Re: My heart bleeds
It is a buyer's market for retail space at the moment and landlords will be very aware of that.
Commercial leases are usually taken on multi-year leases, ~5 years is typical. This usually advantages the leasor as it locks in rent at current prices for several years.
Depending on how long the current leases have remaining, and how much the landlord is prepared to burn their bridges with respect to future business after the leases expire, the landlord would be within their rights to force Apple to pay the contracted rate until the end of the lease, which Apple would have to keep paying until the end of their lease even if they relocated.
This isn't a case of a bankruptcy (which could effectively dissolve all such leases and leave the landlords as creditors to a broke company), or even a struggling company that could reasonably ask for a rent reduction. As the article noted, Apple has ~$190billion in cash, not illiquid assets, but actual cold, hard cash on hand. They are not in any way struggling long-term. Their current revenues might be down, but the company is in no danger of going bankrupt for decades with the amount of cash they have on hand, even if their revenues dropped to nought.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
