22 replies to this topic

[aboutmetro]

Ledger did report today A-F's and the Rave's closing. But that Buckle will be opening.  Buckle's (website) a pretty cool store. ICSC reported that A-F would be closing over 10% of their stores.

Edited by aboutmetro, 14 January 2011 - 01:01 PM.

[ct36]

aboutmetro, on 14 January 2011 - 12:51 PM, said:

Ledger did report today A-F's and the Rave's closing. But that Buckle will be opening.  Buckle's (website) a pretty cool store. ICSC reported that A-F would be closing over 10% of their stores.

Most of the 110 stores that are closing appear to be mostly abercrombie (kids) stores. Dallas had 7 at one point then downsized to five then three more stores closed over the past two weekends, so now they only have 2. A&F is doing fairly well at the moment, they are just trying to make their stores more exclusive and close their underperforming stores so that less of their stores will be in smaller markets, but they are closing some in larger markets as well. Like I said before, the Peachtree A&F was doing very poorly for a while. The store here in Asheville tends to do well and is a fairly large store. The A&F at Haywood is smaller on the men's side but larger on the women's side than the Asheville store, and both appear to be doing very well there, too.

[mitchella81]

PEACHTREE MALL BOUNDING BACK FROM BANKRUPCTY (ledger-enquirer, By Tony Adams 6/5/11)


When considering Columbus for a Cinnabon store last summer, Frank Ross pondered the fact that Peachtree Mall’s parent company had been in bankruptcy more than a year. But that didn’t faze him.

“I didn’t hold back too much because I had already been convinced that if you put the right systems in place, people would still buy the product,” said Ross, a resident of Albany, Ga.

It also didn’t hurt that Cinnabon’s corporate office had studied the Columbus market and identified Peachtree as a target mall. That it also was the city’s only enclosed mall, strategically located near Interstate 185, with Fort Benning expanding, all were like sticky sweet icing on the bun for the chain

We’ve had some great success being in the right location and having the right timing,” said Ross, who opened the local bakery last December, a year after doing the same thing at Albany Mall and setting sales records that recently earned him Cinnabon’s Franchise Partner of the Year Award.

Sales at the Cinnabon in Columbus so far this year have been 20 percent to 25 percent higher than the outlet in Albany, he said.

Such success would seemingly portend good things to come for a shopping center that weathered the Great Recession relatively well, although it did take a few shots. The loss of retailers Waldenbooks, Eddie Bauer, Abercrombie & Fitch and Rave were the most significant losses, while the Manchester Expressway center has been working to fill in the gaps with temporary apparel shops and an occasional permanent store. The most recent additions are Buckle and Books-A-Million, which open this month.

The activity comes with Chicago-based General Growth Properties -- Peachtree’s owner -- having exited bankruptcy last November, eight months after the mall itself emerged from Chapter 11 status. It ended the largest retail bankruptcy in U.S. history.

“We’re doing fine,” said Peachtree Mall general manager Chris McCoy. “Our financial situation is basically historic as far as us coming out of bankruptcy and paying all of our debtors. We didn’t owe anybody anything coming out of bankruptcy. It wasn’t like anybody got shorted. It was a situation where everybody got paid what they were owed as we came out of bankruptcy.”

The mall’s occupancy rate now stands at about 94 percent, McCoy said, with 100 tenants and six vacancies. That includes a shuttered Arby’s eatery in the food court.

But it does not include the former Parisian department store space. The 86,700-square-foot anchor store closed in February 2006 after being
bought by the Belk chain, then was purchased by Dillard’s Inc., which has not done anything with the excess space that fronts the mall.

General Growth Properties is in the process of buying eight anchor buildings back from tenants, said McCoy, though he stopped short of confirming the Parisian wing in Columbus is one of them.

Julie Bull, director of investor relations for Little Rock, Ark.-based Dillard’s, which is one of three current anchor stores at Peachtree Mall -- the two others being JCPenney and Macy’s -- declined to comment on the possible development or sale of the property.

But selling property is not out of the ordinary for the 308-store chain that had struggled somewhat through the recession, but has regained its footing financially and on the New York Stock Exchange, with shares Friday trading near $55.

“We have sold some empty locations or some closed locations here and there,” Bull said. “I think with a vacant location there are a lot of possibilities considered, and I think I just probably have to leave it at that.”

For instance, Dillard’s sold properties last year in Macon, Ga., Austin, Texas, Chesapeake, Va., and in the Florida cities of Miami and Coral Springs.

“Three of those locations we sold in 2010 were vacant retail properties and two of them were operating stores that we ended up exiting as a result of the sale,” Bull said. “So we do consider a lot of different options with different locations.”

As recently as 2008, Peachtree Mall had a plan to develop the old Parisian building, but instead of returning to an anchor format, it would be transformed into space for several retailers and two restaurants. The Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro are two names that have been mentioned as possibilities.

“Hopefully at some point in the future that plan comes back around,” McCoy said.

Filling space may help other businesses

Such a move would be music to the ears -- and the cash registers -- of Leo Perez, manager of the Journeys shoe and accessory store just a few steps from the walled-up former Parisian entrance that is now graced by a huge American flag.

“I was kind of concerned when I came here about that being closed. But being across from the food court has helped,” said Perez, who took charge of the Journeys store two years ago, turned sales around, and was recently named Manager of the Year for the 850-store chain based in Nashville, Tenn.

Perez said he’s done well despite having no built-in foot traffic from customers entering the main portion of the mall through a large department store. His remodeled store, with added color and uptempo music being piped into it, also have pumped life into the business.

“I feel that if they did bring something in there, it would definitely allow the flow of traffic to see my store more,” Perez said. “I think a lot of people can be slightly impulsive when buying. So when they come inside and see something they really like, they often go ahead and buy it. So I definitely feel like that would raise sales in my store.”

Cinnabon franchisee Ross, whose bakery is fronted by the FYE music store, not far from the food court and the former Parisian space, agrees.

“It would definitely help our cause because it’s going to generate more traffic,” he said of plans to redevelop the old department store. “I hope that they’re working really, really hard to make that happen.”



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