Major Video is making a major move out of Baton Rouge, according to the owner of the shopping center where the store is, on Perkins Road at South Acadian Thruway. The store advertises it “lost our lease” in a newspaper ad, but Jon Claitor, one of the owners of Acadian Perkins Plaza Shopping Center, says Major Video worked out a deal to end its lease six months early and is abandoning its retail movie and game business in town.
“They’ve been a fantastic tenant,” Claitor says. “It’s just been the competition of Netflix and Blockbuster Online and Cox Communications, from what the owner told me, has made him go more or less extinct.” Claitor says Major Video has been in the shopping center since 1995 and likely will vacate its 9,800-square-foot space by Wednesday. Claitor says he already has fielded calls from a hardware store, two restaurants and a grocery store, which would bring the space full-circle because it once housed a supermarket. “And I’m not even advertising the space,” he says.
The shopping center has enjoyed a wave of new occupants since Claitor gave it a stucco facelift, with four tenants signing on in the past 45 days. There is Yogalates (a cross between yoga and pilates), the iPhone MD, Body Cleanse, and Computer Clinic & Communications. Major Video plans a liquidation sale Saturday through Monday. The store’s original location was on Old Hammond Highway. The company has closed several other locations in New Orleans but still has stores in Gretna and Metairie.—Todd R. Brown
