Bed Bath sites may be tough to unload
More than a dozen Bay Area locations affected as all its stores will be closed
SAN JOSE >> Bed Bath & Beyond has decided to shut all of its stores, including numerous Bay Area locations — closures that usher in the specter of more empty storefronts that may pose fresh challenges for real estate owners.
An estimated 14 stores in the Bay Area are on the Bed Bath & Beyond shutdown list, a review of current and previous filings shows.
Finding new tenants, however, might prove to be a significant challenge for Bay Area commercial property owners, at least in more than a few instances.
“It's very site-specific as to whether these retail boxes are reusable as they are now, or if they have to be redeveloped or repurposed,” said David Taxin, a partner with Meacham/Oppenheimer, a commercial real estate firm.
These are the known Bed Bath & Beyond locations in the Bay Area affected by the retailer's shutdown spree:
• Antioch, 5719 Lone Tree Way
• Daly City, 303 Gellert Boulevard
• Dublin, 4882 Dublin Boulevard
• Larkspur, 2601 Larkspur Landing Circle
• Oakland, 590 Second Street
• Pleasant Hill, 15 Crescent Drive
• Redwood City, 1950 El Camino Real
• San Francisco, 555 Ninth Street
• San Jose, 5353 Almaden Expressway
• San Leandro, 15555 East 14th Street
• Santa Clara, 5201 Stevens Creek Boulevard
• Santa Rosa, 2785 Santa Rosa Avenue
• Vacaville, 128 Browns Valley Parkway
• Vallejo, 105 Plaza Drive
Still, more than a few retailers and grocers are scouting for empty spaces to occupy.
“Ethnic grocery stores, regular supermarkets, gyms and some discount retailers have been looking for space,” Taxin said.
The main problem: There's a significant size gap in the amount of space prospective tenants are seeking compared with the relatively large size of a number of Bed Bath & Beyond stores.
“Most of the retailers or grocery markets that are looking for space want more like 25,000 to 30,000 square feet,” Taxin said. “But a lot of Bed Bath & Beyond stores are more like 35,000 square feet.”
One site that could fit the bill for multiple kinds of uses is the Bed Bath & Beyond site at 590 Sec
ond Street in Oakland, a short distance from Jack London Square.
That building is the site of the former Oakland Ironworks Building and totals about 25,000 square feet, which would be more in the range of the size the retailers and markets currently prefer.
In contrast, the shuttered
Bed Bath & Beyond store on Almaden Expressway in San Jose is on the second floor of a large building.
“With a second-story space, you don't have too many takers in the retail business for that kind of a site,” Taxin said. “Maybe a fitness center or some kind of entertainment outlet.”
The Bed Bath & Beyond spaces are a throwback to the heyday of the big-box retailer, an era that peaked before the onslaught of online
shopping that Amazon and other electronic commerce players unleashed on physical brick-and-mortar shopping.
“The big challenge now is that Bed Bath & Beyond stores were typically in an extra-large format,” Taxin said. “They were a big retailer that was successful in better times than today. Since then, a lot of retailers scaled back their expansions and scaled back the spaces they want.”