Big-Box Stores Move to Value Proposition

A Dollar General in Sumter, SC. The discount retailer plans to open 1,000 new locations. (Photo: Clayton Construction)

LOS ANGELES—It doesn’t have quite the same blaring headline appeal as the downfall of a once-mighty big-box chain declaring bankruptcy and shuttering all of its stores, but there’s a lower-key story unfolding in this sector. CBRE Group reported Thursday that big-box retailers are gearing up for hundreds of new locations this year—just not in the same categories or reaching the same price points as the ones that have closed.

Acknowledging that “big-box bankruptcies do, in fact, present a legitimate shadow-supply risk,” the CBRE report—the first in a “Beyond the Headlines” series about the retail real estate market—cites 13 brick-and-mortar retailers with plans to absorb a big chunk of that supply. To wit, these retailers are projecting a total of 1,700 openings this year alone, totaling more than 40 million square feet.