What Recession?

I would love forsomeone to explain to me how, with all the news of falling profits, huge layoffs and government bail outs, I'm seeing so many stores undergoing cosmetic renovations. Citibank, Verizon, HSBC, to name a few that I have passed by, are updating some of their locations around the city. I'm not sure if this is happening elsewhere in the country (if it is, I'd like to know). It just seems to me that now is not the time to make a perfectly functionable location prettier. I think that money could be much better used on something more important, like the salaries of the people that were laid off. But that's just my opinion.