Best Buy in Matteson is Closing Down on May 12th (Chicago: for rent, credit)

[sunnyandcloudydays]

Correct me if I am wrong but if Sears leaves it leaves one anchor.
and the sinking titanic is leaning on its side!

Even if you do not shop at Sears it is still the name recognition that pulls others to Lincoln Mall.
It is not going to look favorable if you have one end that is a left over construction zone--- and the other end vacant...
and across the parking lot is the shell of what used to be Best Buy.

I am sure it will be challenging at best to find a replacement for Sears.
If not impossible.

Mattteson is hard to figure out as you have some new stores and some neglected stores.

Now that I think about it did they ever find a replacement for the fun in motion that was off lincoln hwy

Then I was traveling up 57 and noticed they still had the signs up for the future chicago outlet mall in country club hills ...

That is going to be a must for the matteson area .

[EdmondLau]

Best Buy and Sears themselves were in trouble for a long time. Factor in aging stores and it was kind of "logical" for them to close them. I think Best Buy was always a little tricky with judging how packed the parking lot was because it was a very small parking lot.

I worked for Sears for a couple of years and the company just made one bad decision after another. It was just a matter of time and it's just a matter of time before the other stores close as well.

Breaks my heart to see all the businesses closing and leaving Matteson. I don't live there anymore but I always consider it "home."

[linicx]

/m

[linicx]

Any time a foreign company decides to build in an area they are not intimately familiar with it is risky. Sears has been a part of the American fabric for well over a 100 years, but they too may fold like Montomery Ward due to bad decisions and the economy. They probably should take a page from Target and Lowe's and create interest through advertising. There is far more to Sears than appliances. The problem with most corporate suits is they rarely listen to customers.

I personally think the biggest problem with Sears is delivery in rural areas and BULLY tactics. It is all due to where the warehouses are located. Driver's don't want to go 200 miles to deliver a washer.

[sunnyandcloudydays]

Last major appliance we bought was at k mart like know they were carrying the sears brands..

i tried to support them.
Did not even shop at a single other store.

[urza216]

I just thought this recent post was relevant to this thread too.

Originally Posted by lifelongchicagoland

I used to think that Frankfort, Tinley Park, and Orland Park all hard large black populations based on my limited experiances shopping and dining out with friends. It wasn't until I joined Citydata that I discovered that there isn't a significant black population residing in any of these towns. So why do I see so many at Buffalo Wild Wings in Tinley Park & Frankfort, and the upscale Coopers Hawk Winery in Orland Park?

The answer is simple, they LOVE to hang out and shop out there. They come from all over the south suburbs and even Chicago! Seriously, I work with 2 black women from the south side and they drive all the way from 39th and King (Bronzeville), ignore downtown Chicago due to lack of free parking, pass Evergreen Plaza and Chicago Ridge, just to shop at Orland Square! Now don't get me wrong, it's an ok mall. But compared to downtown and other malls up north, it's a pathetic joke! No Nordstrom, no Cole Haan, not even a Louis Vuitton. Just "anywhere USA" type of stores like Banana Republic, Apple and Macys. Point is that the Chicago Southland is so underserved that Frankfort/Orland/Tinley are like magnets attracting blacks from all over the south side of Chicago and South Suburbs. I've even heard north side blacks talking about a baby shower that they were attending at Aurelios in Frankfort!

What a lot of folks wont easily admit is that even if there are two identical chain stores (same square footage, size etc), the store in the black area tends to be more run down and have poorer service and selection. Here's an example. Go to the Carson's at Lincoln Mall, then go to Orland. I PROMISE that Orland will have better service, selection and nicer people. Try Applebees. Same thing. It's not about black people being racist against themselves. It's about service, atmosphere and selection. No higher class person, black or white, wants to deal with the loud teenage girls and rude thuggish men that congregate in the Matteson area. So, the blacks that don't want to deal with it just drive 15 min west to Frankfort. Anyone agree with me?

[linicx]

I've had horrible experiences with BB, CompUSA and Staples, but none of those stores were in Matteson or Chicago.

[lifelongchicagoland]

Ok, let's be real. Why is Matteson, which is right on 57 and 30 (literally right on the highway exit) stuggling so much, while Orland, which is 3 miles off the highway with a congested nasty Route 45 as the only North/South artery doing so well? Matteson is a more convenient option for Chicagoians that are shopping, closer to more densely populated areas, and IMHO is actually a pretty nice town.

The answer is racism! Yes, an ugly word that ignites emotion. It's coming form both whites and blacks, and nobody seems to understand. Walk through the parking lots of Orland Square or Orland Park Place on the weekend. You'll see plenty of Chicago parking stickers on the parked cars. You'll see plenty of blacks, whites, and other ethnicities getting into their cars and driving back to places like Chicago, Oak Lawn, Glenwood etc.

This might sound hard to believe, but most shareholders don't care if the Best Buy is in the black area or the white area, they are simply looking to make a profit. It the store is not profitable or not meeting expectations for a given amount of time, it closes. It's not the stores redlining Matteson, it's the shoppers

I'll be the first to admit, I'm all for living in a racially diverse area. I make a concioius choice to live in towns and neighborhoods that are diverse. Most white people that are not of the Liberal mindset do the exact opposite. Do they hate black/hispanic/asian people? Most do not per se. However, no one wants to deal with disrespectful attitudes, crime, and schools that are not performing, and that tends to be the perception of towns that are ethnically diverse in the south suburbs.

Yet, when I choose to spend my hard earned money, I drive right out of Logan Square, head northwest on the Kennedy, leave the city of Chicago that I love so much, and park my car for free at Old Orchard Mall. I make a concious choice to bypass Michigan Ave because I refuse to pay $13-26 for parking if I don't find an item to purchase that would validate my parking expense. I could ride the Blue and Red lines to State Street and Michigan Ave, but then I have to worry about teenage thugs eyeing my Bloomingdales bag and IPhone and hope to not be a victim of a crime. Who in their right mind (Liberal, Conservative, Black, White, Green it doesn't matter) wants to deal with that crap when all they want to do is relax and walk around for a couple hours?

So, for those that don't work for big corporations, let me explain again. Corporations want to make a profit. While there may or may not be a good code of ethics about how this profit is made, they are all accountable to the shareholders to make a level of profit. The shareholders aren't concerned about whether the television was bought by a black person or a white person, so long as the corporation is making profits. Best Buy doesn't care about the racial demographics of Matteson. What it cares about is the profit/loss statements coming out of that store. And when the store wasn't living up to expectations, another one bites the dust!

[sunnyandcloudydays]

Put racism to the side for a moment and put on a different hat.

Lets say your the chief exec at carsons you have 100k people with disposable incomes of 5k a month or you have 100k people with disposable income of 100 dollars a month.

Doesnt take much to figure out where to put your larger store with better service.

you put it where people have disposable income to spend

not saying matteson doesnt have wealthy people but your chances of success are going to be much higher than in matteson

you are dealing with corporate america and dealing with shareholders who wish to see results not the equality of america just the bottom line.

[urza216]

Matteson is on the southern fringes of Cook County. I'd never describe it as "convenient" in any kind of greater Chicagoland sense. It's convenient for me, sure.

Orland isn't all that far from Midway.