Gail Kalinsoki/Commercial Property Executive – Four months after Brookfield Property Partners came courting GGP Inc. and was initially spurned, Chicago-based mall owner GGP has accepted Brookfield’s offer to acquire the remaining portion it didn’t already own in a deal valued at about $15 billion. “It was just a matter of time, they already own so much […]
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The rapidly changing retail world is closing some doors, opening new ones
Jon Harris/The Morning Call – Some have described it as an apocalypse. Others prefer the term disruption. The more optimistic among us call it an evolution. Terminology aside, the situation is pretty clear: The retail world is changing quickly, and its makeover won’t stop anytime soon. Consider: E-commerce sales accounted for about 10 percent of […]
As Ann Taylor and J. Crew leave, Lehigh Valley Mall rolls with the punches in tough retail climate
Jon Harris/The Morning Call – A little more than a week ago, signs from the shuttered J. Crew store sat on the sidewalk behind a 1-800-Got-Junk? truck, waiting to be loaded and hauled away from Lehigh Valley Mall’s outdoor lifestyle center in Whitehall Township. Just days later, a barricade in front of the vacant store […]
Sears department stores disappear from Milwaukee area amid retail challenges
Paul Gores/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – If you want to illustrate just how much the brick-and-mortar retail landscape has changed, you could sum it up with this: For the first time in more than 90 years, the Milwaukee metro area doesn’t have a full-line Sears department store. The last Sears department store here closed a week ago at Brookfield Square. Sears […]
Retail turmoil triggers new visions for shopping malls like Northgate in Seattle
Benjamin Romano/The Seattle Times – The retail model of car-centered shopping malls and large, multibrand stores continues to crumble, as the merging of digital and physical sales channels exacts its toll. Northgate Mall owner Simon Property Group recently revealed plans to transform the 68-year-old shopping center, first developed in an age when people drove their cars for […]
Rethinking Retail: While some companies shutter stores, others are revising business models
Dan Eaton/Columbus Business First – Mall retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch and Gap and department stores including Sears and Macy’s draw a lot of the headlines, but the issue of shrinking physical store count is broad. It’s impacted big-box sellers such as HHGregg, now deceased, and Gander Mountain, which cut about one-third of its shops […]
