Thursday, October 18, 2007

Looking across the street at the eight stores going west from Trivia Antiques, 4 out of 8 locations are currently empty, with the strong rumor that at least one other is leaving soon.

I think it is truly a coincidence and not a sign of doom. One of the spots I know has been rented already, and at least 3 of the spots were vacated on purpose by the landlord.

Still, it's an interesting thing to see.
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7 comments:

Duncan McGeary said...

Correction: the Venus store isn't empty, just has a big "FOR RENT" sign.

Was talking to one of my neighbors who has always been ultra bullish, and he mentioned he was going to hold off hiring someone he had thought about hiring.

The worm is turning.

October 18, 2007 at 6:48:00 PM PDT
Anonymous said...

Ya, great strategy here comes xmas week, the second shoulder of the tourist-biz, and all the side streets are covered with paper in the windows.

Perhaps next year they'll get the main streets. Then we can have kids paint santas and rain deer in the windows, and have 'local' xmas parade.

October 18, 2007 at 7:18:00 PM PDT
Duncan McGeary said...

Silly me, I thought the landlords in their wisdom had someone lined up to replace Super Burrito.

Instead, just a big For Lease Sign.

I'm wondering if that kid's clothing store is coming or not. It's been several months.

Like you said, skipping Summer and Christmas is either really bad planning, lack of local knowledge, or pure stupidity.

October 18, 2007 at 7:37:00 PM PDT
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Any idea what the fitness place that closed down was? It was in todays paper... That "space" was getting pretty crowded. Seems like there's 500 workout places in town.

October 18, 2007 at 8:12:00 PM PDT
Duncan McGeary said...

L.A. Weight Loss?

I thought that was just food.

The 20 year business that I was talking about where the rent was going up too high and the landlord was splitting the place into three 5000 sq. ft. spots for 2.50 a ft. was Gold's Gym.

What the owner told me didn't quite match what the paper said.

Meanwhile, the young woman who was asking about opening a dress shop mentioned that another store across from me was leaving. I though she said someone else, but maybe she meant the Venus place....

October 18, 2007 at 8:49:00 PM PDT
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Wow, type 'LA Weight Loss Bend Oregon' into Google, and you get nothing but lawsuit links....

October 18, 2007 at 10:29:00 PM PDT
Anonymous said...

I have said this before, and of course I'll say again.

Out of town REIT's have bought up much of downtown. They raise the rent to pay for the outrageous price they paid.

They don't care if the property sits empty because the game-plan is long-term appreciation, and short term tax loss.

Thus all of downtown Bend has now become a tax-shelter, its obvious to me that Duncan's owner is one of the few real private owners of downtown.

Where is this ALL going? I'm not sure the REIT investors can wait 5+ years, I think there will be redemptions once +50% of downtown has paper in the windows. The trouble is you have ALL these NY REITS all play the same game, and all buying in the same places, and ALL not caring about losing money on rent.

I don't have a solution, this thing will work itself out. So much for the myth that the highest bidder has the highest use. In this case cpa's, lawyers, and doc's, HIDE their income in tax-shelters, and you get ALL of the old buildings in Bend being destroyed, and replaced with SHIT like Franklin-Crossings. Which may not even last the length of the coming depression. At least the old buildings had been around for +50 years, this new crap is fifteen year life.

Easy Money, ... Pension money, tax shelter money, created a lot of construction jobs. It's going to be ugly, Bend is going to be one of the strangest ghost towns in the West.

October 19, 2007 at 6:29:00 AM PDT

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