A couple of years ago Safeway came into our small town anchoring one of those strip malls with high lease prices. We inquired about leasing a spot for one of our businesses and were shocked by the lease payments at the time. We live in a small town and these guys were charging big city prices with the traditional triple net lease. We thought wrongly that they’d price it more competitively. I’m not sure we’d actually have moved our business there even if the price was right. There’s just something that feels wrong about strip malls to me. Beyond the prices.

A UPS store moved into the mall and couldn’t make it. The newest strip mall victim we learned about over lunch today: the dollar store. You’ve seen these type stores that sell items at a buck. Some of them sell only $1 or less items but our local one sold mostly more than a $1. The store indicated their average sale was a little over $5. Their rent? In excess of $3,000 a month.

That got my brain clicking on the math alone to pay the rent: 600 sales, just to pay the rent ($5 x 600 = $3,000). Or 20 sales a day, every day of the week. Just to pay rent. Of course they weren’t open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so you have to factor in those 20 sales over a 10 hour or so workday. That’s about two customers an hour. Just to pay rent.

And none of this factors in the crime issues which they blamed on the city’s teens. What were these alleged troubled teens in our town stealing? Cosmetics.

This brings me back to the I Sold it on eBay post where I wondered how these stores can make it with strip mall lease prices? Sidenote: see me getting flamed in the comments for not knowing anything about how business works.

Less strip malls, more country stores
When this strip mall came into town, out went some of the smaller, long established businesses like the local video store owner who knew our names and greeted us with a smile. Replace that with a Blockbuster with a revolving door of employees who have trouble figuring out who you are and what you rented with your account number on the screen in front of them.

Could also complain about the tons of housing developments that are moving in. They build these houses practically right on top each other (I believe there’s 10 feet of clearance required). Who wants to live that close to their neighbor? Then there is all these restrictive association clauses that get on you for things like working on your own car. I can see not living next to a junkyard, but … wow, not thanks on some of these agreements.

I miss the country store, family-owned businesses and houses not in developments. Yeah, the prices were higher for the local businesses, but I worry about the day when nobody knows our names and we’re just account numbers being farmed out to some call center. And living in places with names other than “home.”

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