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Even though a Sears is located in a mall, Sears may still own their store, plus the land under it.
I posted earlier about Sears closing the Auto Center closest to me. Their store at that site used to be at the end of an enclosed shopping mall. That mall was demolished several years ago, and redeveloped into cluster shops. But the Sears store was left untouched, and when the mall was torn down, they put stucco over the wall that adjoined the mall space, and put a fire exit door where the pass-though to the mall was. Looking at the plat map for that site, it shows Sears owns the store, along with the land the store sits on, and parking lot around the store.
I understand other major retail chains that anchor shopping malls, also often own their store building.
This might be a regional thing. The Sears up here don't own their space in the malls. They rent them. Maybe that changed over time as well. Who knows with them since they've been so many corporations over the years.
When I worked for Lowe's building a brand new store, they didn't own the land. The land they rented. It was never clear if they owned the building or if that was rented as well. So many of these leases are messy!
Synergy people - synergy. Oh and real estate. The goal was to be able to combine back room operations while becoming a larger customer to their suppliers. As for the real estate, Sears owns most of their buildings and land and those were expected to be used to support operations.
Sears just split 7 stores in the Northeast and are leasing space to Primark.
The land only has value is someone else wants it. I drive by long abandoned K-Marts, Circuit Citys, Office Max, Borders, and many other stores throughout the East Coast. So many of them have been empty for well over a decade. They can't get anyone in the building. They aren't torn down. Must be great paying all those taxes! The Northeast in particular is well known for high property taxes. Can't imagine paying tens of thousands on a vacant building year after year.
The best he can do is to slow the drain of manufacturing jobs. Ain't gonna bring any jobs back.
Oh, a token here or there maybe. But nothing substantial.
Went out to purchase a snow blower/thrower.
NONE of the manufacturers sell a snow blower with an engine Made in USA. None.
All China junk engines now. Of course, some work fine. But for how long?
Sears was the first retailer to exclusively sell all their snow blowers with made in China engines.
On to automotive brake disks rotors. ALL made in China/Taiwan. There is no USA manufacturer of automotive brake disks. None. All China junk. For the mass market that is. Some specialty shops make rotors for race cars and such.
Calm down. You get what you pay for. A $5 Made in China junk vs a $200 made in China junk is a huge difference. Obviously the $200 made in China junk is one of America's best selling phone. So much so that idiots in the us pay $900 for it.
This might be a regional thing. The Sears up here don't own their space in the malls. They rent them. Maybe that changed over time as well. Who knows with them since they've been so many corporations over the years.
When I worked for Lowe's building a brand new store, they didn't own the land. The land they rented. It was never clear if they owned the building or if that was rented as well. So many of these leases are messy!
Most mall leases are 1-50 years. I know our mall back at my home in hot springs ar, has a 20 year lease for the sears as a anchor store. From the manager their, said they are now in talks of just doing year to year lease and in search of a replacement. I can see this mall closing up soon anyways, as most of the retailers have closed up and built their own buildings. Sears coffin was when they sold to kmart.
Well if it's retail it better be. Last time I stepped foot in a Sears was when I needed a pair of work boots because mine were bring resoled. Expensive, cheaply made Chinese junk. Help was nonexistent. I finally grabbed someone whose immediate response was "I'll get someone for you, that's not my department"
I walked out went to Boot Barn and grabbed a pair of boots.
Amen...I experience that all the time and it definitely pushes you to shop on-line. But think about it, if you had received great service that day, you probably would have went back. That's the point I'm making. Service in these stores have gotten so lousy that it's pushed people to shop on-line. Stores are hiring less people and they don't train the younger generations in old school customer service.
The reason Sears of today is nothing like Sears of yesterday is they changed in order to keep up with on-line retailers. So they went cheap. They stopped hiring their own technicians to outsource labor to third party companies whose service wasn't reliable. It also made addressing problems difficult as the third party installer would deny they did anything wrong and Sears would be the middle man. The old Sears, they would just send the techs back out and take care of the problem.
Sure. And we coul all stop buying the cheap Chinese junk. Companies basically only responded to what the consumer wanted. Cheaper cheaper cheaper.
You could buy
Klein Tools
SK tools
Vaughan
Estwing
And many other companies still make hand tools here. So instead of buying a Harbor Freight buy made in USA. Companies will see their sales slipping. Imagine if EVERYONE who was buying say sockets and wrenches went to SK TOOLS instead of buying cheap Chinese crap.
You can bet those companies will take notice.
My work tools are Klein. My home tools are mainly older Craftsman and Husky. I have a cheap HF and Chinese mix of crap tools that are in my truck when I go long distance. Reason is that if I lose a piece it's no big deal it's cheap to replace it.
The American public are responsible ultimatley. They wanted to save money. So rather than pay more money for better products, they paid less for cheaper products. Now, when all the jobs are gone, they want to complain that there are no jobs. Well, no one forced you to shop on-line to save $1 versus going to your local store.
Even with all the "Doomsday Gloom" . . . I still go out of my way to support Sears.
Why?
Sears dug their own grave with terrible management over the past 30 years or so.
Better run companies like Wal Mart, Target, Costco, etc have taken their customers.
It's capitalism.
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