Fayetteville struggling with major retailers' financial woes

Unexpected closings leave large vacant spaces

By MONROE ROARK
mroark@TheCitizenNews.com

If you’re looking to lease some retail space, Fayetteville’s got it — a lot of it.

The city has been hit especially hard by the closing of two major retail stores in the past few months, and with other closings and some stores moving to newer digs, several existing shopping centers in town have a number of “For Lease” signs on the windows.

The Roberds department store chain filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and announced that all of its stores were closing, including nine in the metro Atlanta area. One of those is on Ga. Highway 85 between Banks Road and Fayette Pavilion.

A separate company is handling the current liquidation sale under orders from the bankruptcy court. A spokesperson for the liquidation sale said that the building is to be vacated by Sept. 15.

According to DJM Asset Management, one of the companies handling the sale of the property, negotiations are underway with a prospective buyer and it could be a couple of months before the building is occupied by a new owner. The company would not identify the potential buyer.

City officials have not heard of any possible uses for the building once Roberds is gone, according to planning director Maurice Ungaro.

Meanwhile, the giant Kmart chain announced just a month ago that it will be closing a few dozen stores in Georgia, including three in metro Atlanta. One of those three also happens to be in Fayetteville, in the Banks Crossing shopping center. A Kmart employee said last week that the store will be closing Nov. 1.

Banks Crossing also lost the Belk store earlier this year, as that retailer relocated to a new building at Fayette Pavilion. Four smaller spaces in that shopping center are now vacant in addition to the Belk space.

Across the highway, the Fayetteville Corners development used to house a Wal-Mart retail store and a Winn-Dixie grocery store.

When Wal-Mart moved to its new Fayette Pavilion location, the old space was vacant for close to two years before Hobby Lobby opened a few months ago. Winn-Dixie also has been gone for quite some time, and that space is still empty, along with three smaller parcels in the same building.

Ungaro says that it is often difficult to get companies wanting to locate in Fayetteville to consider existing space, because most of them simply want to build their own new building or move into one that has just been built. “They think newer is better,” he said.

The city does not have an organized effort to try to attract new retail business, he added, although he always points out available existing buildings to prospective businesses whenever possible.

Fayette County Development Authority director Chris Clark acknowledged that his office’s top priority is industrial recruitment, and not much is done in the retail area.

The Chamber of Commerce does some work with potential retailers, but not much recruitment, he added, saying that the marketplace typically dictates where large retailers end up.