{"id":33119,"date":"2013-01-03T05:00:30","date_gmt":"2013-01-03T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=33119"},"modified":"2013-01-03T07:19:13","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T13:19:13","slug":"due-to-dfl-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=33119","title":{"rendered":"Due To DFL Control"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Saint Paul Macy’s is closing<\/a> in March.<\/p>\n

Macy’s is closing its St. Paul store this spring, leaving downtown without a major retailer and bringing to a close 50 years of continuous department store operations at the Wabasha Street location.<\/p>\n

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Store employees were to be told this week that the store will shut down in late March, according to sources who did not want to be named.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the one hand, it’s not really a surprise. \u00a0The place has been a morgue for years. \u00a0The only reason it stayed open as long as it did was to stay within the terms of a loan from the city back in 2002. \u00a0Since they hit the ten year nut, a few million dollars are going to be forgiven, store or no store.<\/p>\n

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So to summarize: \u00a0No store, no more payback, no anchor retail in downtown Saint Paul.<\/p>\n

No nothing.<\/p>\n

On some St. Paul list-servers, some DFL-leaning residents are feeling chipper about it: “maybe Target will buy the space?”<\/p>\n

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I only worked downtown for about four years – but this was actually fairly busy, as I recall.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nonsense. \u00a0Target didn’t get to be a huge retailer by being stupid. \u00a0Saint Paul is not a retail destination – if it were, there’d be no such announcement from Macy’s.<\/p>\n

(“But Macy’s is just stupid!”, some might respond – but their share value is clipping along rather well<\/a>, so whatever their other faults, they seem to know a bit about keeping their stores profitable).<\/p>\n

I’ll predict the following:<\/p>\n