BY BORYS KRAWCZENIUK / Published: March 25, 2018
MOOSIC — From the hair salon she manages, Tammy Szajkowski looks across the Birney Mall parking lot and worries.
A chain-link fence surrounds the parking spaces in front of the former Kmart. Cellophane tape holds up a sign that says “Store Is Closed” on the massive building’s locked front door.
When January ended, Kmart joined Big Lots as longtime mall tenants that disappeared.
“From the time Big Lots left — just over five years they’ve been gone — we saw a dramatic change in traffic, just customers alone coming in here,” said Szajkowski, a stylist and manager of Holiday Hair next door to where Big Lots was. “This is such a huge plaza and everything is disappearing. And, it’s leaving us little guys behind, really … We don’t see that traffic coming in and quite frankly, it’s scary.”
All across the country, as Sears, Kmart and other large retailers close thousands of established stores, neighboring stores feel pinched. Last year, chain retailers broke a record no one celebrated: they closed 6,985 stores, more than triple the number in 2016 and far beyond the 6,163 store closings in 2008 in the midst of the Great Recession, according to Coresight Research, which tracks the retail industry.
Numerous retailers have filed for bankruptcy protection or liquidation, including well-known names like Toys R Us, Gymboree, Payless ShoeSource, Gander Mountain, RadioShack (again) and hhgregg.
One analyst termed it “a retail Armageddon.”
The Kmart stores in the Birney Mall and Dickson City closed in January. Kmarts in Honesdale, Pittston Twp. and Hazle Twp. are scheduled to close in early April. Sears closed its store at the Viewmont Mall in Dickson City in 2016. Gander Mountain and hhgregg closed stores in Dickson City last year, although Gander reopened as Gander Outdoors. Several RadioShack stories across the region closed last year, too. Toys ‘R’ Us recently announced it plans to close all is stores, including in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Many locations remain empty. A couple of strip malls along Business Route 6 either have no tenants or some vacant space. The Eynon Plaza in Archbald, home to Burlington Coat Factory, Big Lots, Dollar General, Pearle Vision and Holiday Hair stores, has five vacant storefronts. This fall, it will have another unless a new tenant comes along: Burlington plans to move that store into the Dickson City Crossings space that once housed Dick’s Sporting Goods, which opened up in a new wing of the Viewmont Mall where the Sears stood before closing.
John Cognetti, president of Hinerfeld Commercial Real Estate, said retail store shakeouts happen from time to time. Though this one will run deeper, building and land managers will adjust, Cognetti said.
The first property he sold was the building that now houses the Walmart in Taylor. Lackawanna County obtained it to store its voting machines before moving them to other locations later. The building then housed a Jamesway department store and now a Walmart Supercenter.
His point: as retailers disappear, real-estate owners and managers adapt new uses.
The Commonwealth Charter Academy on Business Route 6 in Dickson City once housed a pet store. Office Max office supplies and B. Levy’s shoe stores farther up Business Route 6 were converted into the McCann School of Business. That closed, too, but that building sold and has a new owner who operates offices there.
Cognetti, who manages the former Dickson City Kmart location, said he expects a big change in its use there.
“That location is going to do something that’s nothing like what it is today,” he said. Except to say he expects the building will be split up into different uses, Cognetti declined to say what’s planned.
That location already has one building adapted to a new use. A decade ago, the Parker Hill Community Church opened a new location in the former Endless Mountains Theater.
Strip malls like the Birney Mall that lose major tenants often cope by attracting non-retail tenants whose presence depends less on consumers’ willingness to spend money.
Years ago, besides Big Lots, the mall had a Fashion Bug and a state liquor store. Both are gone. Now, the mall has an Empire Beauty School, where students learn hair styling and cosmetology, and a Davita Dialysis that treats people with kidney ailments.
“The thing about retail sites is a lot of them are in good locations,” Cognetti said.
Cognetti points out the former Kmart stores are along heavily traveled roads or highways with traffic signals to get customers in and out. The Birney Mall sits on flat land and has lots of room for further development, he said.
“Somebody will come up with a creative reuse,” he said. “There’s lots of alternative uses.”
Rhonda May, a manager at Pro Fitness Club in the Birney Mall, said Kmart produced at least some traffic for the fitness center, and staff feared the worst when the store closed. Pro Fitness began offering cheaper memberships and business is about the same, May said.
Tara Larsen, a manager at the nearby Dino & Francesco’s Pizzeria & Family Restaurant, said the restaurant is weathering Kmart’s departure just fine. She credited the restaurant’s loyal customers.
“Our business has not been affected at all. I don’t see it,” Larsen said. “It’s not been slower.”
Szajkowski gives thanks for loyal customers, too.
“But of course, like any business, we want to attract new customers,” she said. “Bottom line, we want to continue to grow our business. We love it here … We’re such a small store and to see people coming and going, that kind of gives us the opportunity for them to say, ‘Hey, I can get my hair done.’ We miss that a lot because that did bring people to us.”
Contact the writer:
bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com;
570-348-9147;
@BorysBlogTT on Twitter
