Retail Apocalypse- May 2018- Sears closing 72 more stores

In this just out CNBC article, the department store that clothed me in Toughskins as a kid, Sears, is shutting down another 72 stores.  That's after 1,000 Sears/Kmart locations that have already closed.  According to the article, many industry people think that Sears is close to filing for bankruptcy.  Here's a map of those stores closing down.  The closest to here seems to be either Charlotte or Spartenburg, SC area (hover isn't working right now).

That could hit home here in this area.  The local mall here in Winston-Salem, Hanes Mall, is one of the "average American malls" that's still doing really well.  In the struggling shopping mall world, the high end, luxury malls are mostly doing well.  The malls in really small cities are often the ones in the "dead mall" world.  There's no official designation for what constitutes a dead mall, but one with 70% or less of the shops filled (or 30%+ empty), is the sort of accepted threshold.

The Hanes Mall here is in the middle, which is why I refer to it as an"average American mall."  Some of these across the country are really struggling, some are doing just fine.  Hanes is one that's doing well.  But three of its anchor stores are Sears, J.C. Penney's, and Macy's.  J.C. Penney's has been struggling for years, and many people think its days are really numbered.  Now Sears has industry people thinking it might be close to bankruptcy.  Macy's has closed a lot of stores in its downsizing, but is definitely in better shape than those two.  If Sears and Penney's bite the dust, malls that are now doing well, like Hanes Mall here, will find themselves quickly in a tough spot.

What would you do with an empty store in a mall?  Or a whole Dead Mall?  The retail world is looking for really good ideas.  Your idea might be one.  My best ideas look something like this.  Yes, that's a store in a mall, The Block of Orange in Orange, California.  But that's just MY idea.  Throw your ideas in my comments on Facebook.  They may be much better than mine.  Here's a little contest that takes place in this same mall "store" every year.