In my area, every Borders was built quite close to an existing Barnes and Noble location. It's pretty frustrating because there are other perfectly viable locations with no bookseller or a tiny Waldenbooks.

I've spent some time trying to come up with good uses for empty big box stores. I now have an empty Circuit City, Borders, and grocery store within a few miles of my house. They get used seasonally for fireworks or Halloween or calendar retailers ("the hermit crabs of the retail industry") but nothing else.

I'd love to see someone go into one and open a laser tag / trampoline / rock climbing / indoor playground type space, especially one with tables and wifi.

Where I am in the UK the stores are mainly owned by rich landlords who couldn't apparently care less if there's a store open or not (they don't lower their rates). About half of our city centre locations are vacant (for real!) and no-one can afford the rental rates being charged. Local gov taxes are (roughly speaking) a multiplier (< 1) of rental rates.

Do you have this sort of problem there too?

In my neighborhood, a touristy area of miami, 25% of the retail spaces are empty and have been empty for YEARS. Landlords refuse to lower rents to draw new tenants. There must be a tax incentive to "lose" money on these units.

Many new developments in suburban areas further outside of the denser areas are offering tenants the first year free to get their feet settled. I think this is a smart move, and wish more landlords were that forward thinking.

Here in Miami the borders and b&n were all built fairly far apart from each other. However our old Circuit cities are all seasonal halloween stores as well. They are truly the hermit crabs of the retail industry.

I'd love to see what types of retail is succeeding right now. I'll have my virtual assistant do some research on this and get back to you. Which retail sectors are growing in this economy, etc.