Think Jacksonville is the only city with adversity and doom and gloom with keeping retail downtown? Think again. Downtown Houston got punched twice in the gut this week with announced closings of their Macy's and a two-story Books A Million.
Macy's closing 4 Downtown stores across USOf the 5 Macy's closings nationwide, 4 are downtown stores...
Macy's:
Downtown Honolulu, HI (80,000 square feet; opened in 1850 (store must be late 1970s vintage); 91 associates);
QuoteMacy's Inc. announced Thursday morning the company will close six stores across the country including its downtown store here in Honolulu. Close to a hundred people could be out of a job. For decades residents have shopped at this downtown department store.
full article: http://www.khon2.com/news/local/story/Downtown-Macys-store-closing-this-year/Iq84xuCUC0igsdezkQT0qA.cspx?rss=1803
Downtown St. Paul, MN (362,000 square feet; opened in 1963; 153 associates);
QuoteMacy's will be shutting the doors of its St. Paul store this spring, closing out an era of River Room popovers and lunch-time shopping and ending 50 years of department store operations on Wabasha Street going back to Dayton's.
full article: http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/185462222.html?refer=y
Downtown Houston, TX (791,000 square feet; opened in 1947; 138 associates).
QuoteThe downtown Macy's, a once-powerful shopping draw that in recent years had become more of a lunchtime hangout for office workers needing a new pair of shoes or a last-minute gift, will shut down this spring, the retailer said Thursday.
The owner of the building is planning to tear down the 10-story structure and develop an office tower in its place, Mayor Annise Parker said Thursday afternoon, addressing the store's closure and announcing a new plan to increase retail in downtown.
full article: http://www.chron.com/business/real-estate/article/Macy-s-to-make-final-sale-in-downtown-building-4166141.php
Paseo Colorado, Pasadena, CA (158,000 square feet; opened in 1980; 116 associates);
QuoteMacy’s Inc. has announced that it’s closing several stores, including one of its locations in Pasadena.
The store is one of six “underperforming†locations nationwide that the retailer is shutting down.
Other locations being closed include stores in Las Vegas, Houston and Honolulu.
The 158,000-square-foot store being closed in Pasadena is at the Paseo Colorado shopping mall.
full article: http://ktla.com/2013/01/04/macys-to-close-pasadena-store/
Belmont, MA (75,000 square feet; opened in 1978; 101 associates);
It's not just Macy's....the Saks store closed in Charleston very recently. Not doing poorly, but "underperforming."
Rhetorical question of the day --- Would downtown department stores have more of a fighting chance if they remained in the hands of local and regional companies? Macy's did a great job of gobbling up legendary chains such as Marshall-Field's, but does not have the same stake in our communities...
I think too much emphasis is placed on downtown sometimes. Especially, when it comes to the retail sector. Downtown has more people residing in it today than it has had since the early 20th century, however the era of the major stores in downtown died 25 years ago.
Major retailers draw from a market pool that has always been much larger than downtown. In our case, downtown simply happened to be a major destination for a core city that had 50% more people living in it in 1950 than it does today. As the old city, stretching from Panama Park to Ortega and St. Nicholas has declined in population, so has the downtown retail those areas supported.
If we want to see major retail return to downtown, we've got to stop treating that district like a gated community and start viewing things from a larger perspective. That means, for retail to bloom in the Northbank, it's just as important to repopulate and reconnect the neighborhoods within a 3-mile radius of downtown that had 200,000 people combined living in them at their (and downtown's) peak.
Amen, Lakelander!
Lakelander - I'm a bit confused (but I could totally just be misreading your comment). You stated that Downtown Jax currently has more residents than it has had since the early 20th century, then you mention that Downtown had 50% more people living in it in 1950 than it does today.
Those seem to be contradicting statements.
I mentioned the urban core had 50% more people living in it than 1950. You can loosely define Jacksonville's urban core as the pre-consolidated built out 30 square mile city of Jacksonville that was actually developed to be walkable and dense.
(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/photos/thumbs/lrg-6961-1937.jpg)
Pre-consolidated Jacksonville in red. Neighborhoods within this area were platted before the 1940s and developed during an era when people actually walked.
Downtown is simply one of several neighborhoods within the urban core. Neighborhoods like San Marco, Riverside, Springfield, New Town, Durkeeville, Brentwood, Phoenix Avenue, Eastside, Brooklyn, LaVilla, etc. are all a part of the urban core.
When this "urban core" area was healthy with 7,000 people per square mile within a 3-mile radius of downtown, downtown was at it's peak. When the original suburban malls opened, downtown still remained healthy for 20 years because the neighborhoods surrounding it still had a high population living in them that downtown's retail sector served. As these neighborhoods steadily declined in population density, so did the retail market downtown served.
If you want a long term sustainable healthy downtown retail sector, it will take more than a convention center, a park at the Shipyards or 10,000 people living in the Northbank. You need a little bit of those things sprinkled in with a lot of connectivity and revitalization of the urban core neighborhoods surrounding it.
Got it, thanks! I see that now, having re-read your original post and it seems pretty clear, actually. But I really appreciate the clarification as well ;)
Our city's scattershot approach to urban planning is a major culprit behind the gradual decline of its downtown. Competing and contradictory visions are worse than no vision at all in my opinion.
Great analysis on how downtown retail works.
Chicago killed their downtown retail in the late 70's when in an attempt to compete with malls they converted State street to a bus only parkway. What they found out later is that it wasn''t malls that was killing it, it was over emphasis of building strictly office buildings in the city core. They saw people making the flight to the burbs, so they just created more business towers to keep people working there.
The death to State Street was overwhelming.
Oddly, the only original retail anchor left is Macy's, which is in the old Marshall Fields.
Macy's is still digesting the wild range of stores they acquired through their rash of mergers. Many of these stores in central urban locations are old, have high costs per square foot.
Chicago has changed course and has actively pursued downtown living along with the businesses. Its still a tough sell, the Block 37 development took many years to pull together and still has issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago%27s_Block_37 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago%27s_Block_37)
I suspect it wont be any easier for Jax.
State St. in Chicago is doing pretty well now. The Marshall Fields is now Macy's flagship store in the city. Target just opened in an old department store space and all the retail spots are filled. Block 37 still has trouble but I believe the first few floors are mostly filled now.
I'm surprised those cities still had a Macy's in their downtowns. The one in Atlanta closed years ago. Department stores in general are going the way of the dinosauer, smaller and more specialized retail is the way to go for DT, as that is the trend elsewhere anyway.
Quite a few still have department stores in their downtowns. Here is a rough list of the cities that still have a Macy's in their downtown:
NYC (historic stand alone)
Brooklyn (historic stand alone)
Boston (historic stand alone)
Philadelphia (historic stand alone)
DC (stand alone)
Chicago - State Street (historic stand alone)
Chicago - N. Michigan (urban mall)
Miami (historic stand alone)
Pittsburgh (historic stand alone)
Minneapolis (historic stand alone)
Cincinnati (urban mall)
St. Louis (historic stand alone)
San Francisco (historic stand alone)
Los Angeles (urban mall)
Seattle (historic stand alone)
Portland, OR (historic stand alone)
Spokane, WA (historic stand alone)
Walla Walla, WA (historic stand alone)
Salem, OR (urban mall)
Providence, RI (urban mall)
San Diego (urban mall)
Sacramento (urban mall)
Salt Lake City (urban mall)
A few other cities that still have non-Macy's downtown dept. stores - Scranton (mall with Boscov's and the Bon-Ton), Binghamton (stand-alone Boscov's), Norfolk (mall with Nordstrom's and Dillards'), Charleston WV (mall with three anchor stores), San Antonio (mall with, I think, Dillard's as the only anchor).
I think Cincinnati also has a downtown Saks. Dallas has the flagship Neiman-Marcus, of course.
yes...Cincy has Macy's and Saks downtown...howvere, while walking through the Macy's this past summer on a Sunday, I noticed no customers in the store
I do not believe there will be a Macy's in our downtown however if they put one here and did not put anymore in the area it may perform well. My guess is the other downtown Macy's have suburban Macy's to compete with.
^The only thing is, if they only added one at SJTC or Avenues, and added no more to the market, one at those locations would outperform an isolated downtown location. Since they are in the business to make money, they would easily decide to follow the dollars.
Quote from: tufsu1 on January 07, 2013, 09:29:54 AM
yes...Cincy has Macy's and Saks downtown...howvere, while walking through the Macy's this past summer on a Sunday, I noticed no customers in the store
Yes, I noticed the same thing while walking through the one in downtown St. Louis. I suspect more downtown closings across the country will be happening as time goes on.
I would't worry about Macy's, a downtown mall (that are just like suburban malls) or anything else like that. Downtowns & urban cores should really be concentrating on connecting people, civic improvements, sustainability, quality of life enhancements & smaller local businesses. Let the outlining areas & suburbs suffer when a lot of these big box businesses ultimately fail in light of the new age of internet commerce, 3D printing, etc.
I think DT development will be a) destinations that suburbanites will come to regularly and b) housing and some amenities for urbanites. Most of the retail will be for the urbanites because there's already plenty of that in the burbs. I expect DT retail development to continue to be what is already happening (convenience stores, dollar stores, restaurants, bars). Destinations for suburbanites will continue to be entertainment related. IMO COJ should be facilitating what the private sector wants to do not deciding what is done and how it's done.