South Brunswick, say goodbye to Best Buy

Best Buy on Route 1 is closing, continuing a trend that may best be described as a musical chairs of South Brunswick retail.

We stopped there today and we’re met with a sign on the door announcing an Oct. 28 closing date and directly shoppers to three other stores in the region.

We were surprised but, given the struggles chain has experienced in recent years as more of the electronic market has moved on line and the recent closing of Staples next door, maybe we shouldn’t be.

Staples is another struggling national chain. Its inventory partly overlapped that of Best Buy. It’s closing, then, made sense. Its storefront was filled quickly — Bob’s Furniture opened recently, but only after leaving the long-struggling South Brunswick Square, which now has to fill yet another vacancy.

More recently, Steinmart on Route 27 announced it was closing, with workers there and others in the shopping center citing a rent hike. Workers at Best Buy could only speculate — one said he had no idea, while another said “real estate,” but neither was in a position of real knowledge.

The Street, a business publication, explained in early 2016 that Best Buy was closing stores “rather quietly” and has been shrinking its footprint slowly.

“A company of our size is going to make the decision not to renew leases or to close or relocate stores from time to time as a normal course of business,” added the spokesperson. “Some stores no longer make sense to keep open for a range of reasons, from the strength of a retail center to the shopping pattern of customers to the cost of a new lease to store performance.”

At the same time, as 24/7 Wall St. reports, annual sales have fallen about 20 percent over the last five years and, while the company says it has turned a corner, 24/7 has a different analysis..

Best Buy is not turned around, at least as measured by revenue and comparable store sales. Fiscal 2018 is shaping up as another in which store sales will drop. It is hard to argue there is enough cash for Best Buy’s current 1,363 stores. If early fiscal 2018 follows the pattern of recent years, the store count becomes a larger problem.

I’m just speculating. The closing of the South Brunswick store could have many causes, from Best Buy’s own difficulties to what appears a tepid retail climate in the South Brunswick area, especially along Route 1.

We would appear to have an ideal location, but we’ve been slow to develop the highway. This has been purposeful — there had been at one time a general political consensus that the 7-mile stretch on Route 1 should not be allowed to develop into an Edison or Route 18 in East Brunswick. Hat has left the retail to open in nearby towns — notably, North Brunswick and West Windsor.

His lack of retail puts pressure on the existing strip malls — he two big ones (the Target center and South Brunswick Square), the lone small strip mall (formerly Carkhuff’s Garden Center) and the stray stores and fast-food restaurants.

We may need to rethink what we want this highway to look like when it’s time to renew the Master Plan, assuming we are interested in housing a vibrant retail presence in the township.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet