Sears closing

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Sears closing

Post by mgsports »

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Re: Sears closing

Post by flyingember »

mgsports wrote:http://www.businessinsider.com/sears-is ... res-2017-6 Meijer or Shopko as a replacement.
Will sit empty for years.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by jbean3535 »

Curious as to what will happen to the building with the new development going in there. I wouldn't be surprised if it somehow gets swallowed up by the developer.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by AlbertHammond »

I think the existing Home Depot is too far from the proposed Lowes. They should move the HD to the Sears site so the two big box home improvement stores can stare back at each other.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by mgsports »

It's across street from it. It would be funny if Menards also opened at intersection.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by empires228 »

mgsports wrote:It's across street from it. It would be funny if Menards also opened at intersection.
Menards should have been targeted all along, but they've pulled out of so many sites in JoCo before that I'm not surprised that they didn't show interest in this property.The Sears real estate investment trust owns this store, so they must have found something to lease at least part of it. The store was profitable and they were paying minimal rent since the company they sold the store to is a spin off company.

Meijer has started to close a few stores because the Wisconsin expansion is putting strain on them, and Shopko already tried in Joplin, Wichita, Paducah, and Cape Girardeau and bombed terribly. There's no name recognition for them out in this part of the county except for the often rundown and dumpy "Hometown" stores. Go to the one in Abilene, Kansas and see what a dump Shopko is running there.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by flyingember »

Not exactly, this is a well known situation across the company, even has it's own company scandal included.

The Sears RE trust isn't owned by Sears. It's a separate company that is completely independent in all ways.
The store likely leased the land and store from the trust
Many stores officially were using the money gained from the land sale to keep operating. So you have a failing company keeping stores open by selling their most valuable asset to delay the inevitable.

Ask yourself who benefits in this situation? The directors of the land/store company who just happen to include the current CEO of Sears who is letting the company collapse.
So in the end tons of people lose their jobs and a small number of people enrich themselves on real estate.

It was probably finally more profitable to have the store fail and lease the land to someone else, otherwise it would still be open. They likely got their money back from the leaseback deal. If that sounds like they sold the land and then paid the company they sold it to, effectively selling it for nothing, you would be right.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by brewcrew1000 »

empires228 wrote:
mgsports wrote:
Meijer has started to close a few stores because the Wisconsin expansion is putting strain on them, and Shopko already tried in Joplin, Wichita, Paducah, and Cape Girardeau and bombed terribly. There's no name recognition for them out in this part of the county except for the often rundown and dumpy "Hometown" stores. Go to the one in Abilene, Kansas and see what a dump Shopko is running there.
I haven't seen any news about Meijer closing in Wisconsin, they have been expanding in that area. The only article I saw about store closures were 2 in Suburban Chicago but they were the smaller layout ones
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Re: Sears closing

Post by mgsports »

If they did it would have been already reported.
Boston Store? Yonkers? Sportsmen Wearhouse? Johnny Mac's? Sun Fresh? Albertsons? Winco? Deibergs? Gerbes? Kroger? Dillions back? Bloomingdales? Schnucks back? Stage? Belk? Goody's Family Clothing? Other Retail that's near by but has no KC area location yet?
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Re: Sears closing

Post by flyingember »

These lists are inane and lack any knowledge of retail. When thinking of companies that will enter a market identify today the differences in company staffing. Retail is on the leading edge of a crash in the number of stores.

It's why the building will remain empty for years as I said earlier.

The businesses that succeed will have focused on service for the past decade and maintained customer loyalty though good service and premium services rather than labor cost cutting.

Online ordering, premium delivery and the like and blurring the lines and these companies will stick around.

Hy-Vee grocery delivery, Target ship to store are two examples of external services. I love that I can choose to order an expensive item, ship it to Target and pick it up rather than have it sit on my porch all day. Ordering groceries online is a great market for Hy-Vee to enter.

Then go to a Michael's or Jo Ann's. They surely make a lot of money doing framing, but try and find someone available to take an order most of the time. I stopped bothering with framing there because it's not worth it.

Go to Home Depot or Lowe's and try to place certain orders, like blinds or carpet. Sometimes there's *one* person on staff that can and you have to show up when they work. How can they sell premium services with no one to take orders?

In store look at some chains services, like HyVee with dieticians, catering, bill pay, in store banks. They easily can make a lot more money catering than selling groceries.

Go to a store like a Office Max/Depot. They cut staff so much and lost the ability to sell in store that we nearly saw Office Max, Office Depot and Staples all merge because not one of them could compete against the Internet. Circuit City is an early example of this where moving away from skilled sales helped lead to their death.

When people talk about service sucking in stores and moving to the Internet, it's because too many stores stopped recognizing that paying a few professional workers a salary + incentives for selling results in better sales than not. The walmart staffing model many places follow is great only if you can grow super quickly and get economy of scale.

There's tons of stories of workers complaining their hours are cut every few years, the latest in an attempt to not pay for health insurance/ What incentivizes them to work harder and make the company more money in this situation?
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Re: Sears closing

Post by empires228 »

brewcrew1000 wrote:
empires228 wrote:
mgsports wrote:
Meijer has started to close a few stores because the Wisconsin expansion is putting strain on them, and Shopko already tried in Joplin, Wichita, Paducah, and Cape Girardeau and bombed terribly. There's no name recognition for them out in this part of the county except for the often rundown and dumpy "Hometown" stores. Go to the one in Abilene, Kansas and see what a dump Shopko is running there.
I haven't seen any news about Meijer closing in Wisconsin, they have been expanding in that area. The only article I saw about store closures were 2 in Suburban Chicago but they were the smaller layout ones
They haven't closed, but they've been closing stores in other markets. The Wisconsin expansion isn't meeting their expectations and they're closing other stores to make up for it because they believe it can work. There have been more closures than two in Chicago. Look around on Flickr and Facebook retail groups where pictures and hard to find news articles can be found.
flyingember wrote:These lists are inane and lack any knowledge of retail. When thinking of companies that will enter a market identify today the differences in company staffing. Retail is on the leading edge of a crash in the number of stores.

It's why the building will remain empty for years as I said earlier.

The businesses that succeed will have focused on service for the past decade and maintained customer loyalty though good service and premium services rather than labor cost cutting.

Online ordering, premium delivery and the like and blurring the lines and these companies will stick around.

Hy-Vee grocery delivery, Target ship to store are two examples of external services. I love that I can choose to order an expensive item, ship it to Target and pick it up rather than have it sit on my porch all day. Ordering groceries online is a great market for Hy-Vee to enter.

Then go to a Michael's or Jo Ann's. They surely make a lot of money doing framing, but try and find someone available to take an order most of the time. I stopped bothering with framing there because it's not worth it.

Go to Home Depot or Lowe's and try to place certain orders, like blinds or carpet. Sometimes there's *one* person on staff that can and you have to show up when they work. How can they sell premium services with no one to take orders?

In store look at some chains services, like HyVee with dieticians, catering, bill pay, in store banks. They easily can make a lot more money catering than selling groceries.

Go to a store like a Office Max/Depot. They cut staff so much and lost the ability to sell in store that we nearly saw Office Max, Office Depot and Staples all merge because not one of them could compete against the Internet. Circuit City is an early example of this where moving away from skilled sales helped lead to their death.

When people talk about service sucking in stores and moving to the Internet, it's because too many stores stopped recognizing that paying a few professional workers a salary + incentives for selling results in better sales than not. The walmart staffing model many places follow is great only if you can grow super quickly and get economy of scale.

There's tons of stories of workers complaining their hours are cut every few years, the latest in an attempt to not pay for health insurance/ What incentivizes them to work harder and make the company more money in this situation?
Except that this store isn't closing because the lease is up or because of profitability likes the Antioch and West Wichita stores did. This store was owned by the Sears REIT, and they've only been closing stores when another company shows interest in the building or land. Part of Sears lease with the REIT is that the store can be forced to either vacate on a moments notice, or give up half of the GLA to other tenants on a moments notice.

I've worked for Sears and the representative from corporate basically said the store closures aren't random like the news portrays, but rather divided into four categories.

1. Lease expiration: Unprofitable store reaches the end of its lease and they don't renew.
2. Lease termination: Landlord terminates lease either because the store is unable to make payments, wants to renegotiate lease, or they have/think they have another tenant lined up.
3. REIT: Examples like Kearney, Nebraska were the REIT had tenants lined up to take the building so they closed the Kmart. Also see all the stores in the Northeast where they've shrank down a store subleased to Whole Foods, Nordstrom Rack, and Primark.
4. Other: The stores that have been hit by a flood, had a roof collapse during a blizzard, etc. usually leased, that weren't profitable enough to restock after insurance repairs the damage.

The only two building on the REIT in the metro as of last month when I last looked were the Overland Park Sears and the Leavenworth Kmart. They didn't own the Sears stores at Antioch, Leavenworth Plaza, nor do they own the Kmart on Shawnee Mission Parkway, 95th and Metcalf, up in Merriam, near Metro North, etc. Independence Center was built by Sears, but since Sears dumped the mall long before Homart was merged into GGP in the 90's, it appears that the owner of the store is Simon as the other still operating Homart Development Malls that are currently ran by GGP have their Sears stores listed on the REIT, like Coronado Center in Albuquerque.

Here's the list of the stores that Sears owned when the REIT was formed and sold to the REIT for really cheap. http://www.seritage.com/properties
Last edited by empires228 on Thu Jun 29, 2017 1:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

mgsports wrote:It's across street from it. It would be funny if Menards also opened at intersection.
Here in the Belton/Raymore area Lowe's, Home Depot, Menard's are in close proximity to each other. Menard's and Home Depot are almost back-to-back along the highway with Lowe's about a mile away to the east.
Consider Walgreens and CVS. In Raymore they are across the street from each other on 58 Highway. To the west on 58 Highway the two can see each other in Belton.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by empires228 »

Menard's would have been the smart choice for the Metcalf South land. It's more of a destination since they tend to be larger stores and don't flood the market the same way Home Depot and Lowe's do. The Menard's stores in Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, Salina, Wichita, and Garden City, Kansas are always busy as is the one in Olathe and the one up in St. Joe.
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Re: Sears closing

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by Oak Park Mall,Metcalf/119th street has most of big box or Junior Anchors that are located in KC area so something new is what they could get.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by flyingember »

mgsports wrote:by Oak Park Mall,Metcalf/119th street has most of big box or Junior Anchors that are located in KC area so something new is what they could get.
A parking lot isn't new.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by mgsports »

Not talking about Parking Lot just a place not in KC area yet or Overland Park.
https://shawneemissionpost.com/2017/06/ ... park-64154
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Re: Sears closing

Post by AlbertHammond »

flyingember wrote:These lists are inane and lack any knowledge of retail.
This is what makes mgsports so charming.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by Sani »

Not that it means anything one way or the other, but in the inner-ring St. Louis suburbs, there's a Home Depot, Lowe's and Menards within half a mile of each other. Of course, since it's St. Louis County, they're in three different cities. Home Depot in Brentwood, Lowe's in Maplewood and Menards in Richmond Heights. And all three cities bent over backwards to give TIF so they could tear down neighborhoods and build strip malls -- but that's a rant for another day.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by mgsports »

I know my knowledge of Retail that's not in KS/MO/AR/OK/NE/Iowa/CO and so on near by but not in KC area yet.
Whole Foods space available.
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Re: Sears closing

Post by mgsports »

Buildings 8 and 9 up for approval next month.
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