Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Gyms and discount stores are replacing failed department stores in Southern Nevada.
As larger retailers exit, vacancies filled by dollar stores, thrifts
BAKARY Coulibaly’s worries over a closed grocery store near his Las Vegas home turned to happiness when he saw what would replace the empty space.
Where a Fresh & Easy supermarket once stood near the intersection of Vegas and Buffalo drives, Coulibaly and his neighbors received a new location of the Family Dollar variety and discount store chain.
“It is a huge convenience for my wife and family,” he said. “Our closest 99 cent store was miles away.”
Coulibaly welcomed the new discount store. And, as data show, other Las Vegas residents — and shoppers countrywide — must get used to seeing discount stores and gyms replace failed large-scale retailers that formerly drew customers to shopping centers.
Grocers out, discount in
Locally, Fresh & Easy and other traditional grocers made up 34 percent of the 82 large-scale stores that have vacated shopping centers between 2008 and 2017, according to data from commercial real estate firm Colliers.
They were followed by department and clothing stores, which made up 12 percent of Las Vegas retail vacancies in that period.
Replacing the vacant spaces locally are discount stores. Family Dollar, other dollar stores, thrift stores and flea markets composed about 40 percent of the 56 stores that have taken over vacated retail space in Southern Nevada since 2008.
John Stater, a local researcher for Colliers, said his May 2017 study of Las Vegas retail finished before the closings of Glazier’s Food Marketplace, Kmart and Toys R Us.
Data from trade group International Council of Shopping Centers show
1,323 openings in 2017 for discount stores like Family Dollar, a 21 percent increase year over year, council spokeswoman Stephanie Cegielski said in an email.
The recession sparked a wave of price consciousness that continues today that makes discount stores such as Goodwill of Southern Nevada appealing to younger shoppers, Cegielski said.
Goodwill Chief Operating Officer John Stoddard said the nonprofit is on a hunt for larger-footprint stores for an all-in-one donation center and sales space.
Gyms No. 2
Gyms, fitness clubs and similar retail are the No. 2 replacement of vacated large-scale stores. Colliers found that fitness clubs and similar retail make up 14 percent of the 56 stores that have taken over vacated retail space in Southern Nevada since 2008.
The change was no sweat to Donna DiAntonio. The Henderson resident lives less than 5 miles from an Eos fitness club that took over 35,000 square feet of the 50,0000 square feet that supermarket chain Vons vacated during the recession. Eos opened that location, the brand’s latest, in summer 2017.
The brand does built-to-suit locations and fills in vacated space, said Eric McCauley, local vice president of operations for Eos.
An Eos location can see as many as 10,000 members, McCauley said.
Open 2 hours, the fitness centers welcome customers at unusual hours and multiple times a week, bringing customers to nearby strip mall offerings, he said. Many customers buy gas while they’re out and stop at convenience stores for water and food.
The fitness centers hire at least 40 employees per location, and the brand hopes to open another three to five local places in the near future, McCauley said.
In another local shopping center, which was formerly anchored by a Stein Mart, the replacement Eos brought shoppers back.
“This plaza was dead,” McCauley said. “We re-energized the plaza.”
DiAntonio, 51, didn’t shop much at the Vons near Russell and Pecos roads that Eos replaced, she said. But since she started going to the fitness club about four months ago, she finds herself in the the shopping center at least twice a week.
She said she probably would spend money at a juice shop or healthy restaurant if one opened nearby.
International Council of Shopping Centers data show 271 gyms and fitness centers today in shopping centers of 400,000-plus square feet, though those gyms aren’t necessarily in large-scale spaces. That is a 7 percent increase year over year, Cegielski said.
More than one-third of U.S. adults went to gyms in those type of shopping centers during the first quarter of 2018. In that same period, nearly half of U.S. adults went to gyms in openair shopping centers, according to council data.
Consumer demand for healthy choices and easy access has led to a boon for traditional gyms and offerings with smaller footprints, such as spin and yoga classes, Cegielski said. The number of millenials — people born between the 1980s and mid1990s — going to boutique fitness studios doubled from 2013 to 2014. Those boutiques represent 42 percent of the market.
The nutrition and personal health markets have seen increases in how much customers spend, she said.
“Americans are willing to spend
more when it comes to their health,” she said.
Death of a grocer
The Fresh & Easy where Coulibaly shopped had been a casualty of a British supermarket chain failing to launch stateside.
The store at Buffalo and Vegas drives was one of three Fresh & Easy locations to open in October 2008. The Fresh & Easy chain had a total of about 20 locations in the Las Vegas area at the time.
In fall 2015, strapped for cash and unable to get financing, the chain announced the close of all 97 U.S. stores.
Coulibaly, a married father of two daughters, lost a 24-hour supermarket where he could buy vegetables and fruits at midnight and 1 a.m.
“We would just go to grab stuff,” he said. “I was worried. It was such easy access for us.”
The Family Dollar replaced the grocery store and opened on Feb. 22. Coulibaly has used the store for inexpensive items like dish soap.
He shops there about once a week, as often as he shopped at the Fresh & Easy.