Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/122387
urban outfitters and guitar center split a former borders store in emeryville, calif. 2011 bankruptcy. Even in economically pressed Michigan, 11 of 18 former Borders stores had been absorbed as of February, and several other deals are in the works, according to published reports. One of those is in Borders' former home base of Ann Arbor, where its twolevel, 44,000-square-foot flagship store is getting subdivided into five first-floor retail and restaurant spaces and a bank of second-floor offices. In Billings, Mont., Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts took over a former Borders, beating out about a half dozen other retailers. The Fresh Market took over a Borders space on stately St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans last summer, while Walgreens is refilling a three-floor Borders space in central Philadelphia where it will repeat some new-concept stores it has already opened in New York City and Chicago. This blitz seems set to continue. A few miles from the Notre Dame cam- 212 SCT / M a y 2 0 1 3 The Container Store, The Fresh Market, Earth Fare, Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts, Walgreens and Whole Foods are among the chains replacing Borders. pus, in South Bend, Ind., Whole Foods Market was preparing at press time for an April opening in a vacated Borders. Meanwhile, organic-foods supermarket Earth Fare has taken over a Borders space in Noblesville, near Indianapolis. "Borders had great real estate, and, unlike a lot of the vacant boxes, it was a part of that same tribal gathering of tenants that went into many of the modern-day lifestyle centers," said David Palmer, head of Dallas–Fort Worth development for Cencor Realty Services. The Container Store, Last Call by Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom Rack are among those reoccupying vacated Borders in Texas. Some emptied Borders sites are even going to nonretailers: A former Borders at Westfield Southcenter Mall, near Seattle, went to Hope of the City Church. But the trend involves more than Borders boxes. Of 21 vacated Circuit City stores in Michigan, 17 are now reoccupied or scheduled to be reoccupied, press reports say, including a lease near Oakland Mall, in Troy, Mich., to Classic Auto Showplace. A 41,000-square-foot space in Houston's Westchase District that once housed Syms was bought by locally based Tennis Express, which is using it not just as