The New Retail Thread

Wow, Whigh...what a nasty post. Please be more respectful going forward.
 
datadyne007 said:
First, it was bayvillagebrahmin that posted the link. Secondly, you are in no position to be accusing people of making posts that convey no useful information.

Jouhou - ignore this fool and his comments to you. Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing the time they're open in Portsmouth for reference.
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'You must be new here, or just graduated middle school, with your junior status and all...'

- Heard in more than one of the 4,842 (and counting) whigh posts. Welcome to aB!
 
Citizens Bank is coming to this empty retail spot in Millennium Place:

https://twitter.com/ConciergeBoston/status/688059478562967552

CYx6czoWsAAxWJM.jpg:large


Such a shame.
 
So the citizens is vacating Lafayette City Center? With citizens and the Eddie Bauer leaving, it may push them to make that bowling/club/bar venue (mentioned up thread) more of a reality.
 
datadyne007 said:
First, it was bayvillagebrahmin that posted the link. Secondly, you are in no position to be accusing people of making posts that convey no useful information.

Jouhou - ignore this fool and his comments to you. Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing the time they're open in Portsmouth for reference.
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Dataayne -- Keep your vitriol under cover to keep it from getting too wet -- its starting to sound as knee-jerk as Riff's

I was simple pointing out to someone not nearly as versed in the forum as yourself and without your omniscience that if you mention something that is in a link -- just include the title

PS: I'll match my useless information against yours at any time
 
Cobean said:
So the citizens is vacating Lafayette City Center? With citizens and the Eddie Bauer leaving, it may push them to make that bowling/club/bar venue (mentioned up thread) more of a reality.
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See my post from the Downtown Crossing thread a few days back. That proposal has obviously fizzled, given that the media first reported it in June 2014:

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/real_estate/2014/06/mega-nightclub-eyeing-downtown-crossing.html

That vacant space it was going to go into at the corner of Washington & Ave. de Lafayette is as bare a shell as it was 19 months ago. No way it takes 19 months to sign a lease and mobilize for construction on something as prefab as an entertainment multiplex going into a big ole' vacant shell.
 
East Boston Savings Bank coming to One Greenway. Whoopie.
 
This is a shame.

However, I was at a financial conference and there seemed to be consensus amongst retail/commercial banks that there will significant reduction of physical branch locations, by 20-40% over the next decade. Bank of America, being the case study per their recent announcements re: consolidating and closing bank branches, was held as example.
 
Reznor said:
This is a shame.

However, I was at a financial conference and there seemed to be consensus amongst retail/commercial banks that there will significant reduction of physical branch locations, by 20-40% over the next decade. Bank of America, being the case study per their recent announcements re: consolidating and closing bank branches, was held as example.
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Maybe they can extend Capital One's brilliant idea and consolidate banks, Starbucks and CVSes and free up 40% of Boston's retail space.
 
Tombstoner said:
Maybe they can extend Capital One's brilliant idea and consolidate banks, Starbucks and CVSes and free up 40% of Boston's retail space.
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Tomb -- if true that will empty Lexington Center -- at last count there were 11 bank branches in the Center mostly located along Mass Ave
 
Reznor said:
This is a shame.

However, I was at a financial conference and there seemed to be consensus amongst retail/commercial banks that there will significant reduction of physical branch locations, by 20-40% over the next decade. Bank of America, being the case study per their recent announcements re: consolidating and closing bank branches, was held as example.
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Yes and no. The biggest of the big like BoA have been aggressively downsizing their branches. But that's in turn created:

1) A glut of closed bank branches pre-configured as bank branches, making for cheap pickups for any mid-size banks in breakneck expansion mode. Much cheaper than any other would-be tenant of those vacated spaces.

2) A glut on the supply chain of hand-me-down fixtures from closed branches that get recycled when those closed branches are gutted. Heavy-duty security hardware like the actual cash vaults, security doors, or safe deposit boxes are the only major custom expenses for outfitting what's otherwise an utterly prefab default bank branch layout little changed from the mid-1970's. Now those things are available secondhand from BoA salvage at flea market rates, and it flattens the only industry-specific cost premiums for outfitting a new space.


All of this means the second-tier/regional banks making a big expansion push can be less selective about where they open, and open new locations more cheaply than ever before despite real estate and rental prices being uniformly high. They can take over an existing branch space at fraction of the cost of any other gut/rebuild tenant. Or they can shiv their way into the corner of every new development that springs up, take the first-mover's discount by being the perennial Tenant #1 that signs on to a lease, then offset their likely high rent by outfitting the space at pennies on the dollar vs. what it used to cost.

You're even seeing credit unions, which normally don't stick their necks out to dabble into lower-traffic secondary locations, taking advantage of the top-down transfer of physical locations and assets when it's cheap enough (more the Scenario #1's than #2's).



It's basically a transfer of the 'branch bubble' from the national banks to the regional banks, but in the end you're still looking at a bubble. The regional banks are taking advantage of it to boost market share and mindshare, but it's a short-term surge not unlike what Citizens did in the 90's-00's. Get big enough, capture enough local market share, and then they too will eventually do a 180 and start shoving all the customers they first wooed with person-to-person service onto the bank website, 800 number, and unstaffed ATM's in advance of a corporate consolidation of physical locations.

Unfortunately the rock-bottom costs for opening new locations means these branches aren't predicated on sticking around any longer than those record-low startup costs underwrite the rising rents. 10-year window for the Eastern Banks of the region to build themselves up into the next TD bank...then the cycle repeats itself dumping ballast on the next tier below them. Watch Citizens start doing that very soon, since they halted their real estate expansion years ago and are now large enough to be near the top of the next-biggest tier of big boys to see efficiencies in consolidation.


If there's disappointment to be had, it's with the developers who are looking at it in terms of "Oh, a bank branch...perfect anchor tenant to generate foot traffic and start the ball rolling!"...not realizing just how short a passing game the banking industry is playing with branches these days. They're good choices if you need to plug a space fast and there's a relative cavity of other banks in the area...i.e. pure short-term/means-to-an-end strategy. But dropping one in an area saturated with branches and ATM's and hedging on the building's location or amenities making that tenant outlast the rest of the glut is going to end up a big mis-read when the logo over the door changes to something more obscure once every 8-10 years.
 
On this subject, the Globe ran an article in November about the future of Citi's local locations as the bank pulls out of Massachusetts.
 
Tombstoner said:
Maybe they can extend Capital One's brilliant idea and consolidate banks, Starbucks and CVSes and free up 40% of Boston's retail space.
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While I can't imagine wanting to go to CapitalOne for a coffee, I think throwing bank branches into convenience/drug stores would be a good thing.
 
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