News out last week that big-box retailer Staples plans to reduce its square footage by 15 percent heralds a larger trend of smaller screens necessitating smaller boxes. Lydia DePillis examines why this will be a boon to cities.
The growth of online shopping, or in the case of Staples, the obsolescence of whole product lines, are reducing the amount of items stores need to stock. And, as DePillis explains, "[t]he resulting smaller boxes can more easily be shoehorned into cities,
where Supercenter-sized spaces are nearly impossible to find."
Cities will be the winners, as "smaller, more convenience-focused stores will fit better in urban
spaces, fleshing out neighborhood corridors rather than forcing people
to drive to faraway shopping centers," thus reducing the reliance on automobiles.
"Big box retailers, then, are just adapting to survive in the new normal," says DePillis. "If cities demand decent
design for those incoming superstores-with minimal surface parking,
activated street fronts, and community gathering spaces-they'll keep
people from going to the suburbs to shop, and send more traffic to
nearby businesses that offer something unique."
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