Dead Malls

[formulanone]

Still planning that conversion to an outdoor 'lifestyle' center...

"Lifestyle center" is probably the vaguest term in recent usage. I've never heard anyone actually say it, but I guess I also don't hang out with many real estate agents and zoners/planners. It sounds like the type of place which you can temporarily stop following sharia law, without any penalty.

Just another way to kick out the teenage riff-raff and mall rats, replacing them with smokers 2 feet from store entrances, adding more brand logos, and making parking more of a hassle. Increased use of foliage is a plus.

[kphoger]

"Lifestyle center" ... sounds like the type of place which you can temporarily stop following sharia law, without any penalty.

Ha!  That's not what came to my mind!

I agree, it's a stupid term.  Can we not just call it a mall?

[The High Plains Traveler]

My own most significant "dead mall" is Apache Plaza in St. Anthony MN (suburban Minneapolis). It was the second indoor mall in the country (1961), but for a time in the 1970s and 1980s was a major shopping area for the northern part of the Twin Cities. I moved into that area around 1981; in 1984, a tornado hit the mall. By the time I left the area in 2002, it had degraded to a couple of active stores and indoor walking space. Before I lived there, it did have a "Monkey Wards". It ultimately (2005) was demolished and became a "lifestyle center", with lots of outdoor walking space, condos and a WalMart near the pre-existing Cub Foods.

[Road Hog]

Nothing more depressing than walking through a once-thriving mall and it's deserted and half the stores are closed off, and you're just about the only customer there.

[kphoger]

Nothing more depressing than

Dead babies.

* kphoger ducks for cover.

[mgk920]

My own most significant "dead mall" is Apache Plaza in St. Anthony MN (suburban Minneapolis). It was the second indoor mall in the country (1961), but for a time in the 1970s and 1980s was a major shopping area for the northern part of the Twin Cities. I moved into that area around 1981; in 1984, a tornado hit the mall. By the time I left the area in 2002, it had degraded to a couple of active stores and indoor walking space. Before I lived there, it did have a "Monkey Wards". It ultimately (2005) was demolished and became a "lifestyle center", with lots of outdoor walking space, condos and a WalMart near the pre-existing Cub Foods.

The first ever purpose-built mall in the USA (Valley Fair here in Appleton - opened 1954-08-11) was mostly demolished a few years ago and the only part of the mall that still stands and is operating is the movie theater that was added in about 1979, now showing 'second run' movies.  Part of its site has since been redeveloped with a new grocery store building.

Mike

[empirestate]

"Lifestyle center" ... sounds like the type of place which you can temporarily stop following sharia law, without any penalty.

I agree, it's a stupid term.  Can we not just call it a mall?

This kind of aggrandizing nomenclature always hits a nerve with me, as evidenced by this blog quote (my own):

We'd had lunch that day in West Des Moines, at something called Jordan Creek Town Center. Despite its name, Jordan Creek is not in the center of anything and it most decidedly is not a town. It is a brand-new upscale shopping mall with a self-admitted (from its web site) "streetscape design"; across the man-made lake another part of the complex, called The Village, is a cluster of outbuildings having an "open-air lifestyle design." Of course, in real towns and villages, streetscapes come about organically as a continual result of commercial and human processes, and lifestyles develop naturally from the influence of the communal experience. The idea that a streetscape or a lifestyle can be artificially "designed" in the cornfields of Iowa is nothing but pompous corporate branding.

I then go on to rail against the naming pattern of "The Such-and-such at So-and-So" (at the time, an area of the mall's outparcel buildings was called "The Village at Jordan Creek"). This works if you're referring to "the place at Versailles" or "the mosque at Mecca", but I don't think either Jordan Creek or the villages located along it, if any, are quite well-known enough in their own right to be referred to in such a generalized way. Even a famous place like Boston isn't known as "the city at Massachusetts Bay"!

[wphiii]

Surprised nobody has mentioned the Peabody Place Mall in Downtown Memphis. What a horrific experiment in urban planning that was, to destroy several square blocks of a Central Business District to put in an enclosed shopping mall. And it was designed to be completely unfriendly to pedestrians, with imposing walls, few windows offering interior views, and almost no street-level entrances (nearly all of the mall's entrances are via walkways from adjacent parking garages).

Not surprisingly, this mall was completely dead within a dozen years of its opening.

[agentsteel53]

I then go on to rail against the naming pattern of "The Such-and-such at So-and-So" (at the time, an area of the mall's outparcel buildings was called "The Village at Jordan Creek"). This works if you're referring to "the place at Versailles" or "the mosque at Mecca", but I don't think either Jordan Creek or the villages located along it, if any, are quite well-known enough in their own right to be referred to in such a generalized way. Even a famous place like Boston isn't known as "the city at Massachusetts Bay"!

don't forget "the Beer Lite Bowl, presented by AssCleaner, played on TurdFeathers Playing Surface at GargantuaBank Field at Reptilian Stadium Brought to you by Horseshit.com"

[empirestate]

don't forget "the Beer Lite Bowl, presented by AssCleaner, played on TurdFeathers Playing Surface at GargantuaBank Field at Reptilian Stadium Brought to you by Horseshit.com"

...based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire.

[kphoger]

rant

I think I love you.

[jeffandnicole]

The Echelon Mall in Voorhees, NJ is a mall in South Jersey that has gone at least partly bye-bye.  It had 3 anchor stores, then a 4th was built for Sears, which may have been one of the smallest full-service Sears stores ever.  The location sucked - it was basically hemmed in by single lane roads - and the general area has 3 other malls, with another half-dozen within about an hour's drive.  I haven't been up there in years, but I believe around 1/2 the mall remains (I forget if indoors or outdoors), with the other half knocked down in favor of housing/apartments and/or a Walmart.

The Shore Mall in the Egg Harbor, NJ (GSP Exit 36/37) area is also meeting the same fate.  Off hand, I forget how that mall is going to be rebuilt.

In Delaware, a shopping center was built at the old Brandywine Racetrack at the Concord Pike & Namaans Rd. (US 202 & DE 92)  I believe it has an indoor area that has never been used; many of the stores that are anchors are outdoor access only, which include Target and a Lowes, which has one of the oddest layouts of any garden store I've seen.

[empirestate]

rant

I think I love you.

Well...this is awkward. I'm actually getting married in a couple of weeks. I'd have to check and see if she's into that...

[kphoger]

rant

I think I love you.

Well...this is awkward. I'm actually getting married in a couple of weeks. I'd have to check and see if she's into that...

I don't think it matters:  I already am married.     Oh yeah, and not gay (despite what my schoolmates said about me).

(Congratulations, by the way.)

[texaskdog]

My own most significant "dead mall" is Apache Plaza in St. Anthony MN (suburban Minneapolis). It was the second indoor mall in the country (1961), but for a time in the 1970s and 1980s was a major shopping area for the northern part of the Twin Cities. I moved into that area around 1981; in 1984, a tornado hit the mall. By the time I left the area in 2002, it had degraded to a couple of active stores and indoor walking space. Before I lived there, it did have a "Monkey Wards". It ultimately (2005) was demolished and became a "lifestyle center", with lots of outdoor walking space, condos and a WalMart near the pre-existing Cub Foods.

I used to go there for baseball card shows.  Now I work by Highland Mall in Austin.  I ought to go over and take pictures to see if anything is still left there.

[jp the roadgeek]

There once was the Worcester Common Outlets in downtown Worcester, MA, close to the DCU Center and the Amtrak/MBTA train and Greyhound/Peter Pan Bus terminal. Much of that building and an adjacent parking garage has since been torn down. The Auburn Mall sits fairly close to I-90 and I-290 in Auburn, MA, but never looks that busy when passing by it.

WestFarms Mall opened on the West Hartford/Farmington town line in 1974, hence its name. It doesn't have a food court, but yet still does very well, being very close to I-84 and the CT Route 9 expressway. It already sits on CT Route 71, which receives a ton of traffic. Red Robin, Wendy's and the Corbin's Corner shopping plazas are all walking distance from where the city busses let off.

Westfield Shoppingtown in Meriden is close to I-691 and is off of CT Route 71 (Chamberlain Highway), a good 7 miles or so to my south. It has a food court at least. It nearly doubled in size back in the 1990s, opening a wing which includes Best Buy, Old Navy and Dick's Sporting Goods. There was a Border's book store there. Oh well!

Happened to be in Downtown Worcester last weekend, and Worcester Common Outlets has been replaced with an office building that has an "UNUM" sign on the front of it.  Basically, an extension of the PNC office building that was attached on the other side.  The new hot spot for Worcester is The Shops at Blackstone Valley, another lifestyle center near the Pike and 146.

Really would't consider Meriden Square..I mean Westfield Meriden dead, or Westfarms for that matter.  A couple I would: Brass Mill Center in Waterbury, which is itself the replacement of Naugatuck Valley Mall, which was dead for years.  I saw Stamford Town Center a couple of years ago, and it looked like it was dying compared to the lifestyle shopping center around it.  Enfield Square is kind of dead, but the deadest of them all has to be Eastfield Mall in Springfield.  Can't believe it's still there.

[thenetwork]

Toledo, OH has got to hold the title "King of the Dead Malls", if not not damn near it (same goes for the title of "King of the Dead Bowling Alleys", but that is for another day).

In the mid 1980s, Toledo had 4-1/2 indoor malls (counting Portside as a half, since it was mostly a specialty shops mall).  Today, it has only one, and for the majority of Toledoans, Franklin Park is a pain in the ass to get to, unless you live east of the mall and near I-475.

Some of the main reasons why such the high "death rate":

1) The population steadied off in the mid '80s then steadily dropped since -- right about the time Jeep, Chrysler and GM started to downsize.
2) By the late 80's, the trend was already starting to turn to new outdoor shopping &/or lifestyle areas (Spring Valley, River Place,...)
3) With outdoor shopping centers becoming "hip" again, some of the major older shopping plaza started seeing new life: (Miracle Mile, Great Eastern & Westgate)
4) New Commercial building was at a frantic pace, to the point where they were overbuilding by a LOT in the mid to late 80's, and there weren't enough businesses to fill the vacancies.

And now, the Deceased:

- North Towne Square -- The last to be built, the first to die.  They were betting on future growth to the north and east of downtown, and just across the border in Monroe County, Michigan, but to this day, much of the undeveloped lands remain undeveloped, despite the least congested connection to a major freeway (I-75 via SR-184/Alexis Rd).  Closed/Still Standing

- Southwyck Mall -- The only real threat to Franklin Park Mall. It's closest interstate connection was the Ohio Turnpike, and it was a favorite for regional shoppers moreso than local shoppers.  Whenever you have a bus line that starts downtown &/or the inner city and ends at a mall and you don't try to keep the riff-raff to but a whisper, then good luck keeping the mall healthy.  Like North Towne Square, Monkey Ward's was a major anchor, and when they folded, no other chain filled the vacancy, starting the exodus of other national names.  Southwyck was totally bulldozed a few years back. 

-  Woodville Mall -- The first major indoor mall in Toledo, and the most recent to die.  A combination of just being far enough away from the freeway (I-280) to be considered a PITA to get to and surprisingly remains on the edge of civilization for all of its 40-some years in existence (farmland/countryside begins immediately east and south of the mall), it was dying a slow death until it suddenly went into cardiac arrest, when the fire marshals immediately condemned the place soon after the start of the Holiday season a couple of years ago.  Closed/Still Standing

-  Portside -- The 1/2-mall.  Was it mainly a tourist attraction?  Was it mainly a hub for summertime activities? Was it before it's time?  There are a lot of plausible theories that could explain it's demise (I came to and left Toledo about the same time as Portside).  The fact that it was strictly specialty shops (mostly local shops and a few national retailers that you would only see in mall kiosks), you pretty much had to pay to park, and that parking was a minimum couple of blocks away via skywalks &/or pedestrian tunnels pretty much doomed it from the start. Closed/Now a Museum.

[Road Hog]

There's a mall up the road from me in Sherman, TX (Midway Mall) that is on its last legs. It was once the go-to place for a big part of Texas and Oklahoma and had three anchors (Sears, Dillard's, Penney's), plus Old Navy and several other chains filling 600K square feet.

Sears and Dillard's are the only ones that stayed when a new strip mall opened out on the freeway a few years ago. A Burlington Coat Factory took over the old Penney's space. The food court once had everything, but now it is down to a Chinese place and that's it. The store space is about 50% occupied.

Sad. But not as sad as dead babies .... 

[mgk920]

I'm wondering if we here in the Appleton, WI area might soon be seeing that happen with Fox River Mall, with the mall's two end anchors being Sears and JCPenney.  Both companies are on life-support (Sears has only about 4-5 months' supply of cash left according to an article that I saw a couple of weeks ago) and could go 'Chapter 7' before the end of the year.

Mike

[DaBigE]

I'm wondering if we here in the Appleton, WI area might soon be seeing that happen with Fox River Mall, with the mall's two end anchors being Sears and JCPenney.  Both companies are on life-support (Sears has only about 4-5 months' supply of cash left according to an article that I saw a couple of weeks ago) and could go 'Chapter 7' before the end of the year.

Mike

I think it's going to take a lot more to kill that mall. The area around the Fox River Mall is far too busy/thriving to let the mall collapse quickly. Mayfair in 'Tosa does just fine without a Sears. IMO, I never thought much of the FRM Sears store to begin with. I could see one of those two easily being replaced by a Crate & Barrel. And IIRC, that JCPenny store is one of the few attached to a mall of size that isn't two floors. If Sears and JCPenny were to go belly up permanently, I'd be more concerned with East or West Towne in Madison (in that order) or the Oakwood Mall in Eau Claire before I would the FRM.

[mgk920]

I'm wondering if we here in the Appleton, WI area might soon be seeing that happen with Fox River Mall, with the mall's two end anchors being Sears and JCPenney.  Both companies are on life-support (Sears has only about 4-5 months' supply of cash left according to an article that I saw a couple of weeks ago) and could go 'Chapter 7' before the end of the year.

Mike

I think it's going to take a lot more to kill that mall. The area around the Fox River Mall is far too busy/thriving to let the mall collapse quickly. Mayfair in 'Tosa does just fine without a Sears. IMO, I never thought much of the FRM Sears store to begin with. I could see one of those two easily being replaced by a Crate & Barrel. And IIRC, that JCPenny store is one of the few attached to a mall of size that isn't two floors. If Sears and JCPenny were to go belly up permanently, I'd be more concerned with East or West Towne in Madison (in that order) or the Oakwood Mall in Eau Claire before I would the FRM.

The area around that mall has been looking increasingly 'threadbare' in recent years, with several glaring and persistent Big-Box™ and strip center store vacancies and little new development since at least the mid double-aughts, as well as high turnover of temporary stores in several others.  The township's relative lack of attention to the area's public works design, overall layout and condition is, IMHO, also a contributing factor.

I don't think that I've left any money behind inside of the mall in over ten years.

Mike

[triplemultiplex]

If Sears and JCPenny were to go belly up permanently, I'd be more concerned with East or West Towne in Madison (in that order) or the Oakwood Mall in Eau Claire before I would the FRM.

Scheels will just take over any vacant space at Oakwood.  They're currently expanding into their entire 'wing' of that mall.  What's a few extra thousand square feet?

The last decade or two has seen the massive expansion of gigantic sporting goods stores in the Midwest.  Scheels, Gander Mountain, Bass Pro Shops, Dick's; in Wisconsin I don't think any of them are older than 10 years and the ones that are have been added on to and remodeled.  I've always thought it was weird to buy live bait at the same place you buy athletic shoes, but that's something you can do.

[Stephane Dumas]

Time to dust-off this thread with a bump.
Some dead mall owners turn to grocers, doctors and high schools to fill empty space. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-07/americas-desperate-mall-owners-turn-grocers-doctors-high-schools-fill-empty-space

[vdeane]

Colonie Center has Whole Foods.  I'm pretty sure it's not as closely connected to the rest of the mall as the other stores are - you have to walk around the store and through the cart area.  About the only thing connecting it is the roof over your head.

[sparker]

Now that this thread has gotten the necro treatment -- out here in the South Bay we've got a mall, Vallco (in Cupertino) that shut down several years back and has been something of a local eyesore since (and it's very near the new Apple HQ "campus").  There was a county measure to put public money into revamping the facility for mixed use -- offices and selected retail -- but it was shot down at last November's election.  So the property owners will likely raze the mall and sell it off to parties presently unknown -- likely either Apple itself or some other firm wanting a prime location off I-280.  Seems that facility -- which was booming in the '80's -- was one mall too many for the area.