The upswing in pop-up stores, as the short-term placements are called, is playing out in all sorts of ways,<br />and in all sorts of places — including dark malls, former grocery stores and shuttered art galleries, according to real estate brokers, landlords and tenants.<br />In 2012, when she started looking for physical stores to augment her online business, she had<br />to cold-call landlords directly, she said, because “brokers had never heard of pop-ups.”<br />Landlords are finally coming around, she said, but they may have no choice, as stores continue to go out of business.<br />Swooping in to capitalize on the rash of empty stores in New York<br />and elsewhere are some new brokerage-type businesses, which charge fees to landlords as brokers do and also sometimes market spaces concurrently with other agents.<br />Pop Up Goes the Retail Scene as Store Vacancies Rise -<br />As traditional retail stores close and vacancies mount, landlords across the country appear newly receptive to leases<br />as short as a week, eschewing the typical 10-year time frame, even in locations that once shunned limited stays.<br />“I tell them that some money is better than no money, and I promise not to bother you.”<br />The rise in pop-up stores is adding another element of change to a retail industry facing upheaval<br />from profound shifts in consumer habits and powerful new competitors, especially online.
