Starbucks looks for 25% lease reductions at stores

Starbucks looks for 25% lease reductions at stores
Tags: Coffee / Specialty Beverages, Operations Management
May 28, 2009

Bloomberg News: Starbucks Corp. is pushing some U.S. landlords to reduce their lease rates by as much as 25 percent, taking advantage of a declining real estate market to save on rent. Starbucks began rent-reduction efforts in January as part of a plan to trim overall expenses, according to Tara Darrow, a spokeswoman for the Seattle-based company.

Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of New York-based Prudential Douglas Elliman's retail leasing, marketing and sales division, is generally advising about a dozen landlords to work with Starbucks after they received letters seeking rent reductions of 20 percent to 25 percent. She hasn't seen the correspondence.

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