Lots of good points. K-Mart is especially ripe for conversion since, in addition to your points, their stores are two large for most retailers to move into and too small for a Wal-Mart or Home Depot.
National Big Box retailers rarely move into existing buildings unless the real-estate market is tight and entitling new development or re-development exceptionally difficult. Otherwise it is more cost effective to demolish and build to suit. They have corporate planners, architects, and lawyers who do this sort of thing day in/out.
In another life, I worked for an architect who did nothing but Walgreens stores. Once their analysis showed that a corner met their traffic count, it didn't matter how much the land cost. The pharmacy would pay for it in 30-90 days. That's why there will be a CVS across the street.
I forget what it's from, but your last sentence reminded me of this (paraphrased).
> McDonalds and Burger King. McDonalds has it hard - they have to do market research, explore new areas, test whether they work. Burger King has it a little easier - they just follow McDonald's around.
Reminds me of the story of the master sailor hired to help navigate a sailboat across the Pacific to Tokyo. He satisfied the boat's owner of his qualifications, and joined the crew.
During the entire crossing, he drank heavily, slept until noon, crawled above decks, stared at the sky, and told the helmsman "point 10 degrees north". Or some days, "point 10 degrees south".
The owner was a bit concerned, but things seemed to be going well. And the ship arrived spot on to Tokyo harbor.
On landing, he asked the sailor, "how did you do it? The whole trip, you never touched a sextant, looked at the compass, or checked the satellite navigation?" "Oh", said the sailor, "when I came up on deck, I looked at the airliner contrails, If the were to the north, I headed us south. If they were to the north, I headed us south."
It's from the book Fast Food Nation. McDonalds was said to spend millions on satelite imagery and computer time to figure out the best places to put franchises. Burger King and subway just followed them around.
In the mid 1980's, I heard that story about Subway. Which as a business strategy makes even more sense - offering a clear alternative to a market with a high demand.
Those analyses are interesting when the proposals project a 10-20 year use of the structure, and include the demolition and disposal costs of the building itself.
