The Decline of Shopping Malls

[kendancy66]

I was an frequent shopper at Springfield Mall Montgomery Wards.  I remember it changing to Target. My wife was unfamiliar with Target at the time. So she told me she wanted to go to O Target  I had no idea of what she was talking about. After I figured out what she was talking about I told that was not an O and the O was not part of the name. She kept ask ing me what the O was and I kept telling her it was a TARGET

[kendancy66]

Also there is two level Target in Eagle Rock CA that has the same shopping cart escalator. So I dont think it is unique to Springfield Mall

[jeffandnicole]

North Jersey's malls don't seem to have a problem. Its likely due to the population density. South Jersey is a different story. Retail vacancies in strip malls are high however (this is a nationwide problem). Many of them are completely empty with leasing companies unwilling to rehab them or still charging high rents. Retail blight doesn't last long though as land is valuable and there isn't much empty space left to build on, so stuff actually gets knocked down and redeveloped..

??

In terms of indoor malls, most in South Jersey are doing very well. The Echelon Mall, which had no easy highway access (actually, all roads leading to it were two lane roads) was revamped a decade ago. And the Cumberland County mall is losing a JC Penney soon, which is more a JC Penney issue than a mall issue. But otherwise, South Jersey Malls aren't any different of a story compared to North Jersey.

[golden eagle]

Metrocenter Mall in Jackson has been on the decline for the better part of 20 years. The decline accelerated in the last 15 or so. In the mid-2000s, Burlington Coat Factory moved in, but hasn't generated enough traffic to stop the bleeding. The city has moved some government offices to the Metrocenter, but its impact is yet to be determined. However, just before Thanksgiving, it was reported that Metrocenter was sold to a new owner, and the new owner plans significant improvements. Click here for the link.

[roadman65]

I was surprised to learn that the Seaview Square Mall in Asbury Park, NJ is now gone.  That one I thought would never go even if Asbury Park has gone ghetto, as this Mall was west of Route 35.

In Kissimmee, Florida the Osceola Square Mall is now Plaza Del Sol as the Osceola Square Mall went down hill when that part of US 192 it was on stopped being a tourist area years ago as well as the rise of apartment complexes nearby.  The new owner of the mall is trying now to cater to the locals more and went for a Spanish theme because most of Kissimmee now is Hispanic.  We'll see how this one works out.  Not to mention that nobody still took over the former Bealls Store that was anchored on the west end of the mall.  It has been vacant for several years now.

[busman_49]

...Rolling Acres Mall -- the last to be built in the 70s -- is now the poster child of dead & abandoned malls nationwide.

Growing up, we went to that mall quite a bit.  As a kid at Christmastime, I rode that train around the fountain countless times.  There was nothing about going to the mall I didn't like.  Then in the 90s for reasons I didn't know at the time, we stopped going there and went to Belden Village Mall in Canton any time we needed to go to the mall.  Later on I found out why, but that didn't stop me from going there in the late 90s when I got my license and my own wheels.  I think it was early 1999 when I started going back there again.  At that time, the mall wasn't as vibrant as it used to be, but there were still a fair amount of stores inside, including a store that sold vintage memorabilia (I ended up buying a couple of old traffic lights from there, one of which I still have).  After my wife and I married in 2003, we still made trips to the mall for movies, Penney's, or to hit the food court.  Walking through at that time was so eerie because of the deathly quietness of the mall.  Never did I feel unsafe at the mall, but the damage had been done by then.  We moved away in 2007 and I was saddened to hear that it closed for good in 2008.  I got some photos in 2012...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/busman_49/sets/72157632037428120/

[Brandon]

The main things that make or break a mall financially are the presence of middle-to-upper-class middle age, married women with children in the area. If you're not getting them you're done.

Also, the old axiom of real estate: location, location, location.  Let's also include management here as well.  I live in a town where the mall is 98% occupied, is well managed, and is at the junction of a major road and a freeway.  It also has bus routes connecting it to other parts of town.

Chicagoland's strongest malls are:

Woodfield
Oakbrook Center
Old Orchard
Louis Joliet Mall
Fox Valley
Orland Square
Hawthorn
Southlake

Others that seem to be performing well:

Harlem-Irving Plaza
Lincolnwood Town Center
Northbrook
Yorktown
Chicago Ridge Mall
Ford City

These are dying (usually due to location and management):

Charlestowne Mall
Stratford Square
River Oaks

I'm not including Lincoln Mall as it just closed.  A classic case of mismanagement as it is in a great location.

[PHLBOS]

Another trend I'm seeing locally is the development of additional free standing stores, or even entire strip malls, in mall parking lots.

See my earlier post.  From an operations standpoint, free-standing stores and strip malls are easier (& cheaper) to heat & cool because there's no enclosed corridors nor atriums to heat/cool.  It's a more energy efficient design.

Lets face it, some of these places have WAY too much parking even when they are extremely busy. Seems that 60's planners over estimated parking. Things got more reasonable at newer malls.

One must remember that back in the 60s (at least until 1964-65), the population was still, by and large, growing.  As a result, the planners likely based the number of parking spaces for future growth on then-current population growing trends.

Back then, nobody expected the drop in birthrates, skyrocketing energy prices (w/long gas lines) and the double-digit inflation that would take place during the following decade.

Another mall that I'm personally surprised is still around, this one's in Downtown Salem, MA; is the Museum Place Mall (formerly the East India Square Mall).  That mall seemed to be struggling since it opened in the mid-to-late 70s.

The problem with that mall has been its location.  There's no major highways nearby, mass transit is predominantly busses not to mention parking issues early on.  While the Commuter rail station's a short walk from the mall; it's very convoluted.

Not to mention that the fact that parking wasn't always free.  During the daytime hours, one had to pay to park in either the surface lot or the parking garage.   

[KEK Inc.]

The strongest malls in the Seattle area is by far Southcenter and then Bellevue Mall.  Northgate is definitely declining. 

[kkt]

The strongest malls in the Seattle area is by far Southcenter and then Bellevue Mall.  Northgate is definitely declining. 

Northgate is being hit by University Village for higher-end shops, and Target and Best Buy that opened in the block north of Northgate Mall for the lower-end shops.

[leroys73]

Yep a lot seem to be closing. 

Next to online shopping I like the enclosed malls during cold or hot weather.  I never was much of a mall goer even when I was young when malls were the rage.  I only went if I had too (wife and three daughters) or really needed something only to be found there. 

One time during the hot Texas summer a buddy and I spent the entire afternoon in the mall just watching the girls and waiting to go to a Rangers baseball game that evening since we had checked out of our hotel to save money. I know that mall, very nice it its day, was having crime trouble a few years later so it is probably closed now.

[KEK Inc.]

The strongest malls in the Seattle area is by far Southcenter and then Bellevue Mall.  Northgate is definitely declining. 

Northgate is being hit by University Village for higher-end shops, and Target and Best Buy that opened in the block north of Northgate Mall for the lower-end shops.

I live in East Greek Row overlooking U Village, and it's always bustling.  Is it considered a mall?

[kkt]

The strongest malls in the Seattle area is by far Southcenter and then Bellevue Mall.  Northgate is definitely declining. 

Northgate is being hit by University Village for higher-end shops, and Target and Best Buy that opened in the block north of Northgate Mall for the lower-end shops.

I live in East Greek Row overlooking U Village, and it's always bustling.  Is it considered a mall?

I don't see why not.  Single private owner for the mall, an indoor pedestrian-only core surrounded by parking.  Are you wondering because of the few additional shopping areas across the parking lot from the main mall?

[Thing 342]

The opening of the Patrick Henry Mall in 1987 and the rise of nearby big box stores in the subsequent decade marked the start of the decline of all of the other malls on the Peninsula, with Newmarket Fair closing to become office space in the late nineties, and  with Coliseum being razed in the winter of 2007. It now mostly competes with 'lifestyle centers' such as Peninsula Town Center (which rose from the ashes of Coliseum Mall). However, it still does good business, and the surrounding area is a traffic nightmare during the holidays.

[OCGuy81]

This is an interesting site I came upon after a discussion about this very subject.

I remember a few of the California ones on here.

http://deadmalls.com/

[lepidopteran]

Many suburban malls often fail because of several factors:
a) Newer shopping centers open up or older centers are redeveloped/renovated;
b) An anchor or two leave, causing a cascading effect on mainline, Class A tenants. Replacement tenants often pay a lot less in rents/percentages and are often Class B/C tenants;
c) Demographic shifts or shifts in traffic patterns;
d) Just not needed (see Cedar Knoll Galleria above).

There's also
e) A perceived increase in the mall's crime rate, whether justified or not (news reports sometimes blow an otherwise isolated incident out of proportion)
f) Not being located in proximity to a freeway.  And by this I mean having convenient access to said highway.  Look at Eastgate Mall in Chattanooga, TN, practically on top of the I-75/I-24 split.  Physically, it may have been right there, but to get to it you had wend around a couple of miles of surface roads -- remember, this was in pre-GPS days.  To be fair, though, the fact that Hamilton Place opened a few miles up I-75 didn't help either, as it was both visible from the highway AND had its own off-ramp.

[DeaconG]

This is an interesting site I came upon after a discussion about this very subject.

I remember a few of the California ones on here.

http://deadmalls.com/

They don't update nearly as much as they used to, I was following them since the early aughts but in the last three years or so they've let things slide.

Another site, Labelscar, apparently hasn't had new material since mid 2013.

[GCrites]

The emergence of new dead or dying malls has slowed in the teens. If a mall makes it to the end of 2015 with 70+ percent occupancy of major tenants and anchors it's probably going to be good for a while. The wheat has been separated from the chaff. This round of Sears and JCP closings is going to wipe out the marginal malls.

[wphiii]

The saddest are the inner-city dead malls. The perfect encapsulation of that phenomenon is Peabody Place in Memphis, for which several square blocks of Downtown street grid were destroyed. It only opened in 2001, and was completely closed by 2012. 

[Desert Man]

Three vacated malls in the Palm Springs area: the Palm Springs Mall (now a college), Desert Fashion Plaza (I believe it's demolished) and my hometown's Indio Fashion Mall (totally emptied). Due to economic conditions, Wal-marts, dollar stores and online shopping (at least the money goes to the store, but retail employees won't be needed) drove many middle-class shoppers away from malls...and ever rising high rents kept most small shop owners from starting businesses in malls. I have good memories of the Palm Desert Town Center, now Westfield Shoppingtown Palm Desert, a great place in the summer (A/c cool) and the winter (the desert resort's season), but it's gotten too expensive over the years and I stopped going there for any reason.

[Pete from Boston]

The saddest are the inner-city dead malls. The perfect encapsulation of that phenomenon is Peabody Place in Memphis, for which several square blocks of Downtown street grid were destroyed. It only opened in 2001, and was completely closed by 2012. 

Worcester, Mass., the type and size of city that usually killed their downtown with an open-air pedestrian mall, saw its downtown enclosed mall thrive in the 80s, dry up in the 90s, get reinvented and reinvigorated then closed and torn down.  The formerly chopped-up street grid is now being reconnected, and most traces of the mall removed.   

Sadly, I don't think the mall was the problem.  By the end of the 80s, people didn't want to go downtown (the newer mall a few miles north thrived for this reason).  This is the reason countless improvement efforts failed, and why I have doubts about the new development.   

[roadman65]

In Orlando the former Beltz factory Outlet Mall was two indoor malls along with a third strip mall.  Now its the Prime Factory Outlets, and the original 3 buildings torn down replaced now with one large outdoor mall. 

I do not know if that was the change in ownership that caused that or a change in culture as people in my neighborhood used to say that outdoor malls are in and indoor malls are out now. 

One thing about outlet malls they do not need anchors to hold them in place as everything is just small store name brand outlets unlike the big malls that need a Sears and JC Penney to hold it down.

BTW, what is going to become of Miracle City Mall in Titusville, Florida?  I see it being razed now.

[GCrites]

Outdoor malls are out when it's hot or cold. They're in when it's nice. One advantage indoor malls have is the lack of doors on the stores. Even if the door is open, people are still more likely to randomly stroll into a store with no doors.

[roadman65]

Outdoor malls are out when it's hot or cold. They're in when it's nice. One advantage indoor malls have is the lack of doors on the stores. Even if the door is open, people are still more likely to randomly stroll into a store with no doors.

Its funny you mention doors as the producers of Married With Children put a door on Al Bundy's Shoe Store which is inside an indoor mall.

Also when Woodbridge Center Mall opened in 1972, Abraham & Strauss had useless doors mounted to the old style glass sliding doors that got traded in for the shutters that many mall stores use nowadays.  I have no idea why those doors were on it, when they were never used do to the fact the sliding doors they were attached to were always opened and when the doors were closed so was the store.

Another story is the former Menlo Park Mall in Edison, NJ, design before the current one built in 1991, had doors to the stores only because originally Menlo Park Mall was an outdoor facility.  All they did was enclose the mall that was already there and not touch the buildings that housed the stores. 

[thenetwork]

Outdoor malls are out when it's hot or cold. They're in when it's nice. One advantage indoor malls have is the lack of doors on the stores. Even if the door is open, people are still more likely to randomly stroll into a store with no doors.

Its funny you mention doors as the producers of Married With Children put a door on Al Bundy's Shoe Store which is inside an indoor mall.

Also when Woodbridge Center Mall opened in 1972, Abraham & Strauss had useless doors mounted to the old style glass sliding doors that got traded in for the shutters that many mall stores use nowadays.  I have no idea why those doors were on it, when they were never used do to the fact the sliding doors they were attached to were always opened and when the doors were closed so was the store.

Another story is the former Menlo Park Mall in Edison, NJ, design before the current one built in 1991, had doors to the stores only because originally Menlo Park Mall was an outdoor facility.  All they did was enclose the mall that was already there and not touch the buildings that housed the stores. 

^^ Are you positive that the shoe store was in an indoor mall?  I was always led to believe that it was in a Pedestrian Mall (similar to the Boulder music store on Mork & Mindy).

When the upscale Jacobson's Department Store was still in existence at the Franklin Park Mall in Toledo, the indoor mall entrance had a set of two big wooden doors one must open to enter.  Again, because they tried to cater to the clientele of nearby Ottawa Hills, the swank suburb of Toledo 2 miles south of the mall on Tallmadge Road.