Santa Monica Stores Closing

Borders on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade is closing this Saturday, January 10, 2009 and is selling everything in the store at 40-70% off. I must say that I am not surprised by the closing since I always preferred the bigger (and more popular) Barnes and Noble, which is still open just a few blocks away. The popular Promenade will have a great bookstore and cafe, just not two of them. The Barnes and Noble cafe and store has restrooms, unlike Borders, which closed the ones they had, (even though they served coffee, a diuretic). Maybe one of the reasons they closed is that no one wanted to buy coffee or books where there are no toilets....

Macy's at Santa Monica Place (located at the beginning of the Promenade) is also closing; it was the only store still open during the construction of the new mall, but with no other stores open in the mall and horrendous parking, no one ventured to shop at this store with two Macy's stores nearby. If you are a Macy's card customer, you will get special discount passes to shop at the other Macy's because they want you to continue to shop with them even if it's not at the same location.

With so many stores overextended both in their credit lines and expansions, it is inevitable that excess inventory and storefronts be eliminated. It is healthy for both companies and people to stay balanced in their budgets, even though at present it is painful to cut back on jobs. Hopefully the jobs created by the new administration will replenish both the economy and the incomes of those hurt most; hopefully the new stores opening in the new mall will replace the jobs lost with better ones.

Support the stores and locations you love if you want them to stay around.