Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Vacant Building Gets a New Tenant

Just last month Macy’s announced it will open a store in Palmdale, CA, beginning in the fall of 2010. The single story location is 110,000-square-feet. Now Macy’s will be located in the Antelope Valley Mall at the former Gottschalk’s location, and this will be Macy’s first presence in the Antelope Valley.
Macy’s press release indicated it will offer a full range of apparel and accessories for women, men and children, as well as housewares, home textiles and luggage, and the store will employ approximately 130 associates.
The previous department store chain Gottschalks Inc had stores in California, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Nevada and Idaho, but put itself up for sale and then filed to reorganize in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January of 2009. The location has been vacant for over a year now, and caused a blight in the mall.
The other anchor stores are JC Penny’s, Sears, and Dillard’s with smaller national chains like Pier 1 Imports, Men’s Wearhouse, and 24-Hour Fitness.
The Mall opened in 1990 and it actually sits above a wash of snow runoff from the neighboring San Gabriel Mountains. Land in this area sold for under a thousand an acre because of the wash, while unencumbered land sold for much much more. The city devised a wash channel via pipelines which now runs beneath today’s Mall. Prior land speculators saw the opportunity back in the 70’s and 80’s as Macy’s has found a new location for their expansion.

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