Things don’t look good for Boardman.

[Rick Rowlands]

None of the stores that you listed really provide what I would call "essentials".  The frivilous nonsense that can be sold when times are good will be teh first to go away when everyone starts to pull back on their spending.  Stores providing the basics will survive.    Who really needs Liz Claiborne, J. Crew and Ann Taylor anyways? 

[AllanY2525]

My sister worked her last day at Linens and Things a couple days ago....she stayed
until they finished liquidating the store on 224 in Boardman.  The sad thing is, she
worked there for eight years.

[Towntalk]

Forget those 50-percent-off signs. This winter you are likely to see a new sign at your local mall: "Going Out of Business." And that means big trouble for mall owners already struggling to survive.

Big chains, including Linens 'N Things, Circuit City, Whitehall Jewelers, Mervyn's and Steve and Barry's have already filed for bankruptcy. Other big retailers, including Talbots, Fashion Bug, Ann Taylor, J. Crew and Liz Claiborne have either announced store closings or scaled back or delayed expansion plans.

You'll see department stores, specialty stores, discount stores, grocery stores, drugstores, major chains either multi- regionally or nationally go out of business.
Retailers may close 73,000 stores in the first half of 2009, according to the shopping center council.

None of that is good news for mall owners who rely on those retailers for rent, which they use to pay off the massive loans to build or buy the malls in the first place. As mall owners try to refinance existing loans, they find themselves struggling to get investors to give them money and -- like many homeowners -- they find their real estate is worth less than it was just a few years ago.

At the beginning of 2006, just 7.3 percent of retail spaces -- from malls to strip malls to stand-alone stores -- were empty, according to the National Association of Realtors.

That figure now hovers just below 10 percent and for next year, the group forecasts a 12.4 percent vacancy rate.

And after a disappointing Christmas shopping season, those numbers could climb ever higher.