USA TODAY International Edition
Big-box store closures create retail eyesores
DETROIT – For clues to what may happen to empty big-box stores and ailing shopping centers where people once swarmed, look to the shopping district around the Detroit suburb of Westland and its namesake mall.
When retailers such as Value City, Circuit City, Service Merchandise and Macy’s at Westland Shopping Center closed, they left behind large and vacant store buildings, a type of retail space that has gotten challenging to fill amid the explosive growth of online shopping and consumers’ changing shopping habits.
A few of these shuttered stores were eventually refilled with new stores. Others were transformed to house businesses that aren’t retail, including turning the Circuit City into a city hall. Some still sit vacant, and one big-box store was torn down.
While Westland has seen a particular abundance of large store closings, retail and development, experts say suburbs across the region have become oversaturated with stores as more shopping moves online and traditional retailers downsize.
There is general agreement that southeast Michigan now has more empty big-box and midsize stores than retail tenants to fill the space, a growing problem around the country.
“It’s not only in Michigan; it’s nationwide,” said Ron Goldstone, senior vice president at NAI Farbman, a real estate firm based in Southfield, Mich.
The proliferation of empty stores has compelled owners to be inventive when trying to refill them, chopping up properties into smaller storefronts and going after nontraditional tenants, such as trampoline centers, swimming schools, self-storage, medical facilities and light industrial workshops.
“You have to get creative, or you’re going to have a lot of empty big boxes decaying in front of your eyes and then basically being bulldozed,” Goldstone said.
Goldstone estimates one-third of empty stores in southeast Michigan could get reused in their current retail format. That has been happening to numerous old Kmarts that Kroger has transformed into new grocery stores.
For the remaining two-thirds, he believes about 60% of them could see new life through nontraditional tenants, such as gyms or storage facilities.
Prospects aren’t good for the leftovers. Some could become flea markets or bingo parlors, “or they may just sit there and eventually get torn down,” Goldstone said.