Thursday, January 22, 2009

Will Somersville Towne Center Survive?



Somersville Towne Center, a roughly 500,000 sq. ft. enclosed mall in Antioch California, is one of the Bay Area's most vulnerable malls. With the departure of Mervyn's late last year and possible closing of the Gottschalk's chain in 2009, the mall will have lost half its anchor tenants.

It's no secret that malls suffer after loosing an anchor. But loosing two anchors often signals the end of any shopping center. Remember San Mateo Fashion Island mall, which was demolished after loosing two of its four anchor tenants?

The above images, taken from Somersville Towne Center's current store directory, shows a total of 67 potential stores (exterior strip and interior mall). Currently, 13 space are unoccupied (in red), leaving a 19.4% vacancy rate.

We'll keep a close eye on this mall as an economic indicator of retailing in the Bay Area.

Scott

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The former County East Mall has always been dead and since the area surrounding it has turned into one the bay area's biggest crime areas I was shocked when Macy's had that big opening a couple years ago.

I thought that would jump start the center, at least in the short term, but it did nothing for the center.

Anonymous said...

i am a weekly visitor to the somersville town center, i saw it being built. i go just to relax, hang out or sometimes shop. it saddens me to see more and more stores leaving. what else will fold? for one the rents are way to high for the stores and kiosks, and 2, to expensive stores are comming in, this isn't walnut creek, were average living here. need more fast food and cheaper affordable stores, with the economy as it is, high rents and high prices are't going to do it. i pedict more stores will close, it this keeps up, i am sad to say.

Anonymous said...

we did not need a fancy high priced store like macys here, that is probably gottchalks went under. its dead alot except for some weekends, and holidays, it has nothing affordable to offer us. i can't shop there any more as things are to high, just basically go to eat, and look, other malls around beat someersville towne center bad.