HMV to Close its Harvard Square Store

According to Russ Gannon, manager of the store, this closing is an isolated one for the company. He tells GlobeSt.com that the reason for the closing is simple: the rent is too high and the building manager, CB Richard Ellis Whittier Partners refuses to renegotiate.

CB Richard Ellis did not return calls by deadline, but Gannon notes that a number of stores in the area were able to renegotiate with what he calls "more reasonable landlords."

HMV signed a 15-year lease in 1991 when a 20,000-sf store "made sense," says Gannon. The rent is $170,000 a month or about $100 per sf which Gannon says is a little less than half of what the store takes in. He points out that business is down nearly half of what it was ten years ago. Express, which was located in the bottom floor of this building at One Brattle Square moved out over two years ago and the space sat empty until recently when it managed to sublease half the space to Eastern Mountain Sports for a 15-month period.

HMV still has two locations in the Greater Boston area: one on Wyndham Street in Boston and the other at the Solomon Pond Mall in Marlborough. The company recently closed a store in the Chestnut Hill Mall, but Gannon says that was because a tenant made an offer on the space.