I used to drive by a building that was literally twenty different businesses over the space of ten years.
I can think of two more buildings where every business that opened there promptly failed.
I assume it mostly has to do with the location. Or maybe some buildings are just cursed.
Y’all have any examples where you live?
Certain locations seem to be teasers to retailers. They look like the traffic must be there because of the street or intersection of streets. Maybe the Census info is not specific enough to tell the truth about the location. Maybe the landlord lets people in with a low net lease and then raises the rent if the business does OK.
I watch empty business sites all the time and pay attention to what comes and goes. I have experienced those Bermuda Triangle sites. Many times it has foreshadowed a declining neighborhood. For example, an upscale franchise goes to an independent grocery store to a resale shop to a strip mall church.
In the ten years that I have lived here, the restaurant next door to my building has been:
–empty for a couple of years
–an upscale American place
–empty for a year or so
–a sushi place
–a different combo sushi/some other food place
Meanwhile, four similar price point restaurant spaces within a half block have been the exact same place since I moved in. One of those seems a bit shaky these days, but the other three are always bustling with customers. Not sure what the issue is.
It’s even funnier when every business that comes through is the same kind. There’s a nearby location that’s hosted probably half a dozen Chinese restaurants in the time I’ve known it. Another one has had three different all-you-can-eat pizza buffets in the last thirteen years or so.
I lived in an apartment across the street from a retail building. One section was a Family Dollar, another was a Quality Foods. The final section of this building was the cursed section. In the 4 years I lived in this apartment, that section was:
A pizza place.
A pocketbook store.
A record store. In the late 90s.
A cd store, about 2 years after the ipod was introduced.
2 different hair salons.
A psychic shop.
A pet shop.
Finally, a nail salon opened up there, and has remained for the last 9 years.
When I lived in Nashville, there was a place on the main drag of my neighborhood that cycled through a different Chinese restaurant about every six months for a few years. Then it did the same with Mexican places for another couple of years. The last restaurant in it was a wannabe upscale burger joint. It too only lasted six months.
For the past 7-8 years, it’s been a Mexican grocery.
In my little town just outside of Nashville, there have been two places that appeared to be cursed. Both began life as steakhouses, then cycled through about a dozen other restaurants over the years. One was recently torn down and a Chik-Fil-A built on the site. The other has set empty for a couple of years, the last place only lasting about six weeks.
It might be a self-fulfilling prophecy after the first few businesses fold. New ones can come in, but the public assumes they won’t last either, and don’t bother to stop in, and they will fold too.
Funny you mention that. One cursed location here is in an excellent location right at the intersection of two major roads. Doesn’t seem to matter.
If it wasn’t the U.S. I’d say nowhere to park maybe ?
Or perhaps the wrong sort of neighborhood for the product.
Or even gang/protection/other crime problems ?
Some alternate explanations:
-the site is being used to “launder” illegally-obtained income. That is why the businesses change quickly-the IRS is big on catching frauds like this.
-the rent is too high-that is why nobody can make a profit at the location.
-The property is being held by someone who anticipates it being worth a lot of money (he/she figures the buyers will demolish the building and erect a new building). If the tenant/restaurant cannot secure a long term lease, they will relocate.
Haunted? Maybe vinegar keeps getting in the soup, and the food goes rancid?
There was one by where I used to live that went through I think 6 or 7 businesses in about 5 years. What was odd though was that it was in the middle of a strip mall and none of the immediately adjacent businesses seemed to have any problems. Eventually they completely tore down and rebuilt ONLY that one storefront (which I didn’t even think was possible in a typical strip-mall configuration). I moved away shortly thereafter, so I don’t know if that improved the mojo of that spot or not.
My theory about it (and other cursed buildings) is that maybe there was some sort of inconvenient but structurally-unalterable feature that meant that the landlord had to heavily discount the rent, like maybe a load-bearing diagonal wall dividing it or something. The cheap rent would attract more casual business owners or people just starting out, who would be more likely to either go out of business or move to a less inconvenient location if things picked up.
One problem might simply be that many, many start-up businesses fail in the first year or two. Somebody has the great idea they want to run a restaurant or shop, scrapes enough money to get started, doesn’t have enough money to advertise and to keep going until enough customers support the place–if it’s even a place worth supporting–and then runs out of money. It might be that these particular locations have a reasonable enough rent for a new small business owner to afford, but the new business just never takes off. Rinse and repeat.
When I was going to EIU in Charleston, Illinois, there was this one Chinese place that was about a mile out of town as you headed West. This building closed and reopened a about 10 times in the 4 years that I was there. I’ve heard rumors that it was a way to move illegal immigrants through and that sounds as plausable as anything else to me, though I don’t have any evidence one way or the other.
This causes a lot of it. Rents are often to high for a small startup business, but when there is demand for space, landlords have no reason to lower the rent, or in any other way encourage success in their tenants. When one startup fails, the next one comes in because the space is available, not because the rent is ideal. Places like this will tend to be small, and very attractive to large businesses, so it becomes a cycle of small startups trying to make it where there’s limited space to rent, and the rates are just to high to be practical. One key to survivability for many small business is to renegotiate their lease, or just stop paying rent. I’m guessing at the moment, but I think rent is probably the greatest fixed cost in a small retail business.
In 1984, Matt Groening did a Life in Hell cartoon about the “Storefront of Doom.” In successive panels you see signs for
Cafe Bongo
Big Ed’s Slot-Car Racing Palace
Psychedelic Hut
Mort’s Eight-Track Quad Tape Emporium
Z.E.S.T. Zeal Enrichment Selfhood Training
House of Smileys
Punky’s Punk Shop!
Goldie’s Toast-O-Rama® Tanning Salon
Breakdancing Lessons