Harborplace is busy on the weekends during the summer, but during the weekdays (particularly mornings) it’s nearly vacant. During the fall, winter and early spring Harborplace is closed since nobody really wants to visit the Inner Harbor in January. So, the store essentially has to make a full year’s revenue in 4 months or so. Even on a conservative revenue expectations framework, that’d be difficult but Starbucks demands consistently high revenues from its stores.

If you’ve ever walked through those pavilions on a Saturday afternoon in the summer (which obviously you have) you know how loud and crowded they are. Now imagine working at a Starbucks dealing with overweight and under-mannered tourists all day while inhaling the grease fumes and 50’s oldies muzak blaring over the noise from Johnny Rockets next door. Needless to say, the only baristas who worked there were those who had been ordered to go there. Not a real morale building environment.

Also, it’s important to realize that there’s five Starbucks within the immediate walkable downtown area (Harborplace, The Gallery, Harbor East, 301 N. Charles and Centerpointe) so there was a lot of customer cannabalization going on.

When you take all that into account, closing Harborplace makes perfect sense in this context. I’m just surprised they aren’t closing more in the area but I suppose if sales get worse, we might see another round of closures late in the year.