Many California retailers can begin curbside service Friday. Why not shopping malls?
Open-ish?
Most retailers will be able to open for curbside service as early as Friday after weeks of coronavirus orders forced storefronts to close – some, perhaps, forever.
Venerable catalog-and-mall retailer J. Crew announced it will file for bankruptcy, the first major national retail victim of the measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
Meantime, a retail sector brought to heel by the coronavirus and the dramatic lockdown measures imposed to stop its spread is eager to move. For now, shopping malls will have to wait, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday at his daily news briefing. The question now? Can curbside service replace old-fashioned foot traffic?
Curbside service will have to do, for now, just as it has for restaurants and some supermarkets.
California is just entering Phase 1 of the state’s four-phase plan to reopen. The plan doesn’t include malls.
“Those are Phase 2 activities, the larger malls,” the governor said.
Newsom promised more detailed guidelines to come Thursday to flesh out Monday’s announcement.
Sacramento’s Arden Fair mall, which has been closed since March 17, was holding out hope for Friday curbside service, mall marketing manager Nathan Spradlin said Tuesday before Newsom’s announcement.
Spradlin said the mall would designate a spot in the parking lot in front of the main entrance – between Seasons 52 and BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse – for curbside deliveries. Shoppers can drive up, park and have items delivered to their cars without having to leave the vehicle to preserve physical distancing.
Arden Fair officials reviewed Newsom’s Monday statements and believed the plan could pass muster, but were also prepared to drop the idea if shopping malls were left off Friday’s list.
Even if Newsom had given Arden Fair the green light, Spradlin said it was unclear Tuesday how many retailers would participate right away.
Reaction from tenants has been mixed. Stores would have to rush back furloughed workers and “some of our tenants understandably have a lot of logistical hurdles,” Spradlin said. How customers will respond to the new arrangement is another question for retailers, he added.
Other retailers appear eager to move, even if it is unclear when their California locations will reopen.
Macy’s says it plans to open all 775 of its stores nationwide within the next two months and incorporate a host of safety measures, including pre-shift wellness checks for employees and Plexiglas shields at customers’ checkout counters when the doors open again. Nordstrom on Tuesday announced plans to reopen stores at select locations.
Outlet giant Simon, which operates locations in Folsom and Vacaville, is well into a reopening plan that requires employees to screen themselves before reporting for work and don face masks, while Simon locations will have reconfigured common area seating, spaced restroom facilities and directional signs and floor decals to direct traffic flow, according to information in the company’s website.
Indianapolis-based Simon announced on its website Tuesday that it had reopened 59 of its properties and has plans to reopen another 18 locations “within the next week with many more to follow.”
This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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