Burlington plans 6 more stores for Long Island as retailer eyes smaller spaces

Burlington’s plan to enhance gross sales by greater than doubling its variety of shops, utilizing some smaller areas, consists of six extra shops on Lengthy Island.

Burlington Shops Inc., which already has eight shops on Lengthy Island, plans to open half a dozen extra — in Huntington, New Hyde Park, Oceanside, Riverhead, Selden and West Babylon.

“Burlington … continues to increase throughout the nation, providing thousands and thousands of shoppers superb bargains on prime manufacturers and the prospect to seek out one thing new each time they store,” stated spokeswoman Annie Holmes, who added that about 65 staff can be employed for every of the brand new Lengthy Island shops.

The Huntington retailer will open Nov. 3; New Hyde Park, Nov. 10; and West Babylon, Nov. 17, in line with Burlington’s web site.

The Burlington, New Jersey-based retailer declined to reveal opening info for the opposite three shops.

The retailer has 939 shops nationwide, together with 91 that opened in its fiscal 2022 yr, which ended Jan. 28, 2023.

The chain is projecting that it’s going to add 70 to 80 internet new shops within the present fiscal yr.

For the previous few years, Burlington has been working to enhance gross sales and lower working prices by opening smaller shops. In 2020, the chain introduced a plan to have 2,000 shops, and a smaller-store prototype is a part of the equation.

The common measurement of the corporate’s new shops fell from 45,000 sq. toes in 2017 to twenty-eight,000 sq. toes final yr, the retailer stated in its 2022 annual report.

Burlington took benefit of the April chapter submitting of Mattress Bathtub & Past to scoop up some vacant areas. The off-price retailer acquired greater than 60 Mattress Bathtub & Past leases this yr, together with 4 of the six extra shops deliberate for Lengthy Island.

“I am glad to say that the provision of nice actual property areas has opened up considerably during the last a number of months, pushed particularly by the winding down of Mattress Bathtub & Past. … We might usually wait till the shop areas revert again to the owner. The advantage of buying leases instantly is that we get to cherry-pick the areas that we’re most excited by,” Burlington CEO Michael O’Sullivan instructed analysts throughout an earnings name in August.

The retailer’s retailer deliberate for Oceanside can be 37,236 sq. toes, whereas the Riverhead retailer will occupy 30,031 sq. toes and West Babylon, 29,575 sq. toes. All three are former Mattress Bathtub & Past shops whose leases Burlington acquired within the dwelling items retailer’s chapter over the summer season.

The New Hyde Park area additionally was previously occupied by Mattress Bathtub & Past, however Burlington signed a lease for that 31,000-square-foot area shortly earlier than the chapter submitting, Robert Peck, managing agent and associate in Lake Success Buying Heart LLC, instructed Newsday in August.

Burlington’s 25,442-square-foot Huntington retailer will take over an area vacated by off-price retailer Marshalls, which relocated to a unique unit in Huntington Commons in October.

In Selden, a 20,660-square-foot Burlington will substitute a Bob’s Shops, a dry cleaner and a cell phone retailer.

Burlington’s whole gross sales in its fiscal second quarter have been $2.17 billion, a 9% enhance from the identical interval a yr earlier.

Burlington is performing effectively but it surely lags behind its off-price rivals, corresponding to TJ Maxx and Ross, Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at Manhattan-based market analysis agency GlobalData, wrote in a word about Burlington’s earnings in August.

“That is maybe a operate of the profile of Burlington customers, who are usually extra concentrated on the decrease finish of the earnings spectrum and so are feeling the pinch of the cost-of-living disaster way more,” he wrote.