stuff.
In the late 19th Century or in 1900 they US factories might have been terrible workplaces but in 1950 they were often places that paid a very good living wage where stuff was actually made in the USA. Alot of the jobs in the USA in 2010 are in terrible workplaces, just terrible in a different way.
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  #96  
Old Posted Jul 25, 2010, 2:41 AM
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Creativity Is Needed to Fill Vacant Stores


July 24, 2010

By JONATHAN WEBER

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/us/25bcweber.html

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Union Square, in the heart of downtown San Francisco, is just the kind of retail shopping district that should be resisting the recession pretty well. It’s full of hotels and the free-spending tourists and business travelers who occupy them; it’s adjacent to the downtown high-rise district and the many thousands of people who work there. It even has a big parking garage and good transit connections.

Yet a walk around the neighborhood provides a disconcerting barometer for the challenges facing the regional economy. The big brands are all still here — from Macy’s and Nike and Banana Republic to Cartier and Armani — but the streets are pocked with vacant storefronts, many of them in beautiful, high-quality buildings. The vacancy rate for retail locations in Union Square was 8 percent in the first quarter. Citywide, tax collection figures show that the free fall in retail sales that hit in late 2008 has eased, but not ended.

Optimists in the real estate business say it’s just a cycle, though a particularly harsh one, with a comeback hitting stride this year and next. But national trends suggest a deeper structural shift may be at play: a long-term decline in consumer spending as a percentage of overall economic activity, a continued rise in Internet retailing and a baby-boom generation that is moving into smaller houses and needing less stuff. If so, San Francisco may need to revisit its thinking about street-level commerce.

Already, some neighborhoods are relaxing policies that put strict caps on the number of restaurants. In this foodie haven, the restaurant industry has suffered much less than general retail, with restaurant tax receipts actually rising in the first quarter compared with a year ago. There has also been more flexibility in allowing chain stores. City regulations dictate that any retailer with more than 11 stores that wants to open in specified districts has to seek a special permit, and those permits are now being granted more readily.



The free fall in retail sales tax receipts in San Francisco has eased, but downtown still has some empty storefronts.

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  #97  
Old Posted Aug 2, 2010, 1:35 PM
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Developers Rethink the Mall for the 21st Century


Jul 27, 2010

By Elaine Misonzhnik



Read More: http://retailtrafficmag.com/news/dev...mall_06272010/

Quote:
Prior to the downturn the consensus in the real estate industry was that the days of the traditional regional mall were over. But a funny thing has happened: The recession has thrown a wrench into that theory. Many of the concepts that were supposed to replace the regional mall, such as lifestyle centers and vertical mixed-use centers, suffered because of their reliance on discretionary tenants and limited trade area pulls, industry insiders say. Meanwhile, regional malls emerged from the downturn in relatively good shape. In the first quarter of 2010, regional malls posted an average vacancy rate of 6.0 percent, a 130 basis points below the vacancy rate for specialty centers and 170 basis points below the vacancy rate for U.S. retail space overall, according to a report from the CoStar Group, a Bethesda, Md.–based research firm. The quoted rental rate for malls is at $21.25 per square foot, above the quoted rate of $16.27 per square foot for all retail properties.

That’s led the industry to look at regional malls with renewed respect, says Darrell Pattison, director of design with ka architecture, a Cleveland–based firm. “We are seeing a greater emphasis on enclosed environment, air-conditioned spaces,” he notes. “The enclosed mall properties are the ones that seem to be making the resurgence first.” In the early and mid-2000s, one of the most common mall redevelopment techniques involved turning a portion of a traditional enclosed center into a mini open-air lifestyle center. By contrast, one of the projects profiled on the following pages, Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in Los Angeles, will retain its original enclosed structure. Another, City Creek Center in Salt Lake City, will merge two former enclosed malls into a modernized open-air mall that will feature a retractable roof that can be closed during inclement weather. Architects think this might be a groundbreaking technique that solves the dilemma of building open-air centers in climates with four distinct seasons.



The Trails

http://retailtrafficmag.com/news/dev...10/index1.html






City Creek Center

http://retailtrafficmag.com/news/dev...10/index2.html






Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza

http://retailtrafficmag.com/news/dev...10/index3.html






Peninsula Town Center

http://retailtrafficmag.com/news/dev...10/index4.html

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  #98  
Old Posted Oct 7, 2010, 4:38 PM
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Regional Mall Owners Experiment With Supermarkets


Sep 30, 2010

By Elaine Misonzhnik



Read More: http://retailtrafficmag.com/news/mal...kets_09292010/

Quote:
The next step in the evolution of regional malls is actually a blast from the past as supermarkets—a staple in the early days of the sector—are making their return. This month, Australian mall owner the Westfield Group announced it signed German supermarket operator Aldi to its Westfield Chicago Ridge property in Cook County, Ill. The deal is the latest in a string of Westfield leases with supermarket chains and grocers, as well as several transactions with warehouse club Costco. There are also supermarkets and warehouse clubs now operating at or near malls owned by the Macerich Co. and Taubman Centers Inc.

- Industry insiders say the trend is likely to spread similar to the way mall operators in the past added restaurants and movie theaters to the mix. In addition to generating regular traffic, supermarkets can fill vacant spaces left by closed department stores or other large tenants. Meanwhile, from a grocer’s perspective, taking space at regional malls may be the only way to penetrate densely populated areas with high barriers to entry. “It’s an excellent strategy,” says Jeff Green, president of Jeff Green Partners, a Phoenix-based retail real estate consulting firm. “It’s a way to lease space to somebody who generates a lot of traffic on an ongoing basis. And because the mall pulls people from a greater distance [than a shopping center], it’s now seen as a pretty good place for food stores to locate.”

- In addition, mall tenants face higher common area (CAM) charges than shopping center tenants, adds Matt Winn, managing director, retail consulting, with brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield. Supermarkets have razor thin profit margins, so they couldn’t afford to pay the premium to be located in regional malls. Parking availability and easy road access were also concerns. In today’s environment, however, landlords have become more willing to negotiate on deal terms, both because they are trying to fill vacancies created by department store bankruptcies and consolidations and because they need tenants that are traffic drivers.

- While people visit a mall about once a month, they tend to shop for groceries at least once or twice a week, according to Green and others. Westfield reports that in the three weeks since it opened a Seafood City Supermarket at its Westfield Southcenter in Seattle, Wash., foot traffic to the center increased 26 percent.

- Aldi’s lease at Westfield Chicago Ridge represents its first ever location at a regional mall. The chain operates smaller locations—averaging 17,000 square feet—than other grocers. As a result, Aldi might be too small to fill vacant department store digs for some owners. But it could help fill inline vacancies, according to Green. Costco, on the other hand, with an average store size well over 100,000 square feet, is a perfect candidate to take over dark boxes.

- At the moment, Costco has eight stores located at regional malls, in addition to three upcoming leases with Westfield, according to David Messner, vice president of real estate with the chain. For instance, it operates locations at Macerich-owned Paradise Valley Mall in Phoenix and Lakewood Center in Los Angeles. Costco initially started to pursue the strategy as a way to expand in infill markets.
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  #99  
Old Posted Oct 8, 2010, 12:27 AM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
Boston's Downtown Crossing may be one of the few U.S. downtown shopping districts that has actually declined in recent years.

It was one of the better retail urban centers in the U.S. as recently as 10 years ago. It's pretty shabby now, and there's really nothing of interest outside of Macys.

Downtown Boston as a whole, though, is doing just fine, and shopping is thriving to the west, in Back Bay.
You can say the same things about Center City in Market East, right up to the major vacant department store (in our case, the Strawbridge & Clothier). Philadelphia has to be looking at what Boston does with great interest (because Philadelphia's situation pretty much requires us to synergize the Toronto Eaton Centre solutions with the solutions applied in flagging major retail areas like Downtown Crossing).
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  #100  
Old Posted Oct 8, 2010, 2:50 AM
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