Macy’s may close, but Market East needs a plan to succeed | Editorial
The crowds of shoppers who once made the street a premier commercial corridor aren’t likely to come back.
Have you ever asked someone to meet you at the eagle? Visited the Dickensian Christmas Village? Taken in the Julie Andrews-narrated Christmas light show (with musical accompaniment by the world’s largest pipe organ)? These Philadelphia traditions, all staples of the shopping experience at Macy’s in the Wanamaker Building, may soon be only the stuff of memories.
Macy’s parent company is expected to close up to 65 stores across the country this year, and city officials have openly expressed fears that the retailer’s location at 13th and Market Streets could be on the chopping block.
For department stores along the city’s Market East corridor, closure has been the norm for decades. Macy’s may join Gimbels, Lit Brothers, Snellenburg’s, Strawbridge’s, and Frank & Seder’s on Philadelphia’s roll of bygone retail titans.
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During the 1960s and ‘70s, when the corridor first began to falter, it was because many shoppers from the suburbs and outlying sections of Philadelphia had begun patronizing new shopping centers like the King of Prussia Mall. Today, most malls are struggling, as Amazon and other online retailers dominate the market.
While there was some hope in the pre-pandemic era for a retail revival, national retail trends have dashed those dreams.
For Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and other city leaders, the Sixers arena is often cast as a solution to Market Street’s ills. Both business leaders and officials from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — which represents janitors, parking garage attendants, and other blue-collar Center City workers — are hoping the project will spur more economic activity along the corridor. After all, in-person experiences like games and concerts have not seen the same slump in interest that has hurt department stores.
The arena, however, only provides a partial solution. While adding millions of visitors is a good thing for Market East, this new traffic will only materialize some of the time. It will take other uses to stimulate activity when the arena itself is dark.
City officials have shared proposals for additional housing and a hotel, including around 740 new apartments and 400 to 600 hotel rooms. That’s a start, but it is far short of what the area needs. New residents and hotel guests would add vibrancy to the corridor when the arena is closed and could attract new commercial ventures, but other arena proposals, like the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, have failed to build all of the housing they’ve promised.
Also tied together with the future of Market East is Chinatown, which has existed alongside the corridor in both good times and bad. As a study commissioned by the Sixers made abundantly clear, Chinatown faces significant threats to its future — regardless of whether the arena is built. As is the case with many densely populated urban ethnic enclaves, many who grew up in and around Chinatown have moved to the suburbs, which increasingly are able to offer the kind of authentic cuisine and products that were until recently only available within the city’s borders.
Demographics may change and consumer preferences vary — Macy’s could receive a reprieve this time around — but given Market East’s location at the center of the regional transit network in the heart of the city, it’s essential officials step up and develop a robust economic redevelopment program for Market East that can help ensure the street’s vitality irrespective of what Macy’s decides.
Philadelphians can’t simply sit back and hope for a better future for the historic corridor.