Linens 'n Things store No. 1204 in Sacramento closed on a Sunday in mid- August. Within 48 hours, as if the store had never existed at all, its sign vanished.
A simple note replaced it, typed on two standard sheets of white paper: "Sorry," it told surprised shoppers at the front doors: "It's all gone."
Empty stores like this one at the Promenade in Natomas, one of the area's largest non-mall shopping centers, are becoming an all-too common sight inside this wobbly economy.
No doubt, people still shop like there's no tomorrow. But the growing store closings and empty commercial spaces are an eerie echo of the housing downturn that has slammed the region. Mervyns is in bankruptcy proceedings and wants to close some stores; Sharper Image has shut its doors.
You see it on Wall Street, too: more losses at Home Depot, a second-quarter dive in profits at Staples, losses at Target and plans to open fewer stores next year.
For the longest time, the retail sector and commercial real estate were relatively immune to the meltdown that spread through residential real estate.
No more. An almost identical chain of events that took down housing in Sacramento is spreading into shopping and its vast network of building owners, leasing agents and national investment brokers.
"As the bottom was dropping out of the housing market, I hardly noticed a thing," said Scott Crowle, associate director of national retail for Encino-based brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap. "Then it trickled down to my business."
Crowle works in the broker's Rose-ville office. It recently released a national index that ranked Sacramento's retail scene in the bottom quarter of 43 U.S. metro areas. Job losses, falling home equity and store vacancies pushed the region – El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties – to 32nd nationally, down four places from last year.
Like home builders in 2005 and 2006, commercial developers in the region overbuilt in 2007 and are still building as consumer spending slows. Major new centers have opened in Roseville; new ones will open at Woodland's Gateway this year and Folsom's Palladio next year. Citrus Heights is adding numerous new neighborhood centers.
Only Elk Grove's Promenade, a huge outdoor mall with traditional department stores planned as anchors, is holding back its opening date until the housing market improves.
As with housing the past two years, there is too much supply in the commercial sector and too little demand. Building values are falling. Rents are, too. Centers in suburbs that saw the most new housing are the hardest hit. And while commercial delinquencies are low by historic standards, they're rising.
Ask Crowle about what's ahead and he offers a hunch that "consumer spending is going to keep getting worse – and have a lagging effect on retail commercial properties." In other words: bigger trouble.
But one sector seems to be bearing most of the brunt so far. Crowle and other analysts say that smaller retail centers will see the worst of it. They need the mom and pop stores to fill their spaces, the brokers say – and Mom and Pop are tapped out. Their home equity is declining and credit is hard to come by.
The advantage now is with national tenants. Indeed, the region's largest centers – with their Wal-Marts, Best Buys, Home Depots, Targets, Staples and other "big box" stores – are hanging tough. They're situated along Highway 50 and Interstates 5 and 80, the giant so-called "power centers" that lure shoppers by the tens of thousands.
Retail properties in Sacramento's urban core are also strong, brokers say. Crowle said nine investors recently bid up an Office Max building on J Street downtown, and losers are "interested in anything in downtown or midtown."
At the Promenade in Natomas, confidence is high that a new national tenant will fast fill its Linens 'n Things vacancy. The 2-year-old center counts almost 750,000 residents within 10 miles, in households that average $60,201 in annual income.
Call The Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102. Read his real estate blog, Home Front, at www.sacbee.com/blogs.
