Sears and Kmart Retail Space Up For GrabsRetailers in Southern California, and around the nation, are closing stores amid the disaster wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many chains have already filed for bankruptcy protection, among them J.C. Penney, Pier 1, and J. Crew to name just a few. At least 3 Kmart stores and 10 Sears locations are up for lease across the state.
In this L.A. Times article by Business Reporter Samantha Masunaga and Commercial Real Estate Reporter Roger Vincent, you will find the details laid out. They're not pretty, and they indicate drastic changes in the behavioral habits of the public also exerting huge pressure on the commercial real estate markets
"Adding restaurants to malls was a popular option to increase traffic, but it’s hard to project when such socialization and indoor dining will become common again", said Ron Friedman, head of retail and consumer products at Marcum, a public accounting and advisory service firm.
“It depends how long this lasts,” he said.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-08-28/sears-kmart-up-for-grabs
Are We Witnessing The End Of Commercial Retail Space As We Know It?
Some larger retail spaces are apparently being divided into smaller spaces for upscale specialty stores and restaurants. Will your neighborhood Sears now become a smaller version of the disappearing "mall"?
The larger question concerns those large retail spaces being bought up and repurposed to warehousing for the large online product retailers. Will your local mall, your Sears, or your Kmart simply transform into storage centers for Amazon?
California Commercial Real Estate
