Sears to shutter 1st floor at Seminole Towne Center

[thelakelander]

Not in Jacksonville but one has to wonder if this tread is on its way to Jacksonville retailers?  May-Cohens did this with the downtown Jacksonville store before eventually closing it altogether.

SANFORD â€" The bottom floor of the Sears at Seminole Towne Center will soon become history, as the struggling retailer drops its clothing line at the Sanford mall.

Sears would not give details about why it will cut its floor space in half next month.

A company spokeswoman did say in an email that 10 stores nationwide will stop selling apparel. But the other stores will not consolidate onto one floor, she said.

Retail analysts say closing a floor could be an experiment that Sears will eventually repeat at other stores.

"It shows you the sales really aren't there," said David Marks, president of Orlando-based Marketplace Advisors, a real estate-consulting firm. "It's cheaper to mothball the space than to operate it. You see that with all kinds of big boxes in the marketplace."

Rent isn't an issue because Sears owns the building. But Marks said the retailer could save money on operating costs such as air-conditioning, lighting and staffing.

Two-story department stores are disappearing around the country, and malls find themselves unable to bring in new ones. Some are filling the spaces with one-story tenants, while others are razing the buildings completely.

"Nobody else needs that much square footage," Orlando-based retail consultant Britt Beemer said.

full article: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-19/business/os-sears-seminole-towne-center-20120319_1_sears-retailer-seminole-towne-center

[Jaxson]

Empty anchor space in shopping malls can leave quite a scar.  I remember when Hutzler's closed and left a giant space open in suburban Baltimore's Security Square Mall.  I remember that they tried to fill the vacancy on the first floor with an arcade.  It looked like a poor fit...

[tufsu1]

Empty anchor space in shopping malls can leave quite a scar.  I remember when Hutzler's closed and left a giant space open in suburban Baltimore's Security Square Mall.  I remember that they tried to fill the vacancy on the first floor with an arcade.  It looked like a poor fit...

wow...now that is a pretty impressive memory...I had forgot about Hutzler's completely!