Sears Is Turning Shuttered Stores Into Data Centers 137
miller60 writes "Servers may soon fill the aisles where shoppers once roamed. Sears Holdings is seeking to convert former Sears and Kmart stores into Internet data hubs. Some stand-alone stores and distribution centers may be repurposed as data centers, while mall-based stores can be converted into disaster recovery sites, the company says, offering access to stores and eateries for displaced workers who may be on site for weeks. Then there's the wireless tower opportunity. Seventy percent of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Sears or Kmart store, and these rooftops can be leased to fill gaps in cell coverage. It's not the first effort to convert stores into IT infrastructure, as Rackspace is headquartered in an old mall, and companies have built data centers in malls in Indiana and Maryland. But Sears, which operates 25 million square feet of real estate, hopes to make this strategy work at scale." Also at Slash DataCenter.
Re:Maybe in standalone stores (Score:5, Informative)
The summary actually says they are considering this for standalone stores and distribution centers.
Re:This is a typical Sears Stupid Move... (Score:4, Informative)
A K-mart store in my area stood empty for 6 years. The parking lot had weeds growing up, there was graffiti on the walls, and nearby small businesses were of the low-revenue, low traffic type with a lot of retail vacancies. This was for a store that was in a relatively affluent area with a lot of traffic going by every day. The problem was that the ownership of the store property was tied up in legal issues and no one could do anything with it. Maybe it was Sears or K-mart pre-bankruptcy or someone else. Anyway, finally, finally, the legal problems got resolved and the store was gutted and redeveloped into an LA Fitness and a Walmart food store. That was two years ago. Now, the whole block is thriving, parking is hard to find, and a nearby corner gas station was torn down to make way for construction of another retail block. The point is that sometimes the reason that the store property is no longer in a 'prime retail location' is because of the property owner. The same thing happens in residential neighborhoods when someone moves in and parks a lot of old cars around the house, lets rusting trash pile up, stops mowing the grass, and does not repaint when the paint is peeling.