embee
Lawyer by day. Rules lawyer by night.
Hardly. Of all the theaters in my town, one is in a shopping mall. The rest are in shopping centers of various kinds, sure, but nothing like a mall. Even the one at the local mall is it's own separate building with it's own parking lot, on the same city block but not actually attached to the mall. You could easily shut down the mall without shutting down the theater.
It might be a different building but it's likely owned by the same company. And those companies are in deep trouble.
Here's why these 7 U.S. mall owners, including Simon, are in trouble, S&P Global MI warns
As winter looms during the global health crisis, seven of America's mall owners face troubling days ahead, according to a new report from S&P Global.
www.cnbc.com
They are the landlord.
And as for the theaters, who are the tenants...
AMC, World's Largest Movie Theater Chain, Raises $100 Million Lifeline, But It Needs $750 Million To Survive Next Year
The firm is burning an average of $125 million in cash each month.
www.forbes.com
Warner Bros. shook the hell out of the industry last week with its streaming announcement.
Movie theaters looking for community support, $15 billion in federal relief
It’s been a box office bust this year, so some local movie theater owners are supporting a national effort to secure federal funding in an effort to save struggling cinemas.
www.wdrb.com
If the mall goes under, it takes the theater with it. There are only a handful of companies surviving: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowe's. These are big box stores that are surviving by torpedoing brick-and-mortar, which is starting to shift to a fulfillment center model.
Stores move to the front and center fulfilling customers’ expectations - RetailWire
Over a year ago, Patricia Waldron asked in a RetailWire article if 2020 would be the year when retailers instituted supply chain improvements with an eye towards enhancing the customer experience. That's still the story today, but with much greater urgency. Do you see stores become the primary...
retailwire.com
You need foot traffic for traditional storefronts. Fulfillment centers don't provide any foot traffic. And without the foot traffic, you lose the storefronts. Without the storefronts, you lose rental income. Without rental income, you can't pay the mortgage on the property.
As COVID-19 shuts malls and hotels, their owners fall behind on loans, setting the stage for a changed landscape
Huge numbers of hotel and retail loans are going bad because of the coronavirus pandemic. Many of these properties will have to be repurposed.
www.usatoday.com
And then the mall goes under, taking the theater down.
This is the natural flowing consequence of overbuilding from the 90s.
I'll be honest with you...
Right now, I'm in my office, derping on the internet. Instead of suing people. Why? Because my clients, who are banks, don't want me suing people to collect what's due. Because they know that right now, those people don't have the money.
Something bad is coming. And a lot of stalwart chains might not survive it. Including movie theaters.