"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
25 November 2005How to kill an afternoonThe Northwest Distressway runs right between Penn Square and 50 Penn Place, and there wasn't a parking spot to be had at either, suggesting that Black Friday might produce some black ink for the merchants therein. Unfortunately, I was on the way to Heritage Park, which wasn't even close to being packed: the Salvation Army guy at the door seemed awfully glad to see anyone show up, let alone someone who would stuff a greenback in his bucket. If you can't fill a mall on the day after Thanksgiving, you might as well call 1-800-BULLDOZER and put it out of its misery. I did, however, get a decent haircut, which is the reason I went there in the first place. For comparison purposes, I wheeled out 29th, where all the retail traffic seems to be headed, and sure enough, there were big crowds at Kohl's, at Lowe's and at Target. (And, new to me since last time, there's a Steak n Shake going in at about 7181 SE 29th.) It wasn't until the long drive back home that I slid into reflective mode, what with the alleged significance of this date and all, and wished, briefly, that I could qualify for the carpool lane, if we had one. A few excessively-appealing images popped into my head, which I did my best to suppress. We won't discuss the period I spent unraveling holiday lights. I tried a couple of string placements, didn't like either of them, dragged out the ladder, and came down with major vertigo the moment I hit the first rung, which is not a good sign; what's more, the ladder paid me back with a splinter that felt like it was the size of a Fourth of July sparkler. Clearly I'm going to have to approach this task from a different angle. Addendum: Patrick at OKCTalk.com talks to the manager at Penn Square, and comes away with this bit of demographic wisdom:
There is a social phenomenon that young people especially want to shop at the "hot" malls and will drive past the B-level malls even if they have many of the same stores.
Two things happen to malls that aren't on top. One is that new retailers won't go there even if the rent is a giveaway. Most national retailers are public companies and Wall Street looks at sales per square foot. They can only handle so many new openings each year, so they would rather pay high rent at a successful property than free rent at a low volume mall. Even with high rent, a million dollar volume store is more profitable than a half million dollar store with almost free rent. (Emphasis added.) I give them two years, maybe. Posted at 6:00 PM to General DisinterestAs the old saying goes, the three most important things in retail are location, location, and... uh... [checks notes] ...and location. Posted by: McGehee at 4:30 PM on 26 November 2005Which may be what's keeping Penn Square and 50 Penn Place at the top of the game: there's a fair amount of Old Money in the area, and Old Money tends to stay put a lot more than New Money. (How I got into this neighborhood, I'll never know.) |