Tuesday Morning Closures Make Room for Fresh Retail Concepts

A load of empty storefronts are about to hit the market in Texas.

Between Bed Bath & Beyond, its BuyBuy Baby brand and Tuesday Morning closing all of their stores, nearly 1,000 locations across the country will shutter this summer, and 40 of them are in Dallas-Fort Worth, the Dallas Morning News reported.

But these soon-to-be vacated sites should have no problem landing tenants. Plenty of new concepts await, including fitness centers, indoor pickleball courts, dressed-up dollar stores and downsizing department stores, the outlet reports.

“There’s a tremendous need for second-generation retail space, a box that’s already finished out with good air conditioning and bathrooms that can be backfilled quickly,” Jill Tiernan, executive vice president at the Retail Connection, told the outlet.

After years of trying to make a comeback, Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy last month, announcing closings of all 360 namesake stores and 120 BuyBuy Baby locations. The bulk of its properties had below-market monthly rents that can be assumed by a new buyer, Tiernan said.

Bed Bath & Beyond stores in Dallas’ NorthPark Center and Galleria Dallas, along with another one on Park Lane, are likely to attract strong interest.

“We get calls daily about the Park Lane store and we don’t even own it,” Ward Kampf, president of Northwood Retail, which owns the Shops at Park Lane across from that Bed Bath & Beyond location, told the outlet. “I wish we did.”

Despite rising interest rates, increased property tax assessments and other economic factors, demand for retail space is high in DFW, said Bob Young, executive managing director at Weitzman. The region’s occupancy rate among retailers was above 94 percent last year for the first time since 1990 when Weitzman started collecting data.

Across Texas, Tuesday Morning is closing 58 stores. Bed Bath and Beyond is closing 43, and Buy Buy Baby is closing 16, according to a count from their websites.

Chain retailers like Dollar General, T.J. Maxx, Five Below and Burlington are all candidates to fill the Bed Bath & Beyond and Tuesday Morning storefronts, as all of them plan to open hundreds of stores within the next few years.

—Quinn Donoghue