Ground is shifting under brick and morter merchants

A rash of store closings is a sign that the ground has shifted under bricks-and-mortar merchants, with consequences for the retail sector and district communities. The death notice typically goes out several months before the sad event. In a terse press release, the retailer explains why it must close the store and dozens of others across the country in order to position the company for future growth and enhance shareholder value. A liquidation sale follows, and over the next few weeks, shoppers and resellers hunting for bargains strip the store down to its fixtures. Finally, the doors are locked, the lights turned out and a place that was once a hive of commercial and social activity is left a hollow shell fronted by an empty parking lot. This sequence has played out numerous times this year in the Ninth District, in big cities such as Minneapolis (where Macy’s closed its downtown store, ending 114 years of retailing in that location) to small cities such as Jamestown, N.D., and Thief River Falls, Minn., which lost their J.C. Penney stores.