Many shoppers have been getting surprises when heading out to their favorite stores lately. Whether they're closing completely or just moving down the road, there's a lot of changes ahead for Eau Claire's retail landscape. It's the national economy that has the biggest impact on the national chains, and that determines whether the stores will close or expand locally.

Stuart Schaefer of Commonweal Development Corporation says expansions have slowed, but they haven't stopped.

"Michael's was looking to relocate from their space into the building here,” he says, referring to the craft store currently located in the strip mall down the hill on Commonwealth Drive. “As for Petsmart, they're expanding throughout the nation."

But other national chain businesses, like Linens and Things, aren't fairing as well.

"We've got some cases where they're closing the store and sometimes it's the entire chain, not necessarily due to the Eau Claire economy, but due to the national economy," says Bob McCoy of the Eau Claire Chamber of Commerce.

Linens and Things is in the same strip mall as Michael's. When they both pull out, it will leave two vacancies in the small strip mall.

McCoy says moving to a different space may leave an empty building for a time, but that's not always a dead end.

"Gander Mountain moved into a new building and in the old building a JoAnn fabrics is going in, and they're also adding on to the building and putting in a Mongolian restaurant," says McCoy.

Schaefer says it's rare for a building in this area to stay empty.

"We just issued a vacancy report that Eau Claire is only at around 5 percent vacancy, which is not very high for this part of the country," says Schaefer.

Though retail changes and empty spaces might shake consumer confidence, McCoy says consumers shouldn't stop shopping.

"I think if the people just stay calm, buy something, maybe it's not as much as you'd like to buy, save a little money, and don't panic," he advises.

Both the Chamber of Commerce and Commonweal Development Corporation say many plans for expansion were in place before the economy took a turn for the worse, and that the companies are looking at the long-term economic picture.