One local mall started as a regional shopping center in '65, converted to a mall in '90, and now stands virtually empty except for the Sears & Macy’s anchors while plans to covert it back into a shopping center have stalled.
In my little town, only one large mall is still thriving. The other three large malls are still alive, but on life support. One of the small malls still exists, but is basically vacant, and two others have been torn down and redevloped. Same problems as everywhere else. Malls don’t adapt easily to changes in shopping patterns and demographics.
What’s the difference between a “regional shopping center” and a mall?
The mall closest to where I grew up has grown and expanded over the decades. It started as an outdoor mall with stores facing each other but no roof (and this was in snowy Connecticut). Eventually, a roof was added along with another level of stores. Currently there are four big anchor stores, but two of those are Sears and JC Penney (the others are Macys and Target). I’m not sure whether JC Penney will outlive Sears, but I think they’re both going to close eventually. I’d like to see Nordstrom there, but the area may not be upscale enough.
Turfland Mall in Lexington KY hit the skids largely because it couldn’t compete with the more popular and impressive Fayette and Lexington malls. The anchor stores abandoned it.
Fayette Mall is prospering but Lexington Mall has long since gone under. (The only store I remember from it sold designer toilet seats.)
In Albuquerque Winrock Mall has fallen on hard times, largely because it didn’t attract enough young people. Many of its anchors migrated to the nearby Coronado Mall.
Omaha is an interesting story. Several of our older malls have either gone belly up or, like the once-focal Crossroads, are hanging one virtually in name only - the food court is closed, and over 80% of the really very impressive structure is vacant and blocked off. On the other hand, I thought the Westroads Mall (once on the periphery of the city, now about eight miles of sprawl inside the limits) was a goner about six years ago when many of its stores were closing, but it has made a comeback of sorts, opening a new theater and filling most of its empty bays. On the other hand, what I assumed would be the last mall standing, Oak View, appears to be in pretty dire shape, though the stand-alone stores encircling the mall proper seem to be doing reasonably well. (A couple have closed, but the rest of the dominoes don’t appear to be falling yet.)
Truth be told, I rarely go there anymore. Mall bookstores are virtually extinct, so I don’t have much reason to be there.
Regarding the one I referred to, it was basically a mall with no roof over the pedestrian walkways. Sort of like the Town Centers that are the fad now but on a smaller scale.
We never had a mall of any size. The only one ever tried had space for about 10 businesses (nail salons, clothing stores), no big anchors, and only half indoors. It never reached full capacity even in its heyday. It was never big enough to draw shoppers just for the “mall experience,” and there never were any restaurants, fast food or gathering places inside. (IMHO, that’s probably why it never took off.)
However, you can reach every store in town with a bicycle, and there’s no place that’s too far too walk, although most people drive anyway. Parking is never a problem.
That’s life in a small town (pop. 10,000).
So that’s what that is! I’ve wondered when driving down Highway 99 whether that was ‘never finished’ or ‘not yet finished’ construction.
When I was growing up, Sacramento had 5 large Shopping Centers (in the ‘Greater Sacramento Metropolitan Area’, that is; only two of them were in the city proper). I recall a joke at the time being that the word Sacramento was a local Indian word meaning ‘too many shopping malls’. Today, one of those malls is gone, one is going to be torn down to build a new sports arena (pending a lawsuit or three), and one seemed to be on its last legs the last time I was there (probably 10 years ago). The other two are doing reasonably well, as far as I can tell (though I haven’t set foot in one of them in probably 5 years), and the only mall that I think is currently thriving is ‘new’, having opened in 2000.
We’ve been driving out to the Northborough Wegmans since it opened. A friend is very excited about the imminent Chestnut Hill Wegmans and the upcoming Burlington one, but coming from Cambridge I’m pretty sure traffic to get to either of those will be bad enough we’ll end up going back out to Northborough. Sigh.
Or to keep from just putting a gun to your heads after what you’re going through this winter.
So “15% of U.S. malls will fail or be converted into non-retail space within the next 10 years” eh? I’m not at all surprised, considering we are only beginning to recover from The Great Recession." I might have expected that just from the trend toward online shopping. I can’t remember the last time I bought anything at Sears or JC Penneys.
Like bump, I’m in Htown and I saw how downhill Sharpstown went. I recall the Babbage store being across from food court and I don’t even know if Babbage exists? (and memories such as seeing top ten software sellers and King’s Quest and Space Quest reigning!) Town and Country was an actual mall 20yrs ago and it was torn down for strip shopping center. West Oaks the last time was there was in 2009 for a comic-con and they put the artists and sellers in a non-airconditioning working wing. so humid, Felt so bad for them! It was Saturday afternoon and nobody was shopping nor eating in the food court. Once 1st colony and Katy Mills came up other malls went south
What was once Babbage’s became part of Software Etc. and is now part of GameStop.
Raleigh, NC area here…Crabtree Valley Mall appears to be thriving. They did a big expansion a few years ago that added several restaurants, and they’ve pretty much engulfed the old strip mall that used to be across the parking lot from Belks. There’s a big sign at the exit off the Beltline that lights up when the mall’s main parking lot is full; this was lit up every time I drove by that exit in December. There’s some sort of big new development happening behind the mall now, too.
The Streets of Southpoint in Durham seems to be thriving as well; it’s a very, very high-end mall though.
Triangle Towne Center and Cary Towne Center, on the other hand, are both crummy. Both have many empty storefronts, and Triangle’s center court had turned into a flea market the last time I was there. I think both malls are owned by the same developer, which might explain a lot.
Yeah, Arkansas’ most famous mall, McCain Mall was looking pretty shabby last time I visited. A lot of routine maintenance wasn’t getting done.
I used to go there to eat at Lubys Cafeteria several times a month. It closed in 2005. A darn shame.
McCain still has its two major anchor stores. Sears and Dillards. Several dozen small stores inside.
In the OP’s link, is there some reason the photos show the settings for a video game zombie apocalypse ? The average closed building not suffering external harm does not generally start collapsing in five years, even without maintenance.
If ceiling tiles start dropping in that short time I’d assume they could have dropped on shoppers’ heads when the mall was a bustling throng of merriment and vivacious fun.
The Mall in Columbia (Maryland) is doing quite well from what I can see. It’s always crowded, and there are very rarely empty storefronts for long. The only other mall I know much about is a huge outlet mall, and it’s in similar shape. Impossible to find parking on the weekends.
It can happen more rapidly than you’d think. All it takes is for a pipe to burst or a leak to develop in the ceiling, and with no maintenance crew on hand to fix it, complete destruction can occur within days.
Check out the TV show Life After People for some real-world examples, including Pripyat, Ukraine in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.