Lots of small businesses go under simply because the property owners raise the rent to intolerable levels.

tax write offs to offset other more profitable properties revenues.

We had a lot of unused retail space in this town that was owned by one entity. A relative attempted to rent space in one but the rent was sky high. The only thing I could think of is the owner is writing off his losses to compensate for profit elsewhere.

They squeeze every drop of rental juice out of starting and small business's which often end up failing. The vacant store starts an exodus of other stores and soon half the strip mall is a dead zone. Every mall needs "anchors" so when you lose one or two other stores start to sink. Independents, especially have so much competition from other stores plus the internet. You wold think the greedy landlords would see the entire picture instead of simply raising rents whenever they see their profit margin sinking ever so slightly.

Kmart are gone. Now, the little stores that typically occupy the malls are trying to make it on their own. ... but without a large draw that can be difficult. In a similar situation in my hometown even the movie theater, local bar and bowling alley closed when the anchor stores left. Now that mall is a ghost town.

As someone said, when the bowling alley, movie theater and bar close in the same mall, you know it's really getting bad. Plus, the schools there that use to be in the top of the state are now at the bottom, and there is also now quite a drug problem. Just another once progressive small town going under when the major industries there off-shored everything and left.

I worked in non-retail management for a major retailer and landlords lavished us with money, millions upon millions in tenant allowances for improvements to our space. And that is all well and good, but in most locations this very visibly came at the expense of the overall property. And with that, we put in an 8000 square foot hardwood floor and a fashion show runway that was rarely if ever used just because we had to spend the money.

Meanwhile the public washrooms in the mall were usually too disgusting to use, just about every single skylight leaked and the decor was archaic.

Some locations did become undesirable for other reasons, we had a location in an area that went from primarily Midwestern retirees to meth addicts misc lowlifes over the course of a decade and some buildings are architecturally obsolete. But a lot of them are just a couple decades of compounded neglect as the landlords investing in their relationships with the largest anchors to the expense of all else.

And if the anchors you were investing in are now defunct or in contraction mode, well that was money well spent wasn't it.

Doesn't surprise me that new ones aren't being built.

The newer trend is re-use. For example, here in Chicago, Target remodeled the old, architecturally significant Carson Pirie Scott building downtown (the Louis Sullivan building is among the most famous architectural structures in the US), and created a totally cool store.

Walgreen's similarly bought up a giant old bank, from 1921, and put in a three-story store. The vitamins section is in the bank vault.

If retailers want space, it's there. Just not in boring big boxes or 80s-style malls. People are looking for interest, uniqueness, and style—and environmentally friendly reuse of existing structures—even in modest-end retailers.

They haemorrhage money. The rent is astronomical.

There are reasons stores do this (yes, and marketing is part of it), but when done smartly, it serves the public good, not just bottom lines. If you want a bunch of cardboard boxes that exceed their useful life within 30 years, fine. If you're interested in contributing to a community (large or small, by the way), then rehabbing valuable existing structures that have gone vacant and that risk becoming blights on the neighborhood or being torn down instead of opting for the cheapest new construction ... well, there's a progressive argument to be made for it.

Sometimes these structures are already owned by a city or municipality, and they'll sell them for a nominal sum in order to get some tax revenue. Sometimes you'll even get incentives.

The two stores I mentioned are not like the flagships of Armani or Chanel that sell next to nothing to a few one-percenters and are there just to promote the brand. These are regular stores that people shop in--the same as any Target or Walgreen's. And they are always packed with workers from the area or resident shoppers in the neighborhood. They're not losing money.

They may be regular stores, but they are first and foremost marketing exercises. The slightly higher sales per square foot never catch up with the higher operating costs of large urban stores.

I worked on a project like this where we were offered use of an old train station, unfortunately the buildings deficiencies were insurmountable, the city was completely unreasonable about parking and the railroad wanted millions to pave a access road to the loading dock.

They are very expensive to operate and aren't really expected to be profitable on a stand-alone basis. It is all about the brand. The 5th Ave Apple Store is a tourist attraction.

thought it was odd because I thought a "flagship store" was the very first store in a retail chain and I was pretty sure that wasn't it.

Thanks again!

And a clever use of space.

near the University of Minnesota. They're calling it a Target Express, and it's only 20,000 sq. ft. in size. It's an experiment, but one I think will get good results.

A recent newspaper story compared revenue per sq. ft. for stores like Walgreens, which said that they do $800/sq. ft. in their densely packed smaller stores, while big Target stores do about $300/sq. ft.

If Target chooses the right product mix for their Express store near a University, it may be the start of a new trend for major retailers. It will be interesting to follow.

most of its stores. I'm assuming there will be one in this Target Express store, as well.

The comparison with Walgreens is apt. Walgreens also sells a broad range of other goods, including electronics, food, office supplies, and household goods. The Target Express store will probably sell a similar range of merchandise, along with some other items. I think the comparison is apt, really. The pharmacy, itself, takes up a smallish space at the rear of the store at Walgreens, and will do the same at Target, I'm sure.

A full sized Target Store carries a much wider range of products than a Walgreens, but is also much, much larger in size. I'm sure Target Corp. has studied the market carefully before testing this Express concept. How it works out won't be known for a while, though.

By proportion of leasable square feet how much of a SuperTarget is dedicated to it's pharmacy compared to a Walgreens? And then comparing sales per square foot of a big box store to a pharmacy means what exactly?

Why not extrapolate the sales per square foot of a 500 square foot Duane Reade to a Walgreens and say they have it all wrong.

Urban format stores aren't a new idea, a lot of them also haven't been very successful, the costs are too high and people too mobile.

Express store concept, and am comparing it with a similar business, Walgreens. In fact, there's one of those near where this Target Express store will be located. I'm sure both companies will be interested in seeing the results, once the store is open.

As for the mobility, University neighborhoods also have a population that is not all that mobile, generally. Students, particularly those who live in campus housing and in the many apartments near the school, are often not all that mobile, and tend to stay in the area nearby. They also have money to spend. Walgreens does a fairly good job of meeting many of their needs in a retail sense. Target, though, has a larger variety of merchandise readily available to it, and will be able to stock their Express store fluidly from that large inventory, as demand dictates.

Revenue per square foot is a standard measure of success in retail. If this Target Express can equal the same revenues as the Walgreens, it will be a successful operation. By offering a subset of the total merchandise available at larger Targets, fine-tuned to the demographics of a university neighborhood, they may just have something going there that could be a big success. I don't know, though. I'm not in retail.

I have, however, been a college student, living in student housing on campus. My choices for retail shopping were very limited near where I lived, since I did not have a vehicle at the time. I'd have welcomed such a store within walking distance. Really. There was a Walgreen's-like pharmacy/general merchandise store, but with poor quality merchandise in general.