updated on a rolling basis,” he said. “The forecast
is incredibly uncertain.”
Retailers, restaurants and mall operators are
looking at China’s experience to see how they
can reopen stores, said Meghann Martindale,
global head of research at CBRE, a real estate
services firm. Malls, for instance, probably won’t
open food courts and big play areas for children
for a while, and shopping complexes will likely
limit the number of entrances to control the flow
of customers.
Build-A-Bear Workshop, which operates 350
mostly mall-based stores in the U.S., is exploring
new ways to ease coronavirus fears, such as
letting families make appointments so they
can customize and stuff their own plush toys
without strangers around, said founder and
former CEO Maxine Clark. It’s also giving its
workers masks that feature bears so they won’t
be scary for children.
Amazon, which drew sharp criticism for firing an
employee who led a walkout to demand greater
coronavirus protection for workers, now says it is
developing an internal lab that could potentially
provide coronavirus tests for all employees,
even those without symptoms. (Amazon says
the employee in question was fired for violating
social-distance guidelines and other infractions.)
Many technology companies embraced stay-
at-home policies early on, since most of their
workers can do their jobs remotely. That gives
Facebook the luxury of requiring the vast
majority of its employees to continue working
from home through at least the end of May.
Those who can’t easily return after that -- if,
say, they have no good childcare options -- can