Warner Bros. stores: That's all, folks!
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The high-flying Warner Bros. Studio stores, once a splashy marquee for Bugs Bunny, Batman and other Warner corporate symbols, are kaput. This week, the Los Angeles and Palo Alto, Calif., stores closed, as did the flagship store on New York's Fifth Avenue.
It's a Wile E. Coyote run-off-a-cliff ending for a supposedly foolproof strategy of wringing additional money from Warner movies and television shows. Days after completing the merger that created AOL Time Warner, Warner's new parent announced it would sell or close its 130 stores.
Until late last spring, the Seattle area had two Warner Bros. Studio stores. The one on Fifth Avenue in downtown Seattle closed in June after its lease was purchased by Banana Republic, which took over the space. The Bellevue Square store will close Feb. 23.
The Bellevue store opened in 1993 and, depending on the season, had 17 to 50 full- and part-time employees. They, along with the mall's management company, were told of the impending closure in December.
Anne Marie Peacock, assistant director of marketing at Bellevue Square, said the shopping center has several prospective tenants for the 14,800 square feet of space the studio store occupied and hopes to decide on one soon.
Warner has never detailed the performance for its 10-year-old chain. Industry sources, however, said the stores were considered very successful in their early years.
But analysts say it's clear that results in later years have been disappointing. Stale merchandise and a shrinking market doomed the stores, they say. From the beginning, the Warner stores were as much about peddling an image as selling T-shirts and designer jackets.
Seattle Times business reporter Robert T. Nelson contributed to this report.