Retail vacancies in the region have dropped to their lowest levels in about five years as shopping centers across Massachusetts filled spaces abandoned during the downturn by troubled merchants, according to several real estate studies.
The occupancy rate at CambridgeSide Galleria, for example, increased to 97 percent from 93 percent a year ago. The mall signed leases with Chipotle and T.J. Maxx, which is taking over the 20,000-square-foot site that Borders left in September 2011 when the national book chain went out of business. Northshore Mall is absorbing 65,000 square feet this month when a DSW shoe outlet and the Container Store move into spaces vacated last year by Filene’s Basement and Bugaboo Creek.
Comments
Fill my downtown first.
I went to a mall last year. Or was it the year before? But I just went into the Sears store through their entrance so it really wasn't the mall. Spent a few bucks on snow blower shear pins. I might go back again in a year or two. Remind me again why there is anything in a mall for folks immune to affluenza and impulse spending.
It's nice that the Container Store is so so excited about its Northshore location. Could they have made the store just a little less ugly, though?