This makes sense. Most of the spaces Sears is closing are obsolescent for retail uses for several reasons. There is a vast over-supply of retail space in general, partially because the boom generated construction for the sake of construction, partially because the bust reduced consumer spending and partially because of the internet.<p>Retail shopping has also changed. Malls are being replaced by power centers and urban core retail is being revitalized. And there's Walmart for household items and Home Depot for white goods and Dicks for athletic equimpment etc.<p>One of the biggest changes is the way in which stores are placed relative to catchment. Driving patterns have changed and interstate access is more important than a high traffic corner for big box retail. Sears locations were based on the old model.<p>That said, their locations on older arterials tends to correlate with high levels of utility infrastructure. A collapsing retail micro-environment may mean surplus utility capacity. Which reminds me that another trend making Sears commercial buildings obsolescent is the radically improved energy efficiency of modern retail design - big boxes have skylights, etc.<p>[edit] A bit more about power supply. Local power companies sell power. That's how they make money. Like the Sears stores are surplus retail space, they often have capacity in the wrong places. They will cut deals in exchange for a long term return - it's why they run lines to a site in the first place.
Rackspace's corp HQ is a converted old mall (the entire mall) in San Antonio [1].<p>[1] <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/realestate/commercial/rackspace-revitalizes-a-defunct-mall-into-an-unorthodox-tech-campus.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/realestate/commercial/rack...</a>
<i>“Sears and Kmart never deployed wireless on the rooftops, so there’s no rooftop usage at present,” he added. “There’s tons of interest. I will put as many of the rooftops in play as I can.”</i><p>I wonder if they will consider covering excess space with solar PV panels? They could become a massive distributed power source, which would contribute somewhat towards the power requirements of the data centre below.<p>It's amazing to think of how the internet is changing cities and buildings. Reminds me of phone boxes that are being converted into other uses (such as electric vehicle recharging stations, mini-libraries and Wi-Fi hotspots) since they've been made obsolete by mobile phones.<p><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/10/spectrum-interactive-wifi-hotspots-london-phone-boxe/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/10/spectrum-interactive-wifi...</a><p><a href="http://phys.org/news192197933.html" rel="nofollow">http://phys.org/news192197933.html</a><p><a href="http://www.gadling.com/2012/08/19/british-phoneboxes-converted-into-libraries-art-spaces/" rel="nofollow">http://www.gadling.com/2012/08/19/british-phoneboxes-convert...</a>
I'm a little surprised by this. The article implies that shuttered Sears stores already have the power and data capacity to function as a data center, but I can't imagine why. Compared to similar sized buildings (office buildings or factories, mostly), Sears retail locations don't seem to have a lot of power- or data-intensive needs.<p>Sears does have some amazing infrastructure (lots of square footage, locations at key transportation points in densely populated areas throughout the country, huge parking lots) but those aren't really the kind of features that data centers are usually optimizing for. I'm sure they're finding creative uses for this infrastructure, but I doubt it's anything like a data center as we think of one.
Don't forget Rackspace turned an abandoned mall into their HQ<p><a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2013/03/21/storming-the-castle-inside-rackspace.html?page=all" rel="nofollow">http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2013/03/21/stormi...</a>
Interesting move -- feels like this is a natural response to the not-so-sudden realization by "normal" folks that you can get a BIG multiple on $/sqft as a data center over a more traditional tenant.<p>A parking lot is better than an empty lot. A warehouse is better than a parking lot. And a data center is better than a warehouse :)<p>The good news for us consumers is that as the supply steadily ticks up, pricing will come down (at least for space - who's to say where bandwidth costs go).
Not quite retail, but Amazon's main Data Centre in Dublin is the former main warehouse used by one of Ireland's largest retailers. It's gone from being full of beans and nappies to servers full of kitten gifs.<p><a href="http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/02/09/amazon-buys-dublin-site-for-data-center/" rel="nofollow">http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/02/09/amazo...</a>
Cooling costs ! Buildings whose whole structure doesn't take data center cooling requirements into account are at a significant cost disadvantage over modern ones built specifically with cooling optimization in mind.
I'm not sure I understand this. Retail real estate is all about increasing footfall, not just the size of it. Hence why you see the airport bombarded with shopping nowadays. Unless there are particular Sears locations that don't see benefit from adjacent footfalling (just made that word up) retail outlets, then it makes sense. But then it wouldn't make sense for Sears to be there in the first place if the footfall opportunity wasn't there or couldn't be created there.
I'm not surprised at all, given the Sears real estate portfolio. In Indianapolis, a company converted an old mall into a data center, and it seems to be working pretty well [1]. Retail buildings probably have a decent connection to the power grid, so it would really make sense to make use of the open spaces.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/10/30/lifeline-data-centers-announces-second-phase-at-former-shopping-mall/" rel="nofollow">http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/10/30/lifel...</a>
the erosion of shopping malls continues.<p>warrants noting that malls require anchor tenants to work. It's the convenience of to being able to go to one location and get clothes, tools, make-up, music, videos, books, etc, that makes malls work. I know people have been predicting the demise of the shopping mall since their introduction but this will be interesting to watch.
I realize they have a building with lots of empty square footage, but how do they get enough power, bandwidth, cooling, etc?<p>Data centers built by Google, Facebook, etc. seem to all be built from the ground up, and close to things like power plants.
The challenge I see here is power provisioning. With the space that a Sears store offers, you'd be hard pressed to put 10 to 50 MW of power into it. But perhaps if you already have the land covered smaller things are more desirable.
This is an opportunity where they could usher in a new glorious era of personal cloud computing that solves the problem of the government basically owning your hardware, software, and the usage of your software if the government catches you (or the software) so much as jaywalk.<p>Instead of selling floor space, they could subdivide the space like the "storage building" units. The customers could pay for a rack, and they would need a key to access it. Legally the hardware, software and data would be owned by the owner, and not the government. Anyone else would need a warrant to come in and rape your data, software, and hardware just like if the server was next to my bed.<p>Part of the reason why I have all my servers in places I own is because of this problem. This is a brief opportunity to explore cloud computing and give the communists and socialists who want everyone to share a common purse on the computing front a black eye.<p>My pain point is "I want boat loads of CPU cycles and Internet connection speeds, and I want physical legal ownership of the rack space, hardware, software, AND data, and I don't want to have to buy a building that I have to air condition, power, internet connect, secure, and pay taxes on.