Hollywood Express closing Davis location

[trtls.livejournal.com]

Sad. Just sad. And greedy. According to an employee the rent situation is "out of control" therefore Hollywood Express is merging the Davis Sq. stock into their Porter Sq. store. The Davis location will be closed as of July 27. If you have an account and go in before the closing day, you can get a coupon for 10 free rentals to be used by (I believe) September at the Porter location only. Yet another local store pushed out.

Comments

Re: Bad news for local business, mine in particular...

[ron_newman]

I don't see anything wrong with 'used stores' -- in fact, it makes some sense for stores of this type to cluster together in a district. I just don't want to see a local business person driven out of the neighborhood by well-funded national competition.

Zoning laws cannot prevent this. A retail store is allowed to replace another retail store in the same space 'by right'. (Rules are somewhat different for restaurants.)

Re: Bad news for local business, mine in particular...

[petula73.livejournal.com]

I have been trying to partner up with a friend for about 4 years now to find a space in Davis for a small spa/hair salon type place so I have a little insight on this.

The Hollywood Express rent was $7000 (a few hundred under I believe). So yes, there is no way that you can survive with rent like that in the video business.

The Bowl and Board space just turned up on loopnet.com and it is obscene what they are asking for it. $30 a sq foot, which means if you take the whole space (which they want you to do) your rent would be $37,500. My guess is that those landlords in particular are not getting that right now, but probably half.

My friend inquired about B & B and the Poor Little Rich Girl space and could not even think about paying rent like that.

I am sure that new building intends on charging insane rent too, plus I have heard that they do not want retal there anyways, but a restaurant.

We have given up on renting in Davis, and are now looking in Harvard Square because honestly, the rent is cheaper.

It totally sucks about Buffalo Exchange too, they opened right next to a friend of mine in New York and cut into her business big time. She told me it is a well known fact that they scope out businesses that do well, then open right next to them.

Pet