Dead Malls

[Flint1979]

Lakeview Square Mall in Battle Creek has two vacant anchors with only a Sears remaining as an anchor. One of the vacant anchors was Jcpenney but I can't tell what the other one was probably a Macy's.

Started as a Hudson's.

I looked at an old SV on Google Maps and can see it use to be a Macy's. I'm pretty sure the JCPenney and Macy's closed around the same time last year because I remember JCPenney still being open when I passed the mall on I-94 in May 2017 but couldn't see if the Macy's was still open or not. I walked around the Sears for a minute and it seemed like a pretty small Sears location, the mall itself is smaller than a normal major shopping mall right on par with the Midland Mall and Bay City Town Center. I can't imagine how much longer the Sears will last considering they lost JCPenney and Macy's last year.

[US 89]

Salt Lake City has the Gateway Mall, which basically died when the City Creek Mall opened up three blocks to the east. Most of the stores moved there, and a lot of the others closed completely. It's a shame, especially because the decline has caused the Mall and surrounding neighborhood to be much more dangerous than ten years ago, filled with homeless, drugs, etc.

That one's kinda sad, though it's certainly not dead yet. I visited a bit over a year ago and stayed at a hotel right next to there. Never visited the area before then. The lack of people was weird (though it was a Sunday in December; we went back in March and there were a lot more people, at least around the theater) and 80% of the shops being empty is weird. But having the Barnes and Noble and the movie theater seems to be keeping it afloat, and we visited a few of the other smaller shops (eg GameStop and Hot Topic). Hopefully they can do something to revitalize it. But yeah City Creek is much more lively, that place is nice and I wish other downtowns had something like it, because if they leave it as is more shops will probably start leaving (though I could see the theater still surviving). At least Gateway is open on Sundays though!

The Gateway also still has the children's museum and the planetarium. Even if the rest of the mall falls apart, I'd bet the planetarium, children's museum, and movie theater all stay.

Any revitalization project is going to be at least a few years off, because it's a dangerous area, and the mall is actually right across 200 South from the homeless shelter. They are planning on closing the shelter in a couple years and replacing it with three or four other shelters scattered across the city, which was an extremely controversial decision that the mayor and city council made behind closed doors, with zero public input. Anyway, once that happens, there may be a greater incentive to try to bring the Gateway back to what it was.

[Flint1979]

I've heard of Pioneer Park being pretty dangerous in Salt Lake City. Also heard of an area called Glendale that's pretty dangerous as well.

[US 89]

I've heard of Pioneer Park being pretty dangerous in Salt Lake City. Also heard of an area called Glendale that's pretty dangerous as well.

Pioneer Park and the surrounding Rio Grande neighborhood (which includes the Gateway) is the center of drug and homeless-related crime, while Glendale's crime tends to be more gang-related. There are areas of SLC which are probably worse than Glendale (Rose Park/Poplar Grove and the area around the ballpark come to mind), and the worst gang activity seems to be focused in West Valley and Kearns.

[Stephane Dumas]

Time to bump this thread.

The old St. Louis Mills mall might have a new function if it's recycled into a sports complex.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbCYsmM2DHg

[Bruce]

In a similar vein, Northgate Mall (one of the earliest classic suburban malls) in Seattle will be redeveloped with more mixed use buildings...including a practice rink for the Seattle NHL team.

[PAHighways]

The largest mall in southwestern Pennsylvania will be no more.  After West Mifflin condemned Century III in February due to a non-functioning sprinkler system, it was recently announced that the mall will go the way of Randall Park, another DeBartolo-built mall, and be demolished.

https://www.wtae.com/article/plans-revealed-for-demolition-redevelopment-of-century-iii-mall/28143844

While JCPenney has been closing stores nationwide, it will be keeping the last surviving remnant of Century III alive:  https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-allegheny/jcpenny-to-remain-open-during-century-iii-demolition/.

[golden eagle]

Metrocenter Mall here in Jackson no longer operates as a shopping mall, though Burlington still operates there (since it can be accessed from the outside). The City of Jackson does have some offices there, and a local community college located a workforce training center there. Recently, an Arby's and a Krystal rebuilt their restaurants to make them more aesthetically pleasing.

[kevinb1994]

Metrocenter Mall here in Jackson no longer operates as a shopping mall, though Burlington still operates there (since it can be accessed from the outside). The City of Jackson does have some offices there, and a local community college located a workforce training center there. Recently, an Arby's and a Krystal rebuilt their restaurants to make them more aesthetically pleasing.

I can't say that the food at Krystal is aesthetically pleasing.

[roadman65]

Eagle Ridge Mall in Lake Wales, FL is now almost dead.

[renegade]

Still a pulse at the Mall of Monroe in Michigan, but it's a really weak one.

[OracleUsr]

Signal Hill Mall in my current town of Statesville, NC, is all but dead now.  Sears left long before they went out of business.  JCPenney is gone, Peebles is long gone.  Many happy memories of the semiannual karaoke contest at the stage in front of JCPenney.

[roadman65]

Lakeland Square Mall in Lakeland has an abandoned Sears that never got vacated after the once Giant moved.  I think that is on the list as another outdoor shopping center on the opposite side of town is attracting locals now. 

[rawmustard]

J.C. Penney has completed its closure at the Orchards Mall in Benton Harbor, MI. It'll be interesting to see how the Orchards end up given the other closest malls are at least 30 miles away.

[Brandon]

J.C. Penney has completed its closure at the Orchards Mall in Benton Harbor, MI. It'll be interesting to see how the Orchards end up given the other closest malls are at least 30 miles away.

Given that Target even left St Joe/BH, I'd say it's not good.  IMHO, The Orchards was built too big and too far off the main roads (it's a bit hidden from Napier and Pipestone) for St Joe/BH.  Maybe a smaller plaza of 30-40 stores might have made it, provided it had better visibility.

[ftballfan]

J.C. Penney has completed its closure at the Orchards Mall in Benton Harbor, MI. It'll be interesting to see how the Orchards end up given the other closest malls are at least 30 miles away.

Given that Target even left St Joe/BH, I'd say it's not good.  IMHO, The Orchards was built too big and too far off the main roads (it's a bit hidden from Napier and Pipestone) for St Joe/BH.  Maybe a smaller plaza of 30-40 stores might have made it, provided it had better visibility.

If it were at I-94 exit 23 and not exit 29, this mall would likely be doing better

[Flint1979]

J.C. Penney has completed its closure at the Orchards Mall in Benton Harbor, MI. It'll be interesting to see how the Orchards end up given the other closest malls are at least 30 miles away.

Given that Target even left St Joe/BH, I'd say it's not good.  IMHO, The Orchards was built too big and too far off the main roads (it's a bit hidden from Napier and Pipestone) for St Joe/BH.  Maybe a smaller plaza of 30-40 stores might have made it, provided it had better visibility.

If it were at I-94 exit 23 and not exit 29, this mall would likely be doing better

I agree. Exits 27-33 should be avoided.

[tolbs17]

Tarrytown mall in Rocky mount, (demolished as of right now)

And Vernon park mall in Kinston, except for one store. Belk

[J3ebrules]

From what I read on Wikipedia, Nanuet Mall is either dead, or practically dead.

Around this time the Nanuet Mall was pretty much dead, but it seems to have undergone a bit of a Renaissance in the past few years as a more... I think others in this thread describe the style as an "open air" mall. Definitely not the mall that both my mother and I both grew up enjoying in the sixties and nineties, respectively. My mom was an assistant manager at the CVS on the first floor during college, and I was taken to the food court and Barnes and Noble by my grandparents. But, I got to watch the exciting new Palisades Mall go up, so my mother probably took the Nanuet Mall's loss a bit harder.

[mgk920]

On a local note here in the Appleton, WI area, I'm totally amazed as how fast the former Sears store at Fox River Mall has been totally going to seed on its exterior since it closed last year.  Crews finally removed its signs within the past few weeks and the landscaping around that former store has not been tended at all and already is heavily overgrown.



Mike

[Richard3]

What about this mall?

https://goo.gl/maps/PyfGDH2V4FVixHGz8 (view from I-87 south on Google Street View)

https://goo.gl/maps/K2U9csEr3Zb7j43c9 (view from US-11 on Google Street View)

https://goo.gl/maps/465LRz47nFd41W6N8 (view from Google Maps)

This mall is on the northwest quadrant of I-87 at exit 42, just west of Champlain, NY, behind the McDonald's, at less than 2 miles south of the canadian border.  I see this mall there since like 20 years, but I never seen an open store there.  Last time I passed close to it, some back doors were open, and vegetation is about to take place in the parking lot.

One day or another, I think I'll go there to take some pictures, and gather some info.

The only thing I can figure out, for now, is that mall was built before the first NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), in a time when many Canadian shoppers crossed the border to shop in USA, in order to save canadian and provincial taxes, and save on the currency exchange as well.  But it may be a completely different story behind this building.

Somebody knows about it?

[mgk920]

When it was built, the exchange rate seriously favored Canadians coming into the USA to shop, this was during the mid to late 1990s.  When things evened back out, those cross-border shoppers, and then the stores, went away.

Mike

[briantroutman]

What about this mall?

This piqued my curiosity, so I did a little digging.

The property was known as the Miromar Factory Outlet Center, and it opened in 1993. I recall a mini boom of similar "outlet"  malls around the same time. This was around the time that outlets were transitioning from being true factory outlets–i.e. clothing manufacturers selling off imperfect goods and overstock in an old industrial building–to purpose-built outlet malls selling cheaper lines of products created specifically for the outlet marketplace.

But still, outlets attracted brand-conscious and price sensitive customers, and as mgk920 observed, the relative strength of the Canadian dollar at the time made it fairly attractive for Canadians to cross the border and take advantage of U.S. prices. The Canadian dollar was still trading at less than a 1 to 1 ratio, but as you can see below, it was strengthening from the mid to late '80s and peaked around 1992 at around 90¢–probably just as this outlet center was being constructed. But the exchange rate dropped precipitously by the time Miromar opened, and it continued to get less favorable as the "˜90s progressed. Miromar's parent company finally gave up  on this venture in 1999.



This editorial I found in the Plattsburgh Press-Republican mentions Miromar, and it references a few other factors with regard to the health of the retail sector in that region, including the closure of Plattsburgh Air Force Base (and the loss of several thousand shoppers) in 1995, and competition with  the Pyramid Companies' two Champlain Centre shopping malls, the older of which had been redeveloped into an outlet mall in the 1990s. Apparently, Miromar's goal was to siphon off Canadians before they reached Plattsburgh, but their declining numbers coupled with Miromar's distance from Plattsburgh made Miromar's northern location a liability rather than an asset.

If you're really interested, there's a YouTube channel with a video from Miromar's 1993 opening as well a recent drive-through of the property.

[Richard3]

Thanks for the info, guys!  Very interesting!

[Rothman]

Keep that Canadian dollar low!  I am headed there next week!