A retail analyst said nearly 200,000 stores could close in 2009, which would be more than 2008’s record-setting year of 160,000 store closings, Bloomberg reported.

“You’ll see department stores, specialty stores, discount stores, grocery stores, drugstores, major chains either multi-regionally or nationally go out,” said Burt Flickinger, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a retail-industry consulting firm in New York. “There are a number that are real causes for concern.”

It is expected that only retailers with healthy balance sheets will survive the recession, according to Matthew Katz of Alix Partners LLP, a consulting firm, and Gregory Segall, a managing partner at Versa Capital Management Inc., believes more than 50,000 stores could close without any effect on consumer choice.

However, other analysts believe discount retail stores will be the retail survivors of 2009. “If you’re going to be in retail right now, the discount space is where you want to be,” said Patrick McKeever, a senior equity analyst at MKM Partners LLC.

Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst at Jupiter Research in New York, said she expects consumers will continue to demand discounted prices, and the demand might get stronger as things get worse.

“The situation is not going to right itself in January; its going to be a long while that discounting’s going to be around,” she said. “Consumers are going to get used to it and its going to be very difficult for retailers to move forward in a full-price mode.”