Saks and Neiman store closures are good or bad for retail landlords

The closure of a full-line Saks Fifth Avenue or Neiman Marcus store will be pure hell for some malls but a blessing for others.

You have to look at the stores on a case-by-case basis, but in some cases, the closures can wreak havoc to the shopping center’s luxury positioning and cotenancy provisions while in other cases can provide an opportunity for landlords to redevelop that space in a much more financially advantageous way.

Biltmore Fashion Park in Phoenix and Fashion Show Las Vegas, will do well even with their Saks Global stores closing, as those landlords can re-lease the space at much higher rents per square foot. But for The Collection at Chevy Chase in Maryland; The Summit in Birmingham, Alabama; The Shops at Canal Place in New Orleans; Triangle Town Center in Raleigh, North Carolina; and Utica Square in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the loss of Saks Fifth Avenue stores may be damaging.

Read more: Mall owners plot how to fill Saks Global’s abandoned space (CoStar News)