Dillard’s Embracing New Retail Reality

Dillard’s Inc. on Tuesday (Feb. 22) announced it’s replacing a pair of retail stores with new ones that are part of its embrace of smaller brick-and-mortar locations and an increasingly omnichannel strategy.

The company is opening a 160,000-square-foot location at University Place in Orem, Utah, in mid-March, replacing a 200,000-square-foot store in Provo Towne Centre. The retailer will also replace a leased building at Westgate Mall in Amarillo, Texas with a remodeled owned facility in the fall.

Those stores are among 250 Dillard’s locations and 30 clearance centers across 29 states plus its online store. The company had a total square footage of 47.7 million square feet as of Jan. 29, 2022.

“We ended fiscal 2021 on a very strong note with a fourth consecutive record quarter,” said Dillard’s Chief Executive Officer William T. Dillard II in the company announcement. “Our fiscal year net income of $41.88 per share exceeds any annual performance in our history.

“Importantly, during the year, we returned $866 million to our shareholders through dividends and share buyback, while still ending the year with $717 million in cash,” he said.

Dillard’s reported a 37% increase in comparable retail sales through Jan. 29, 2022, from the same time a year ago, and a 12% increase in comparable sales from the fourth quarter of 2019.

Related: Retailer and Consumer Shift to Open-Air Malls Will Continue Past Pandemic

Last week, Tanger Factory Outlet Centers reported occupancy at its centers was 95.3% on Dec. 31, 2021, up from 94.4% at the end of September and 92.2% at the end of 2020. The average Tanger tenant sales productivity was $468 per square foot in 2021, up 17.6% from the $398-per-square-foot rate of two years earlier, before the pandemic began.

Average tenant sales were up 15% in 2021 compared to 2019 when comparing same store sales.

Tanger lease termination fees totaled $3.6 million for 2021 ($300,000 for the fourth quarter of 2021) compared to $12.8 million for 2020 ($4.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2020).