Years ago, the early 2000s, I walked into a mall in South Africa. It was like walking into a space station with shops. I’d never seen anything like it. Zimbabwe had strip-mall style, but this behemoth was four stories tall! And it looked like it was designed on the Star Trek ship Enterprise!
I’ve got used it. I hate it, but that is more about me, aesthetics and parking fees.
Even the fancy malls in my Canadian city have lost big tenants (as storied companies disappear) and even the successful ones sell mainly clothing and accessories, food and phone-adjacent services. Only one mall has a bookstore left.
They seem to be adapting by allowing standalone fast food places, restaurants and even apartments in their once cavernous parking lots. It isn’t unusually to see a plaza within a plaza within a plaza now.
There are two thriving enclosed malls in my area: Colonie Center and Crossgates. Colonie Center is having money problems, but it’s still pretty busy. Crossgates is bigger, but still seems to be doing well.
A third enclosed mall, Via Port/Rotterdam Square, is struggling. It actually lasted longer than I had expected, and now it has no anchor stores and survives because the NYS Office of Taxation and Finance is set up in one of the old anchor stores. It also has an aquarium and an entertainment center with bowling and video games; both are rarely busy. There’s also a bingo parlor and movie theater. It’s pretty sad, though.
The most successful mall is Stuyvesant Plaza, an upscale strip mall. Most of their spaces are filled, and they have kicked out some of their stores (including my favorites) for people who are willing to pay a higher rent.
Hannaford Plaza is a strip mall that seems to be doing OK, with mostly smaller businesses.
Other malls were Mohawk Mall (torn down and now the site of standalone big box stores), and Latham Circle Mall (torn down and now a super Wal-Mart), Shoparama was next to Hannaford Plaza and was torn down (along with some of Hannaford Plazal buildings) and replaced with a Wal-Mart.
I can’t speak for the malls in the far eastern and western suburbs, but in the heart of metro St. Louis we have four remaining malls. The smallest and most upscale is Plaza Frontenac. It’s home to Neiman Marcus and Saks and a handful of top-level boutiques, but it looks like it’s down to fewer than 30 stores and restaurants. The most downscale of the bunch is barely hanging on, with two of its four anchor stores vacant, and one entire level closed off.
The other two have pretty much divided into upper mid-tier and solid mid-tier. The upper mid-tier Galleria took a tremendous hit when Nordstrom’s closed its store there but is still busy. Both malls are plagued by the perception of crime, although the major crime seems to be shoplifting. The current favorite target is Dick’s Sporting Goods.
It depends where they are located and the merchandise mix. Toronto has a number of malls that are doing extremely well, including CF Eaton Centre, Yorkdale, and Square One (a large regional in Mississauga). On the other hand, a number of malls like Centrepoint and Cloverdale Mall are failing and slated for mixed use redevelopment including high rise apartments.
One of our issues is the lack of large national anchor stores as we have lost the last major chain, Hudson’s Bay. There are smaller limited line stores like Holt Renfrew and Simons, but malls are figuring out how to make it work without 2-3 major anchors.
The mall closest to where I grew up (Connecticut Post Mall, Milford, Connecticut) still has some anchor stores; Macy’s, Target and Boscov’s (a Pennsylvania chain that moved into a location previously occupied by J C Penney). Sears was at one end but closed years ago. There’s also a fourteen-screen movie theater and other entertainment tenants; Dave & Busters, an escape room, a bounce house place for children, a place for people to create painted art while sipping wine, etc.
They are trying to get approval to add apartments somewhere on the property.
BTW, weirdly enough, a brand-new mall opened six years ago in Norwalk, Connecticut; the SoNo Collection with Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, H&M, Zara and other stores. I think some of the stores moved from elsewhere, including what used to be a big mall in downtown Stamford, Connecticut.
Care to name the other two? I’m a former St. Louis resident and am curious which is which.
At least when I lived there (~1994-2014) the “perception of crime” thing was mostly a “perception of boisterous black youth” in what the mall-goers had wished was a lilly-white enclave of comfy commercialism.
This might apply to Edmonton. But Canadians are used to functioning in cold weather - in Toronto and Montreal the “underground network” using subways and tunnels to connect thousands of businesses and several malls extends for many miles.
Somewhat mall-related, I was surprised to read an article this morning telling me there are still five Sears locations left in the United States: one in California, one in Texas, one in Massachusetts and two in Florida. They are not expected to survive to see Black Friday 2026.
The four or five Sears within driving distance of our home left so many years ago I can’t remember when they closed. I didn’t think there were any still in business anywhere.
Occasionally, in my travels, I’ll see a retail or fast food brand that I haven’t seen in decades. Roy Rogers for instance. They have the same branded cups and utensils that they had years ago, and I wonder where they get them. There hasn’t been a Roy Rogers anywhere near us in at least 25 years, and there used to be lots of them. Apparently, you can still get a franchise if you want one.
I wish they’d come back. I liked Roy Rogers roast beef sandwiches.
It seems Roy Rogers is now pretty well confined to 40 stores in the Washington DC to Philadelphia PA corridor. I recognize the brand but I doubt they were ever big anywhere I lived, as opposed to just traveled through.
Reading their about pages they have an interesting history of expansion into a brand owned by one of the big restaurant conglomerates and subsequent contraction into a family-owned brand, albeit with at least some store locations still franchised by the family to outsiders.
Even where they were big, they were never even as common as Wendy’s. I worked in a couple back in the 80s and I don’t think there were 20 locations in all of NYC. Haven’t seen them in NY for years but they are apparently planning to return.
Springfield, Illinois’ White Oaks Mall is, according to AI, a “mixed bag.” It’s suffered low foot traffic, anchor stores closing, and shuttered stores, like most traditional urban/suburban American malls. But new anchor stores have opened, and the State of Illinois bought the old Sears, which anchored the north end of the building, and they’re repurposing it for office space. Also one anchor store location has been repurposed as an indoor entertainment center, like a low-rent Dave & Busters.
Towne West Square, which opened in Wichita in 1981, had been on life support for several years. The building was sold and the mall was officially closed last July. Two anchor stores are still open: Dillard’s Clearance Center and Penny’s, although their entrances into the mall proper are sealed off.
The building itself has been purchased by a ‘retail investment group’ which seeks to turn the location into a business park. The first tenant signed a lease earlier this month.
Here in Chicago’s near-western suburbs, there are two major malls, both originally built in the 1960s, which have taken different trajectories.
Oakbrook Center is an open-air mall (a little surprising in this climate), which continues to be busy, and seems to be doing very well. It has a number of upscale stores (Nieman Marcus, Restoration Hardware, Breitling and Rolex watches, etc.), and an Apple Store, as well as a bunch of good restaurants, and movie theaters.
On the other hand, Yorktown Center, just a couple of miles to the west, has been sad for years. Several of its longtime anchor stores (Montgomery Wards, Carson Pirie Scott) are now long defunct, and its main anchor is the how-are-they-still-in-business JCPenney. The few times I’ve been in there in the past few years, it feels very quiet. It has a few places along the edges of the property that likely do good business: an AMC movie theater, a Capital Grille restaurant, and a Target, but the mall itself doesn’t seem to be an attraction any longer.
(Further west, in Naperville/Aurora, there is the massive Fox Valley Mall, but I haven’t been there since COVID, so I don’t know how well it’s doing.)
I lived at Bathurst & Steeles until 1976, so Towne & Countrye was my childhood mall. Other than Canadian Tire, I don’t think I’ve been inside this century.
The redevelopment is tied to the North Yonge subway extension and was announced 4 years ago but is tied up in development hell from what I understand.