Malls and DT - How Are They Doing in Your Area

Jules

Jules

SF VIP
Today I was in the main mall. It seemed to be back to normal; I didn’t notice any stores that are closed. That doesn’t mean they’re doing well financially. At least they’re still here. The little strip malls don’t seem to be doing great. In the meantime, they’re building more of these places.

Do women still go to the mall just to socialize?

Downtown here isn’t thriving or failing much, as far as I can see.

When I go to a city and see the stores are closed or things are run down, I leave with a negative opinion of the whole city.
 

Years ago when Monkey Ward folded, the city converted the store to office space.
The mall here is still going since Sears went away. I very rarely go there because I no longer walk that well.
 
In Omaha, two of the three malls I was familiar with still had a lot of stores but not as many as before. The third became a little ghost mall, but since then it is slated to be demolished.
When I spent a month in Chicago last summer there was a mall I went to that had lots of activity, but apparently it was a particularly special mall (like listed in 'places to see/things to do').
When I spent a month in Buffalo, the mall closest to the hotel was almost empty.
Here in Maryland the mall that was the big one I used to go to long ago is almost entirely empty of stores, and it is planned to be demolished, but someone I was talking to last week said there is another mall in an adjacent area that is doing okay-ish.

I have seen some impressively big Amazon distribution places though, and although I'd prefer to be able to try on clothes, everything else is so much more convenient to order and have delivered.
 
Ours has been reduced to rubble and while it was never "vibrant," it was reasonably good. It was kept open for a long time after most of the stores closed and was a great place to walk during hot or cold weather. It was well-lite but seemed a bit spooky.

It was certainly depressing to see the rubble.
 
We have two malls left in the area with some stores closed. We have one "walking" mall which is still doing decent. Several other malls that were closed down in surrounding areas have been demolished. The downtown shopping is pretty much gone with the main businesses being government, banks & law offices. Many places that held stores & other businesses are being turned into expensive condos, but no groceries/pharmacies within walking distance for them. Guess if you can afford those, your groceries are delivered to you or you go to one of the several new brewery/restaurants that have gone in to eat at.
 
Big enclosed malls are a dying breed. Smart mgmt companies are shifting the mix to smaller retail and offices, or services like gyms (24-hr Fitness is doing so well it's announced big expansion plans, for instance). Some are starting to negotiate to put housing units on-site to replace the larger 4-corner department stores that are retrenching fast. There are several of these big malls announcing plans for redevelopment in our region.

NorCA has 2 big cities and dozens of small ones. "Downtown" doesn't mean what it used to, because of several factors:

Biggest industries are healthcare, then tourism, then technology. None of them are centered "downtown". A lot of healthcare is either hospitals or biotech (the latter is HUGE out here, due to Silicon Valley companies), so HQs are often in suburban towns. Tourism, obviously, is almost all composed of visiting sights outside San Francisco downtown - Fisherman's Wharf, Alcatraz, GG Bridge, Wine Country, etc. etc. Technology is centered over 40 miles south of SF, in the San Jose area.

"Downtown" means something very different to locals than it does to visitors. Most visitors think of SF downtown as Union Square, for example, where retail stores like Saks and Macy's are located. But locals think of SF downtown as FiDi and SoMa - the Financial District (where formerly Bank of America and Chevron, Charles Schwab and Bechtel Engineering, were HQed before they moved elsewhere) and South of Market, where many small new tech companies are, also hi-rise and mid-rise condos where many Gen Z and Millennials live.

Because Work From Home (WFH) is so popular here - far more so than in most parts of the country - the FiDi is suffering as workers now group in suburban offices on the 2-3 days they need to be in the office. The rest of the week they WFH. I literally do not know anyone any longer who has to commute into SF for work. SoMa, because it's as much residential as commercial, is still fairly lively, but it's not a tourist or family area, unless maybe you're visiting the SF Museum of Modern Art which has a very nice open-air park.

The newer/more upscale suburban malls are still places where older Boomers and oddly, young adults and teens congregate; but many of the older, middle-class-oriented suburban malls are failing fast. Unless you were familiar with Palo Alto or Walnut Creek, two suburban cities whose names every local would recognize, you are more likely to see empty storefronts and few shoppers in malls where K-Mart, Sears, etc., anchored sales.
 
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The malls in my city are going away. The one close to me that I had been going to for the past 40 years was demolished a couple of years ago and now luxury apartments are being built there. The only two malls that are still around and thriving are upscale malls in Scottsdale and out near the Sun City area..
 
We have six "major" malls in this area (I'm not counting the outlet malls in the tourist areas).

One is very touristy, one is very high scale, one is main stream. These three are doing OK.

Two have been dying for a few years and rigor mortis is setting in. They are ghost towns.

The sixth one lost two of the anchors a few years ago but was dragging along OK. I hadn't been there in a couple of months and stopped there last week. It was a graveyard. Half the stores are empty. One whole end of the mall is empty. There is talk of it being converted to apartments, restaurants and other businesses to make it a "self-contained" community. We'll see.
 
The big, enclosed malls were perfect for our Northern climate. A grocery chain at one end, a reputable department store at the other, and anything else you might need in between. You parked your car and were nice and warm during the winter while you got everything you needed for the week ahead from under one roof.

Then the bigger stores decided they were paying too much rent and started building those big, ugly box stores. The inevitable happened, one after the other of the smaller businesses in the malls folded for lack of customers and now we have huge box stores all over the place while the malls are being torn down!

First it was Walmart who were responsible for the demise of many a downtown business in smaller cities, now we have box stores that destroyed something very necessary and practical when the temperature is - 20 Celsius outside!

I wonder if on-line shopping will eventually take the place of the big boxes?

I, for one, would love to see downtowns everywhere to start blooming again filled with small Mom and Pop stores, with chains like Woolworth or Zellers, with Cinemas and restaurants!

Okay, I know that I am dreaming, it's no longer the fifties! Which might be a good thing in many respects, but I miss seeing store windows filled with merchandise rather than being exposed to the depressing sight of boards nailed to them!

BTW, this is not true of my present residence. The Walmart is just far enough away not to have done too much damage ... yet!
 
We have a mall, Northpark, that is a 15 minute drive and is located in one of the wealthier areas of Dallas. It has an entire wing of luxury stores like Versace, Balenciaga, Burberry, etc. There were roped lines outside those stores, even during the pandemic.

Some of the smaller stores with no branding have closed but the larger ones like Nike, Burberry, Lululemon and of course the Apple Store seem to be thriving. The anchor stores are Macy's, Dillards, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. I go to Northpark to walk when the weather is bad. We went there on a weekend and couldn't believe how busy it was. There is also an AMC Theater there, which gets pretty busy after 4pm.

Some of the other malls in the Dallas area have just become sad. One closed and the rest seem to be hanging on by a thread. They either have cheap stores or walled-up areas where stores used to be.
 
Old Salt said:
The big, enclosed malls were perfect for our Northern climate. A grocery chain at one end, a reputable department store at the other, and anything else you might need in between. You parked your car and were nice and warm during the winter while you got everything you needed for the week ahead from under one roof.

Then the bigger stores decided they were paying too much rent and started building those big, ugly box stores. The inevitable happened, one after the other of the smaller businesses in the malls folded for lack of customers and now we have huge box stores all over the place while the malls are being torn down!

First it was Walmart who were responsible for the demise of many a downtown business in smaller cities, now we have box stores that destroyed something very necessary and practical when the temperature is - 20 Celsius outside!

I wonder if on-line shopping will eventually take the place of the big boxes?

I, for one, would love to see downtowns everywhere to start blooming again filled with small Mom and Pop stores, with chains like Woolworth or Zellers, with Cinemas and restaurants!

Okay, I know that I am dreaming, it's no longer the fifties! Which might be a good thing in many respects, but I miss seeing store windows filled with merchandise rather than being exposed to the depressing sight of boards nailed to them!

BTW, this is not true of my present residence. The Walmart is just far enough away not to have done too much damage ... yet!
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Online shopping has definitely had its impact. I saw today that Bed, Bath & Beyond has gone bankrupt and will be closing all their stores by June. It is sad.

We lived in South Florida for many years and would occasionally visit South Beach when it wasn't so commercial. There were lots of quirky little stores with merchandise you wouldn't find anywhere else. The last time we were there it was full of name brand stores because the smaller merchants could no longer afford the rent. It is no longer interesting.
 
When I moved to this town it had two malls. Much of the older mall was demolished except for the Mervyn's store which is no longer Mervyn's. Now it's other stores built there including Trader Joe's.

The other mall has some changes. The one department store closed, became a Forever 21. Horrible store. Then stores were built in that section that no longer connect to the mall. I rarely go there. It's an odd set up to me. No longer those busy days of the mall when we'd go to San Jose in the 80's.
 
Our Duluth, MN mall is doing well. Mostly fast foods and shops catering to teens and young adults. It is located near other big stores.

Another mall in Superior, WI with few shops and located out of the way, failed fairly quickly.
 
In the 60s & 70s, everybody and his brother decided building a mall was the way to eternal riches. It wasn't. The mall by me in PA, turned out to have an identical twin mall in Mississippi. Considering that my mall was the only mall within 30 miles, it never really was filled with people. Besides, I was a KMart shopper.
 
I went to malls when they first became popular. Lots of stores in one massive space, wow. Then, as time went on, it seemed that there was just so much of the same stuff being sold. Yeah, let's go to the mall and buy something different so we can look like everybody else. :rolleyes: I haven't been to a mall in many years, so many that I can't remember the last time I was in one. Several malls that I know of have closed and now are just hugh empty eyesores. There's a mall that has survived about 45 minutes from where I live, but I have no desire to go there.

When I was in high school, a friend was murdered, stabbed to death, in a mall parking lot. After that, I went to the mall infrequently, and when I did, it was in the daytime and never alone.
 
The little mini malls have not been doing well. I often see them totally closed, just dark featureless windows wondering what to do with themselves. When malls first became fashionable, people talked about them and visited them. I think this was partly because the mall concept was so novel. They struck me as interesting too, but still unnecessary, and perhaps not very efficient. In down town shopping areas with one huge main street running through it is odd to see so my business lit up and making money, and then you come to a block long vacant mini mall, that's just a whole block of useless space in the midst of thriving businesses.
 
The mall in my hometown closed its doors for good seven years ago. But there is another I go to in a city a few miles away which is still doing OK. And yes, people do still go to malls to socialize at the open cafes and restaurants. Lots of seniors do this and I think it's nice.
 
chic said:
The mall in my hometown closed its doors for good seven years ago. But there is another I go to in a city a few miles away which is still doing OK. And yes, people do still go to malls to socialize at the open cafes and restaurants. Lots of seniors do this and I think it's nice.
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Friends of mine used to go to our local mall really early to get their daily walk in! No worries about the weather this way! Sadly, all of them have passed on by now and the mall closed a few years ago!
 

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