Pier One Kids Bankrupt Too

After researching what's happening to Bombay I wondered about some other recent closures in Birkdale. It seems that Pier One Kids met the same fate as Bombay. It seems that Pier One has been losing money for more than a year. $56 Million in this latest quarter. Here's the press release announcing the closure of the Pier One Kids stores:

FORT WORTH, Texas — Pier 1 will close all 33 of its Pier 1 Kids stores by Oct. 31
and its 24 clearance stores by July 31 to focus on its full-line units, the retailer’s president and CEO said today. In total, the company will close 100 stores this year, Alex Smith said in a conference call with securities analysts.
“We need to focus 100% of our attention on our core business, the Pier 1 Imports stores,” said Smith. He made the comments while discussing Pier 1’s earnings for the first fiscal quarter ended June 2, which included a net loss of $56.4 million, compared with a loss of $23.2 million a year earlier, and sales of $356.4 million, down 5%.
In addition to closing stores, he said the company will exit its e-commerce and catalog sales activities by Oct. 31, although it will keep its pier1.com Web site for marketing purposes. The moves will leave the company with 1,020 stores in the United States and 80 in Canada.

I am amazed the Pier One didn't try to sell its kids stores to another brand. Maybe they wanted control over their own destiny? Or maybe no one would buy them because they were not making money? At least Pier One still has its main store in Birkdale. I like the store although I must admit that we haven't bought much in this one either.

So now the question is what would make a good fit for this former Pier One Kids space? It seems too big for a boutique. I think it would make a good fit for a Kid's Time - a short term daycare place for parents that need to run an errand, grab dinner, or whatever. Rumor has it that the one over by Target (on the other side of 77) is always full and pretty much requires reservations. I also heard another rumor that Dicks might be leaving Birkdale as well. Wow, that is a big space.

Anyways, I am sure that there are plenty of retailers angling to get into Birkdale. When I spoke to th enew property management company, the said that they bought Birkdale in May ( I heard that they paid $99 Million) and that they would start this fall really analyzing the spaces and trying to fill new tenants in the now five open stores. I imagine that the other tenants are not too happy because all of those empty stores could be filled and attracting more shoppers rather than sitting empty and weighing the place down. Well, let's see what happens.

What do you think should go into the former Pier One Kid's space?