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How Spirit Halloween chooses its locations

Depends on location, size and 3-month leases

Facade of a Spirit Halloween store in Walnut Creek, California, October 15, 2022. Photo courtesy Sftm. (Photo by Gado/Getty Images) (Gado, Getty Images)

The days are getting shorter. Pumpkin Spice is out. Students are back in school. Now, maybe it’s time to start thinking about those Halloween costumes.

You may have noticed Halloween stores popping up across Metro Detroit, specifically Spirit Halloween. But why do the stores pop up in strip malls which look to be on every other road? The company is sharing insight into how it chooses locations for the season.

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Some Halloween stores stay in one location for years, but Spirit Halloween is only open for a few months of the year, in different pop-up locations from one year to the next.

Since locations open on or about Sept. 1 and remain open through Nov. 1, the company looks for temporary 3-month leases which ideally run from mid-July through mid-Nov.

The company looks at lifestyle centers, strip malls, free-standing stores, and major downtown retail locations. The ideal store offers between 5,000 and 50,000 square feet of floor space with great visibility.

The company aims at setting up in communities that have a population of around 35,000 people living within a 3-to-5-mile radius of the store.

The stores don’t close right after Halloween, they typically close within a week or two after Oct. 31 for those last-minute findings.