If you’ve done any traveling around the country lately, you’ve surely spotted stores in big cities and small towns that have been vacated and often shrouded in paper or plywood. I say “shrouded” because these stores have died in large part because of the retail market disruption caused by on-line merchants like Amazon, Costco and Walmart, which make buying stuff so easy folks can do it from home and avoid hopping in the car and charging off to a brick-and-mortar outlet that used to get their business.
I don’t know about you, but I think the sight of a shuttered store is really sad, especially when it’s not one but a dozen places, often right next to each other, some wearing “for lease” signs, others nothing (why bother?). Stores are closing, but so have shops in the malls. Even entire malls have gone down the chute after spending months or years in a death rattle where only a quarter of the original merchants still kept their doors open.
For my part, the saddest of all are the places which enjoyed the services of a coin machine operator. Restaurants, bars and the like have also suffered from the loss of foot traffic (impulse visitors prowling downtown who’d drop in for a burger while out shopping). But like most disruptions, there’s often a silver lining for some, while Mom and Pop take an early retirement. I’m talking about repurposing the real estate.
I live near the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks and while visiting a Spectrum store for a new modem and router recently, I noticed that the old Sears store across the street was now a Dave & Buster’s. By the way, there’s a Chuck E. Cheese within walking distance of this new D&B. In the nearby town of Moorpark, an old sporting goods emporium that went down the hole is now a gorgeous, new Lucky Strike (which only just opened another bowling entertainment complex in the old Beverly Center down in L.A.) complete with huge windows facing the street.
So, out goes Sears and in goes beers…and lotza games, too! Such a move isn’t all that unique in these times, as readers know. So, keep the eyes open for repurposing empty property for yourself (maybe an arcade, or a coffee shop that could use a jukebox?) or for the business that’s moving in that could use a couple of cranes. Opportunity comes to those who take the blinders off!