The Decline of Shopping Malls

[thenetwork]

For a mall/shopping center to have survived for 61 years, it led a good life.  How many professional sports stadiums or arenas have that long of a life?

Speaking of which, if you want creepy, here are some videos of the old, abandoned Pontiac Silverdome -- former home of the Lions and Pistons.

When roof was still (barely) intact:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuxrWO0JEM0

Most recently and without the "dome":  http://youtu.be/vAKCNK5TAiE

[bing101]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/mall-threat-inspire-attacks-feds-malls-prepare-worst/story?id=29168062

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/23/us/us-al-shabaab-preparedness/

Apparently Homeland security says US Malls are terrorist targets for ISIS? Umm.

[Scott5114]

The big mall here in the Appleton area has those very attractive to bad guys 'Come in and raise h***' (AKA, 'No weapons allowed') signs on all of their doors and parking lot entrances.

Step one - LOSE THOSE SIGNS!  The law-abiding public, especially in today's climate of popular concealed-carry, is a *formidable* security force in its own right and is remarkably effective in protecting itself and any property within its view.  Make the most of it!

Mike

So you can have some guy who may or may not have a gun losing his shit at a cashier because she won't honor an expired coupon?

Anyone who's worked a service job knows that customers are capricious, petty things. Inviting them to bring their gun to your workplace doesn't exactly inspire a whole lot of confidence that the gun will be used against a terrorist (how often do you have those, anyway?) rather than against you because they're a customer that wants to get into a pissing match with a store clerk over a sale or a refund or something (which happens daily).

I imagine the issue is that somebody, with the intent to provoke harm towards others, probably cares little about rules to begin with. Most people will not enter a no-guns zone with a gun*, thus a gun-free zone is a great place for a shooting since the shooter will likely encounter less resistance (hence the large number of shootings at schools and shopping malls relative to other locations).

*this is purely speculative and I have zero proof

It's the people who don't have intent to provoke harm towards others that I worry about. People who go into a store or whatever to shop and they're perfectly fine until their credit card declines, or they're informed they can't do a return, or the way the register processes a sale makes the total 29¢ off from what the customer thinks it should be, or whatever. People turn into little kids when they get told no. I would be afraid that one of these people would lose control and start waving around a gun. I've heard plenty of stories about cashiers getting assaulted by customers over dumb shit like this, so obviously what is legal doesn't really matter to them much.

Put another way–we have no-gun signs on the door at the casino I work at. People get mad because they lose and will break the slot machine screens (and although we will detain them if able, they usually realize they fucked up and bolt for the door afterward). It wouldn't exactly make me feel safe if people started shooting the screens out instead. We've never had an incident where a random person with a gun would come in handy but we do have people getting angry with us for a multitude of reasons every day, and I wouldn't want to start having to worry about if the guy who just lost his whole paycheck at a slot machine has a gun.

[mgk920]

'No weapons' policies are useless without airport-style magnetometers at every entrance.

Mike

[mgk920]

For a mall/shopping center to have survived for 61 years, it led a good life.  How many professional sports stadiums or arenas have that long of a life?

Hmmmm, Lambeau Field will turn 61 in 2018.



Mike

[GCrites]

For a mall/shopping center to have survived for 61 years, it led a good life.  How many professional sports stadiums or arenas have that long of a life?

They lasted that long before the team owners started demanding the public pay for new stadiums or else they'd threaten to move the teams somewhere else.

[slorydn1]

For a mall/shopping center to have survived for 61 years, it led a good life.  How many professional sports stadiums or arenas have that long of a life?

Hmmmm, Lambeau Field will turn 61 in 2018.



Mike

Wrigley Field will be 101 this year. 

[kkt]

Wrigley Field will be 101 this year. 

The Coliseum in Rome turns 1935.

[slorydn1]

Wrigley Field will be 101 this year. 

The Coliseum in Rome turns 1935.

Good point.


I can't wait for the Lions of the National Criminal Eating League to make a come back there

[english si]

The Coliseum in Rome turns 1935.

For stadia still used, and regularly, for their original purpose, The Oval is 170 this year and Lord's is 201 though the original pavilion was replaced with the one below 125 years ago*


*there's a matter of new handles and new heads and whether it is still the same. Still, Lords will be the oldest stadium still in use whether you do or don't accept rebuilds, AFAICS.

[Laura]

From an urban planning standpoint, I'd rather have standalone stores connected together or close to each other than a mall owned by one company. Malls privatize public space and compete against each other, whereas stores in a commercial district of a city or town work together to help provide cohesiveness to a community.

The biggest problem to me is that new mall/shopping center development encourages the downfall of another mall or shopping center if they attract the same target audience. I can't stand seeing a new shopping center built when there are two nearby that aren't even at half capacity in the same town.

That said, I find suburban shopping center and mall history completely fascinating. Here in Baltimore, the big 4 department stores started suburban expansion by the mid to late 40s because they wanted to follow their customers. Ultimately, three of the four went bankrupt by the 80s because they kept sinking money into their downtown flagship stores and never recovered. The fourth, Hechts, became part of the Federated portfolio and transitioned into Macy's in 2005 because the stores were pretty much exactly the same.

Edit: hit enter too soon... Anyway, I grew up in the era of shopping malls, and it is sad to see so many of them go due to personal nostalgia. I enjoy exploring malls, particularly ones under capacity, because I like to imagine what they were like in their heyday. However, I live very close to three malls that are stable or thriving, with another very close to me undergoing conversion into a mixed use development. So they aren't going away from here anytime soon.


iPhone

[cpzilliacus]

Edit: hit enter too soon... Anyway, I grew up in the era of shopping malls, and it is sad to see so many of them go due to personal nostalgia. I enjoy exploring malls, particularly ones under capacity, because I like to imagine what they were like in their heyday. However, I live very close to three malls that are stable or thriving, with another very close to me undergoing conversion into a mixed use development. So they aren't going away from here anytime soon.

I agree that malls and strip centers and the like are not going away (though there are some persons and groups that promote the "back to the city" agenda for everything that would be delighted to see places like Tysons Corner Center in Fairfax County, Va. and Columbia Mall in Howard County, Md. go away).

But malls still (IMO) serve a useful purpose, even if the U.S. (as a nation) was over-malled, and some malls went under because of crime and criminal activity that the owners of the mall were not to blame for (an example being the now-defunct Landover Mall in Prince George's County, Maryland).

[PHLBOS]

Dang now Malls are getting attention as Terrorist targets. Woah who knows?

Saw this Political Cartoon in today's (Feb. 26) Philadelphia Inquirer.

One mall that died over a decade ago was the Swampscott Mall along MA 1A in Swampscott.  It converted to a strip mall (bearing the same name) following the demise of Bradlees (one of its anchor stores, that was replaced by a Super Stop-and-Shop). 

Even when it was still a mall (it was built in the mid-1970s); most of the stores were very short-lived (excluding its two anchor-stores (Bradlees, Medi-Mart that later became a Walgreens) Radio Shack and Brigham's).

[PHLBOS]

Thread bump:

Movie director Kevin Smith (of Mallrats and Clerks fame) want to film his Mallrats 2 sequel (now retitled Mallbrats according to another article) at the Granite Run Mall prior to its closing & demolition: Kevin Smith considering Granite Run Mall for set of Mallrats 2.

Another Delaware County mall, the MacDade Mall, was the setting of some of the scenes of 2009's "The Lovely Bones,"  a film starring Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci. It's based on the Alice Sebold novel telling the story of 14-year-old Susie Salmon after her murder.

I did not know the above.  The MacDade Mall (now a strip-mall type shopping center; back then, it was still an enclosed mall) is within walking distance from where I live.

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

This might be too much of a tangent, but would you guys also argue that "big box" stores like Best Buy, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Petco are dying business models as well in favor of online shopping?

Unfortunately, that does seem to be the case.  When shopping, I am all about instant total gratification.  Waiting pisses me off.  Especially now, as a truck driver, waiting a few days for something to be shipped turns into waiting until the next time I can get home, which is unpredictable.

And of course, the rise of online shopping means that many things that were hard enough to find have become even harder to find in brick-and-mortar situations.  For instance, if iPods had existed 25 years ago, Radio Shack would've had replacement headphone jacks for them in-stock.  In reality, when my headphone jack broke in my iPod, I had to buy a tablet with a microSD card slot and transfer stuff so I could continue to enjoy my music, because the iPod headphone jack is deemed a special order item, and no brick-and-mortars have it.

[DeaconG]

Thread bump:

Movie director Kevin Smith (of Mallrats and Clerks fame) want to film his Mallrats 2 sequel (now retitled Mallbrats according to another article) at the Granite Run Mall prior to its closing & demolition: Kevin Smith considering Granite Run Mall for set of Mallrats 2.

Another Delaware County mall, the MacDade Mall, was the setting of some of the scenes of 2009's "The Lovely Bones,"  a film starring Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci. It's based on the Alice Sebold novel telling the story of 14-year-old Susie Salmon after her murder.

I did not know the above.  The MacDade Mall (now a strip-mall type shopping center; back then, it was still an enclosed mall) is within walking distance from where I live.

I remember spending quite a bit of time in that mall when visiting family in the 90s and oughts.  Hate to see it go...and King of Prussia will be an even bigger clusterfuck now!

[PHLBOS]

Thread bump:

Movie director Kevin Smith (of Mallrats and Clerks fame) want to film his Mallrats 2 sequel (now retitled Mallbrats according to another article) at the Granite Run Mall prior to its closing & demolition: Kevin Smith considering Granite Run Mall for set of Mallrats 2.

Another Delaware County mall, the MacDade Mall, was the setting of some of the scenes of 2009's "The Lovely Bones,"  a film starring Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci. It's based on the Alice Sebold novel telling the story of 14-year-old Susie Salmon after her murder.

I did not know the above.  The MacDade Mall (now a strip-mall type shopping center; back then, it was still an enclosed mall) is within walking distance from where I live.

I remember spending quite a bit of time in that mall when visiting family in the 90s and oughts.  Hate to see it go...and King of Prussia will be an even bigger clusterfuck now!

The nearby Springfield Mall located east of Media is still alive and well.

[roadman65]

I see that in the Florida Mall of Orlando, that Dick's Sporting Goods replaced Nordstrom.  Two totally different types of department stores with different clientele are moving in the same building.

To me having Nordstrom there was a waste as it is mainly tourists that shop that particular mall.  Even Saks moved out as upscale was not being attracted to that mall at all.  Macy's only survives is because they pay their staff draw verses commission which allows the books to look like they always have money even if it is not liquid.  The premise behind that is that you as a salesperson pays back the cost of the merchandise directly out of your pay.  In fact you do not receive commission until you weeks (and back weeks) wages are covered, so basically their wages are not from their cash flow on paper, but money owed from potential sales.

In laymen's terms draw verses commission means you pay the company back for your salary and wages.

[froggie]

Reviving this thread since it was announced previously that Macy's is closing 40 stores, 4 of which were closed before the end of the year.  Some, like CNN Money, are predicting that it could be the death knell for several shopping malls.

[Takumi]

Reviving this thread since it was announced previously that Macy's is closing 40 stores, 4 of which were closed before the end of the year.  Some, like CNN Money, are predicting that it could be the death knell for several shopping malls.

The Virginia Center Commons and Regency stores closing doesn't surprise me at all. Those malls have been in steep decline in recent years.

[1995hoo]

Reviving this thread since it was announced previously that Macy's is closing 40 stores, 4 of which were closed before the end of the year.  Some, like CNN Money, are predicting that it could be the death knell for several shopping malls.

Thanks for that link. I don't think I ever knew Macy's and Bloomingdale's were owned by the same outfit. It's interesting to note that Fair Oaks Mall is not on the list of closures. There are two Macy's stores in that mall (one a former Hecht's). The information about Bloomingdale's means that Tysons Corner Center also has two of their stores (the former Hecht's that's now a Macy's, plus the Bloomingdale's that's been there since the early 1970s in the former Lansburgh's space), and of course another Macy's across the street at Tysons II (though that's not necessarily direct competition given the hassle of getting between the two malls).

I read somewhere that Macy's management decided they'd rather operate the two stores at Fair Oaks, even if it seems inefficient, than allow a competitor to take over the space. Once upon a time there was supposed to be a Nordstrom moving into that mall, but I guess that plan died a long time ago. I don't remember whether that was before or after Dulles Town Center opened, as there is a Nordstrom there. There is a Nordstrom Rack down the road from Fair Oaks Mall in the former CompUSA space, though.

[Takumi]

To my knowledge, most, if not all, of the pre-21st century Richmond-area Macy's were previously Hecht's, and many of those were built as Thalheimers.

[freebrickproductions]

Huntsville, AL's Madison Square Mall will be closing some time this year. Went walking around inside it yesterday, a noticeable majority of the stores were closed, all but two restaurants in the food court were closed (and one of the closed ones was closed due to what appears to be suspected tax fraud), and only two anchors (JCPenny and Sears) are left there, out of what appears to have been originally five.
One of the stores in the mall was also closed with all of the merchandise still in it too.

[thenetwork]

One of those Macy's is at Chapel Hill Mall in Akron, OH.  That closing, as well as some other closings of noteworthy stores in the mall, and some recent violent crimes at the mall are pretty much the nails in the coffin for what was Akron's first indoor mall.

Meanwhile, across town, Rolling Acres Mall continues to rot on the inside and outside as an abandoned mall:  http://www.businessinsider.com/23-haunting-photos-of-a-dead-mall-in-ohio-2015-8

[KEVIN_224]

I see that Enfield, CT was on that Macy's list. I've been in that area (CT Route 190, Exit 47E from I-91), but never to the mall itself. (You're roughly 2 miles from the Massachusetts line, if that matters.)

Further back, there were a few JC Penney stores which closed. The only Connecticut location that closed was at Westfield Shoppingtown (mall) in Meriden, CT. The only Boscov's in New England now occupies that space.