Buying over the Internet has replaced traditional stores to some degree. Malls doing badly is neither new, nor news (natch). I was reading some statistics today suggesting plenty of people rarely go there, which I understand but still surprised me. Still, some seem to be doing well while others seemingly just sell tumbleweeds. What makes the difference? Do you go to malls often or try to avoid them? Do you ever eat at a food court? What might make you go more often? What are your local exemplars like?
The only mall left in town is dying. It’s barely a third occupied.
The Mall of America
Also in the realm of “not surprising” the only malls doing reasonably well in my area are the upscale outdoors style malls. A combination of quite a few mid-to-high end eateries, clothing, the Apple Store and a few other specialty style places.
At one point there were 3 indoor malls in my area, one is now is a large scale storage place, one is 60+% empty with a few restaurants (with outdoor facing), discount big-box space, and a megachurch, as the biggest living elements. The last, is maybe 70% full, with the remaining big-box stores (not many), and lots of smaller specialty stores, but has quite the turnover.
The only thing that would make me go much more often is if it were just as close and had everything that could be found in a big box store, arranged just as well as the big box store. I’d prefer to go to the mall because then I could also eat at the food court. As it is, I would rather go to Target because the last few times I went to the mall, everything was haphazardly arranged like they were going out of business. Which is not something that I would expect for something that is more expensive, rather than cheaper, than a big box store. If the choice were the current mall or Wal*Mart at the same distance, I’d have to think about it but i’d still go to Wally World due to more food selection.
I’d go slightly more if they had a retro arcade, because while I like barcades and stand-alone arcades, I don’t really find myself doing that more than once or twice a year. But an arcade in the mall also has the advantage that I can take a break at the food court, whereas when I do drink I often wish to get inebriated, which means I would not enjoy playing video games that much due to coordination issues.
But like I said, retro arcades would only get me in the doors 10 or so times a year. To go there more frequently you’d have to at least be closer, better arranged, or better selection than the big box stores, and they’d need to do both of the latter because the mall is farther away, and they never had a good selection of food items. Which leaves a more pleasant shopping experience in general, but currently they don’t even win on that front because they look like dollar stores which more than erases the bonus of a food court.
The mall closest to me is no longer there. But in the years that it sat unoccupied and broken, and before it was demolished, it was documented.
Now it is a giant parking lot at Route 30 and Cicero Ave.
A former mall closest to us that was built in the 1980s never really took off and was demolished and turned into an outdoor town center a few years ago. It appears to be doing well in that configuration. The other mall in town had four anchor stores, big name retailers like Sears and Penney’s, and now has only one, which has vowed to stay on. We shop there occasionally, and there’s one other store in the mall we might go to but there are a lot of empty storefronts. The owners have turned the three former anchor stores into non-retail uses, which are fine, but don’t do anything for the mall. We never eat at the food court, what’s left of it.
Within driving distance are two 1960s/70s malls that are both still doing well. They managed to replace the big retailers that left with equally good stores. In the same general area, though, two others that thrived in the 1970s are being demolished.
Malls are not the destinations they once were. If we go to one, it’s to shop a specific store. We don’t browse the mall. We get what we came to get and leave.
This mall isn’t local to me anymore, but is near where I grew up, so I remember going there during its heyday in the 1980s and 90s. Now it’s become a semi-popular destination for YouTubers documenting its decline. The linked video is the most recent one on YouTube; there are now just two stores remaining, plus one anchor that no longer opens into the mall.
Probably the closest actual indoor mall to where I currently live is the Sunrise Mall in Citrus Heights, CA. I honestly have no idea how they’re doing. I think the last time I went there was to pick up a microwave I ordered from Sears like 9 years ago. I do know that the Sears is now closed (are there actually any Sears store left?), and I believe Macy’s moved to a smaller space, but from what I can find online it looks like they’re doing… ok. Not nearly as bad as Signal Hill Mall, anyway. This thread kind of makes me want to head over to Sunrise Mall this weekend just to see how they’re doing.
In downtown Sacramento there was a mall that was technically open-air, but had the feel of a “real” mall, with two levels, escalators, and all that. It got demolished years ago to make way for a new arena for the Sacramento Kings.
Here in Folsom there’s an outdoor outlet mall, which I think is still doing alright; I only ever go there when I need to buy something specific (just like @XOldiesJock). And there’s a relatively new more upscale outdoor mall that seems to be doing well.
I’ve heard the malls that are still doing well are have reinvented themselves are more entertainment destinations than shopping destinations. The outdoor mall I mentioned in the previous paragraph has a Nordstrom Rack, a Whole Foods, and some smaller shops, but I think the real draws now are the movie theater and restaurants.
The malls around here are nearly empty. The one downtown in Providence is a little busy on the weekends. Mainly people are going to the stores with outdoor entrances so they’re just becoming old fashioned shopping centers with a lot of extra space for rent.
Definitely: there’s outdoor malls and there’s outdoor malls. Around me there are several upscale-attempting “lifestyle centers” that are laid out more like a downtown area and with more upscale stores, but crucially, they do not have very good walkways or coverage from the elements. If you just put a tarp over the entire outdoor area, and don’t let cars drive right down the middle, you accomplish 90% of what you need from an indoor mall, most crucially protection from precipitation and some of the cold, and even for extreme heat and cold you can put in fans and space heaters that have to be cheaper than air conditioning the whole shebang.
Just add restrooms and a food court with tables, and it would seem very close to an indoor mall at probably a cheaper price.
I haven’t been in our local mall for many years. I assume it’s dead or nearly so. To be honest, it was always a depressing place, but it was usually pretty full of people (15-20 years ago)
This place I like, and is packed every time I visit (which is the biggest thing I don’t like about it). It’s more out door space than what I think of as a “mall.” It’s also too far away unless I’m in Seattle for other reasons.
The closest mall to me was the biggest in the world when it was built in 1964 and is the highest $/sq ft revenue mall in Canada today.
I live 15 minutes or so from the #2 mall in the USA, the American Dream mall.
I’ve only gone there during the week around lunch time and never found it to be particularly busy. Although I don’t really recall shopping malls being particularly busy during that time in the 80s and 90s either.
But the sheer size of the mall makes it feel like a cross between driving to LaGuardia and a dystopian city in the not-to-distant future.
I think many people would be surprised to know that Manhattan has a fair number of shopping malls. Compared to suburban malls, they tend to be more high-end stores and are often integrated into public transportation hubs and mixed-use complexes with fine dining, offices, and luxury residences. Off the top of my head:
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Brookfield Place / The Oculus - basically a sprawling underground city that connects what used to be call World Financial Center, World Trade Center, NJ PATH and MTA subway lines.
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Hudson Yards - part of the new Hudson Yards complex on the west side of Midtown
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Columbus Circle - Also called the Time Warner Center conveniently located at the southwest corner of Central Park.
Also nearby in Jersey City is Newport Center, which feels more like a traditional suburban mall. But like the others, it is on a transit hub (NJ PATH, NY Waterway, and Hudson-Bergen Light Rail) in the middle of a major commercial / high rise residential area.
I’ve been to MOA exactly once, and that was when my now 26 year old grandson was five. We took him there for a little outing and because I was curious about the place. It’s overwhelming, really, especially if you don’t have specific stores you want to go to. I never saw a need to return when I visited out here, nor now that I actually live here. Besides just a general lack of interest on my part, these are the sorts of places that morons with guns decide to act out their pathetic fantasies, and I have no wish to die while looking at shoes.
Here in Corpus Christi we have two malls (sort of). La Palmera mall is the main mall in town. It’s thriving and always busy, even in the middle of the day on weekdays during the school year. The other mall, the Sunrise Mall, is only one block over, and is now shuttered and crumbling. The city has deemed it not fit for human habitation except for a couple of spots (a mega church and a gym) that don’t open up into the main area of the mall.
Back in the 80s and 90s, the city was able to support both malls, but the Sunrise was always the busier (and IMHO cooler) mall. They even shot a major movie there back in the day, The Legend of Billie Jean.
With the Sunrise being the popular mall, La Palmera (Padre Staples in those days) gradually lost value, and was eventually bought for a good price by a developer and then completely renovated. Once the renovations were complete, La Palmera took over the title of the cool mall and the Sunrise Mall began to decline to the point where it’s now no longer safe to even be inside the building.
In Little Rock we have the Outlets of Little Rock which is an open air mall that opened back in 2015. I don’t think it’s ever been fully occupied, and a lot of stores that used to be there have since moved out. After I lost a lot of weight, I went there to do some clothes shopping and I just couldn’t find any shirts to wear. I found plenty of pants to fit me, but most of the stores there only went up to 1X in shirts and I wear a 2X. There’s a beer jerky store that sells all kinds of wild jerky, but the Lindt’s chocolate store went out of business and every single time I’ve tried going to the Autie Anne’s to get a pretzel they’ve been out of pretzels. And, no, pretzel nuggets don’t count.
Despite living very close to the Outlets, I don’t shop there very often at all. I haven’t been there in 2023. Oh, and in 2021 someone was shot in the head while attending a carnival at the Outlet. I guess that’s another reason not to go, but that could happen at any mall in Little Rock.
We also have Park Plaza Mall which opened in 1960 and was the first mall in the city I think. It originally started out as an open air mall, but in the 80s they shut it down, enclosed it, and re-opened. I haven’t been to this mall since 2013-2014. They used to have an Aladdins arcade, but the last time I went there it felt weird because I was in my 30s. The only reason I have to go to this mall is the Dillards, but for some reason I always forget there’s a Dillards. Oh, and it’s another good place to get shot. About a decade ago, a former Sbarro employee went back and shot a few people there. And you hear about people being held up at gun or knife-point every Christmas.
The Southgate mall in Kingsville (just south of Corpus Christi) had one of those back in the 80s. It shut down some time in the 90s. Eventually the whole mall closed down when Walmart moved out after building a free standing store. It’s now separate stores that don’t connect through the inside.
The funny thing is when I was a kid the Southgate mall was the cool place to be and downtown Kingsville was for the old people of my parent’s generation who went there to hang out and reminisce about the glory days of downtown back when they were kids in the 50s. Now the (former) mall is for the old boring people (it has stores like Tractor Supply and a tax preparation place) and the kids hang out in the cool place to be, a newly revitalized downtown.
Oh yeah! I’ve thrown up there a few times. 
Seems to me there are two kinds of successful malls. The “outlet malls” in the extra-cheap parts of town. The fancy malls in the very expensive parts of town.
It’s the ones in the socio-economic middle that are dead or dying ghost towns.
What qualifies as a mall? I’m serious. I haven’t been to the Queens Center or Queens Place malls in years. I go to this place all the time, but I’m not sure if most people would consider that a mall. I never really liked indoor malls - they almost always seem to crowded to me and involve lots of walking, even when I only want to go to one store. My real preference would be to shop on the actual street, but the commercial street in my neighborhood is mostly food, dry cleaners , hair salons and that sort of thing. If I’m going to drive to another neighborhood to buy clothing or shoes , I’m going to go to an outdoor mall where I won’t have to worry about parking.