With many department stores in regional areas closing in quick succession, local efforts are spreading nationwide to better utilize the buildings vacated by their closure. Many of these department stores are located in prime areas, and their closure negatively impacts not only the retailer but the whole of the regional economy. On the other hand, some department stores in regional areas have tried hard to survive by capitalizing on their local communities.

A department store in central Niigata run by Daiwa, a Kanazawa-based chain, will close Friday after operating since 1943. Shop owners in local shopping malls collected signatures asking Daiwa to keep the department store open. Despite the effort, the department store is conducting a closeout sale with a banner saying, "Thank you for 66 years of patronage."

Because of the current sluggish consumer spending, Daiwa also aims to close stores in Nagaoka and Joetsu, resulting in a total withdrawal from Niigata Prefecture. After Daiwa announced it would close its Niigata store, the city government, local shopowners and academic experts formed a council to discuss how to revitalize the local community. The council discussed ways to make use of the department store building after Daiwa's departure.

As a result, the Niigata Chamber of Commerce and Industry decided last month to use the first floor of the store's main building for events and other commercial purposes from August to next March. Though it is undecided how the building would be used after April, Tatsuo Honma, 57, who runs a local stationery shop, said, "If people can't enter the building, the local area's image would change. Nonetheless, it's better than the building being completely shuttered [as soon as this month]."

In addition, in an attempt to lure people to the city's Furumachi district where the store is located, the council in April began an experimental 100 yen bus route connecting the district with JR Niigata Station about two kilometers away.

In Aizu-Wakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, Nakago Aizu department store, which was the only department store in the Aizu region, closed in February. Local shopowners got together and invited tenant shops formerly housed in the department store to move to vacant store space in local shopping malls. The malls were designed in a uniformed style to encourage window-shopping, and as a result, they turned out to be fashionable retail spaces.