Burlington Has Doubled Its Store Count In 8 Years By Utilizing The Real Estate Of Bankrupt Retailers

More than 1/2 of Burlington's new stores over the past 8 years have been located in real estate vacated by just 4 bankrupt retailers

Off-price retailer Burlington operates ~1,100 stores across the U.S.

And the Company’s store count has doubled in just the past 8 years.

So where did Burlington find the real estate to add ~550 new stores?

Largely from space vacated by bankrupt retailers.

In fact roughly half of Burlington’s net new store openings over the past 8 years have been in real estate vacated by just 4 bankrupt retailers:

Kmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, Toys R Us and Sports Authority.

Burlington now operates a store in:

• Over 80 former Kmart buildings

• More than 70 Bed Bath and Beyond suites

• Over 55 former Toys R Us stores

• At approximately 40 Sports Authority sites

Burlington has also backfilled many stores once occupied by other bankrupt retailers such as Sears, Linens N Things and Circuit City.

Michael O'Sullivan — the CEO of Burlington Stores — has commented that the Company expressly targets the real estate vacated by bankrupt retailers and that these sites have resulted in many of Burlington's best performing stores.

Burlington continues to accelerate its store growth — it is planning to open around 100 net new stores in 2025 and a total 500 over the next 4 years.

So where does Burlington expect to find many of these sites?

From current (and future) retailer bankruptcies, of course.

The ~1,500 store closures revealed last quarter during the bankruptcies of Conn’s, Big Lots and American Freight have been a good place for it to start:

Burlington has already announced plans to acquire at least 30 stores from these bankruptcy estates and is likely considering other sites as well.