We spoke with Barbara Byrne Denham, senior economist with Moody’s Analytics REIS, about the potential impact of the closings.
NREI
Regional mall landlords are having a busy start to 2020. Just a day after news emerged that Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners will be buying bankrupt mall mainstay Forever 21 in order to keep the chain afloat, Macy’s announced it will be closing 125 of its stores over the course of the next three years.
The news is not entirely unexpected—our contributing writer Liz Wolf included a forecast for hundreds of Macy’s closings in her tally of potential 2020 store closings—but it clarified that the department store chain would like to take its focus away from the mall sector, according to comments made by Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette during an investor presentation on Wednesday.