Empty storefronts lead to lower rents: Starbucks

Bloomberg

Starbucks Corp. Chairman Howard Schultz sees a blessing in all the empty storefronts across the US.
Facing a crush of vacancies—and the rise of e-commerce—retail landlords are beginning to cut rents, the executive said. That stands to benefit the world’s largest coffee chain, which has more than 14,000 US locations.
“Over the last few weeks, I have been in a number of US cities and observed firsthand the abundance of empty storefronts across the country, in prime A1 locations,” Schultz said in the
memo, which was released by Starbucks.
“We are at a major inflection point as landlords across the country will be forced (sooner than later) to permanently lower rent rates to adjust to the ‘new norm.’”
Schultz, who retired as Starbucks’ chief executive officer in 2017, blames the rash of empty stores on lower customer traffic and the high cost of leases signed in the past three to seven years.