I recently read the following article:
" Coral Ridge Mall’s corporate owner is in negotiations to add what would be the biggest store at the mall, but no one is saying who that retailer may be.
The store would go in the spot recently vacated by Sears. The interested tenant believes that one-story space, at 98,596 square feet, is undersized and would want a two-story, 200,000 square-foot building…
That would top the 129,581-square-foot Dillard’s department store, currently the largest store at the mall, according to Johnson County property records."
Coral Ridge is the major mall in the 150,000 population Iowa City metropolitan area and also draws traffic from the 260,000 Cedar Rapids metropolitan area 22 miles away.
I was trying to think of who the tenant might be but couldn’t really think of any names. The two possibilities which occurred to me would be: 1. A SuperTarget (to replace the existing Target at the mall) or 2. A Macy’s (which doesn’t have any stores in Iowa at all). But I thought both would be somewhat smaller than 200,000 square feet.
So who builds 200,000 square feet stores and in particular might be the tenant in question?
Here is a directory and map of the Park Meadows Mall in the Denver area. They list the total available sapce as about 1.6 million square feet. The maps are probebly not to scale, but you could estimate that the magnet stores are close to 1/8 to 1/10 of the space. so thats in the neighborhood of 200,000 sq ft. The other major mall in the are has a similar set up.
We have/had a similar Macy’s set-up at the Concord Mall in Wilmingon, DE. I haven’t been there in years, but it was clothing, jewelry and accessories in one store, furniture, housewares and rugs in the other.
We also have two Target stores about a mile from each other in Springfield, PA. Both are SuperTargets with groceries. The opening of the second did nothing to slow the traffic at the first.
Wikipedia has a list of the largest malls in the US. What’s relevant to the question at hand is that they also list the anchor stores at each mall. Most of those companies would be possible candidates for a 200,000 sqft space.
Click through to the pages for the individual malls and many of them list the square footage of the larger tenants.
For example, Mall of America has five stores that Wikipedia lists as greater than 200,000 sq. ft.: Bloomingdales (210k), Macy*s (280k), Nordstrom (220k), Abercrombie & Fitch (278k), Nickelodeon Universe (292k but I think this is kind of an amusement park).
I was thinking of the Citrus Heights (Sacramento) store, which (IIRC) started in a solo building across the street, opened a second store in a vacated anchor, then took over a second vacated anchor and closed the separate store. (It may have always had one anchor location and opened the separate building for more space when none was forthcoming in the mall) At one time it was the second-largest Macy’s and possibly the second-largest department store in the US. ETA: Perhaps nearly 300,000 sf?
These malls are overwhelmingly in large metropolitan areas. What puzzles me is the small size of the market here. You noticed this is going to built on the former Sears site? Sears pulled out of the Iowa City market (leaving only a small hardgoods store behind at a different mall).
So for what chain would there be justification for such a large store for a small market: I could understand many of these chains putting a store here–but why such a huge one?
These large spaces often go for a discount to a big department stores. The function of the anchor store is to increase the traffic at the mall, so they want the space filled with a big name. Me? I’d put a GoKart track in, but it’s probably not what the mall is looking for.
If memory serves correctly, Lord and Taylor had a 7-floor store in the Circle Center mall in Indianapolis. I just tried to google it, but it looks like they closed it down. The last time I visited was around 2005, and I distinctly remember seeing 7 floors listed on their in-store elevator.
One major clue is in the bolded words.
Big-box stores (Target,Walmart, Loews hardware,etc.-and all supermarkets) are always one story.
I’ve heard that it’s much more efficient for the staff to unload trucks and keep the shelves stocked if everything is on one level.
The only 2-story stores that I know are the department stores that sell mostly clothing. (Women’s downstairs -to tempt the impulse buyers-, men’s upstairs.) Or outdoors stores that sell clothes on the ground floor and sporting equipment upstairs.
This is not the reason Macy’s has two stores in a mall. The anchor stores are normally built by the store chain rather than the mall. The store is owned by the anchor store. If they wanted a larger store they would just build it larger. And the anchor store is normall a completely independant building. Not connected to the malls HVAC, fire, sewer, security, or garbage systems. They maintain their own building with their employees.
The reason Macy’s may have two stores in a mall is because Federated Department Stores (FDS), the parent company, has bought out a competitor. Most of the majors sign a multi year lease requiring them maintain mall hours on at least two or more floors. If the chain is bought out the new owner is required to keep the store open.
When FDS bought the Carter Hally Hale store chain They ended up with a second storre in some malls. These were the old The Emporium, Winestock, and Broadway stores. Some of the stores they sold the buildings to another chain right away, like Target. Some of became the Macy’s Mens store. One store they thought they would just close but the mall started legal action. So they kept the Hayward store open as an Emporium store the only one left open. Very little staff I think the store opened with 5 employees on two floors. And very little stock. They finally made a deal with target to take over the store and The Emporium was no more.
For Major department a 200,000 foot store would be a small store. When I worked for the Emporium I think of the 13 stores we maintained only 2 were under 200,000 s feet.
Target Stores are not always one story. They had developed a shopping cart escalator so they could purchase two story building from FDS. And now they are building some two story buildings on they own.
I live near what may be the only two-story WalMart Supercenter in existence. (As I understand it, it used to be a normal WalMart on one level and a Sam’s Club on the other, then they decided to close the Sam’s Club and make it a Supercenter.) For something so large, it’s amazing how bad the selection is, even compared to other Supercenters. It might be the big open area that cuts down floor space on the second floor, but I don’t know.