January 25, 2010 | Posted by Prange Way | Posted in Texas

Farther west than Denver, Colorado, and closer to San Diego than Houston, El Paso is an attractive sun belt city and international gateway with a growing population.  The city itself has about 600,000 residents; however, El Paso is only part of a larger bi-national metropolitan area with a population of 3 million, when you add in nearby Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Currently, El Paso is the 68th largest metropolitan area in the United States; however, if Juarez were included, it would leap up to 18th, between San Diego and St. Louis. 

El Paso is also a destinational retail city, with a far-reaching pull from southern New Mexico, much of north-central Mexico, and all of west Texas.  However, according to ICSC, El Paso’s retail-per-capita is low for a metropolitan area of its size.  This may be, in part, due to the relatively low purchasing power of the region.  The average median household income in El Paso is $10,000 below the national average, and the incomes in Juarez are most likely significantly lower than that. 

There are other reasons, too, for a lack of a retail development boom in El Paso.  Because well over half of the residents of the bi-national metropolitan area live in Juarez, simply crossing the border is an issue.  Often, wait times at the border crossings are over an hour; and, due to hot issues like illegal immigration, terrorism and drug transport, everyone crossing into the United States is subject to intense scrutiny.  As a result, what could be a 10 minute trip to one of El Paso’s malls becomes far less convenient.  In addition, although the retail offerings in El Paso offer Mexican shoppers items and brands they can’t get at home, Juarez has similar chains and modern, spacious malls of similar size.  Also, Las Cruces, New Mexico has its own mall too, which probably prevents shoppers there from making the 50-mile trek into El Paso often.  Nonetheless, judging by the license plates on the cars at El Paso’s retail establishments, many do make the trek from Mexico and New Mexico. 

El Paso currently has 3 major malls, with a fourth – a lifestyle center – possibly on the way.  The two major super-regional malls are Cielo Vista Mall, on the east side, and Sunland Park Mall, on the west side.  The third mall in town is the much smaller Bassett Place, which is very close to Cielo Vista and essentially serves as its ancillary.

Between the two major players in town, Sunland Park Mall is both newer and slightly smaller than Cielo Vista.  Built in 1988, Sunland Park Mall was named after the nearby Sunland Park Racetrack in nearby Sunland Park, New Mexico, a couple miles away.

Sunland Park Mall is a large, two-level, ‘L’-shaped mall, with five anchors and almost 1 million square feet of retail space.  The mall itself is anchor to a larger retail district serving El Paso’s west side, located mostly along TX 20 stretching from downtown to the northwest.  Sunland Park is fairly well-tenanted with popular national chains, despite its lone, inaccurate Yelp review indicating otherwise.  However, Cielo Vista across town probably has a slightly better mix of stores. 

I’m going to need a little help filling in some of the holes in the history of the anchor stores here.  I know that one of the anchors was El Paso-based The Popular (Dry Goods Company).  It closed in November 1995 and was immediately replaced by Sears.  I also know that Macy’s was Foley’s from 2004-2006, but what was it before that?  And Mervyn’s, which closed in 2008, was replaced by a full-size Forever 21 in 2009.  Also, Dillard’s has two full-size locations here, so one of those was probably something else at some point too.  Let us know!

I visited Sunland Park Mall in November 2009 and took the pictures featured here.  Leave us a message or two and tell us about your own experiences with – or impressions of – the mall.

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January 24, 2010 | Posted by Caldor | Posted in Massachusetts

The New Harbour Mall is a 350,000 square foot dumbell style mall in the old industrial city of Fall River, in southeastern Massachusetts. Fall River has a population of approximately 92,000 people and is located about 15 miles east of Providence, Rhode Island, or 10 miles west of New Bedford. Technically part of the Providence metropolitan area, Fall River and its twin New Bedford are aging mill cities who saw their greatest successes during the industrial revolution in the 1800s and early 1990s, when hundreds of thousands of immigrants flooded the textile mills looking for work. For many decades now, however, Fall River has been something of an economic backwater, struggling with a lack of industry and a high unemployment rate. The city continues to welcome immigrants, however, and today has one of the largest percentages of Portuguese residents in the United States, giving it something of a unique character.

Originally named simply the “Harbour Mall,” the center opened on the south side of Fall River, just feet from the Rhode Island state line, in 1970. Bradlees and Grant City where the mall’s two original anchor stores, staring at each other from opposite ends of a small corridor housing around 30 smaller shops. Originally, the mall was fairly dark and moody, characterized by its external wood-shingle look and ’70s mod logo (which featured a captain’s wheel and the “Harbour Mall” name in a Helvetica-style font). In 1976, Grant City went out of business and was replaced by Kmart, and in 1984 a movie theatre was added to the center.

When it opened, the Harbour Mall was kind of the only game in town, but this didn’t last for long. The larger North Dartmouth Mall (now just “Dartmouth Mall”) was simultaneously under construction ten miles east, closer to Fall River’s twin New Bedford. That mall opened in 1971 but didn’t impact business all that much. The bigger blow came in 1975 when the even larger Swansea Mall opened just a few miles to the west of Fall River, strategically placed to serve both Fall River and the eastern suburbs of Providence. Although the opening of the Swansea Mall didn’t kill the Harbour Mall, it did solidify its place as the lesser “dirt” mall serving the area, an image it was never able to shake (locals call it “Harbour Hall,” even today). As the years went by, the entire commercial strip along Canning Blvd. in Fall River would become increasingly secondary in comparison to the strips surrounding the other two malls, reinforcing that this area was the least desirable of the major shopping districts around.

In 1993, perhaps recognizing the obsolescence of the mall that connected two still-popular anchors, then-owner Yale Realty Services decided to spruce up the Harbour Mall. Skylights were added to the interior and the moody hallways were redone in a queasy blend of mint and pink. Lastly, the exterior shingles were removed and replaced with green siding, and the main entrance facing route 24 was given a much grander facade to be visible to freeway traffic. Topping off this rather silly renovation was than even-sillier renaming of the mall to the “New Harbour Mall.” Because it was the NEW Harbour Mall. There is no such thing as a “new harbour.”

Nonetheless, it seemed to work alright for awhile. Business picked up a little bit and the mall continued to house a standard blend of the types of stores that frequented smaller discount-oriented malls at the time, such as Radio Shack, Fashion Bug, Rainbow, and Record Town. There was also an arcade, a McDonalds Express, and some other merchants. Unfortunately, in 2000, Bradlees announced that they were going out of business and closing all stores, including this one. That initially seemed like a bad omen for this mall–especially since Bradlees was its most popular tenant–but within a year, Wal-Mart announced their intention to fill the space. This gave the New Harbour Mall the distinction of being the first and thusfar only shopping center in the United States anchored by both Wal-Mart and Kmart, giving each other a death stare down this minty pink mall corridor. Over the years, the mall’s somewhat ill-considered renovation began to age very badly, and today there are many signs of neglect. On one 2006 visit from both members of the Labelscar crew, we found that the restrooms were bizarrely labeled “boys” and “girls,” and that they had just put bars of soap on top of the sink for anyone to use. Communal bars of soap. In a mall. Yuck.

In 2007, the movie theatres finally closed.

This dopey little mall actually has some close ties to the Labelscar crew. I grew up about 15 miles to the south, in Newport, Rhode Island, and other than the long-since-departed Newport Mall, this was physically the closest enclosed mall to my hometown. We didn’t go here all that often because of its size, but I do have quite a few childhood memories of shopping at Bradlees for backpacks, sweaters, and Escape Club cassette tapes. Also, I wrote the deadmalls.com entry about this mall back in 2001, and it was one of the very first pieces of content that the crew over there posted from a contributor. (Admittedly, what I wrote was not my finest hour, but this whole write-about-malls thing was pretty new at the time).

The photos here were all taken on December 26, 2000, making them amongst the oldest original photos featured anywhere on the site. They’re the same set that I sent to Deadmalls, and were taken with a relatively low-res (but then seemingly pretty cool) digital camera that died within the first day I was using it. December 26 was also the exact day that Bradlees announced they were going out of business, and I was unaware of the announcement until I visited the store at the New Harbour Mall and saw all of the ominous yellow signs announcing that they weren’t accepting returns or taking checks. I was in the middle of a weird populist phase where as a broke college student I un-self-consciously did a lot of shopping at stores like Bradlees, Caldor, and Ann & Hope (the Targets of their day), who would all go out of business soon after. Pretty sad.

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January 24, 2010 | Posted by Caldor | Posted in California, Dead Malls

During the height of the economic collapse last winter, I took a trip to one of the most threatened malls in California: Bakersfield’s East Hills Mall. It doesn’t take a genius to see why this place is having a hard time, because it has practically everything stacked against it:

• Its anchors are/were Gottschalks (which was, at this point, a few weeks shy of announcing that they were going out of business), Mervyn’s (whose stores had all just shuttered), and Harris, who were acquired several years ago by Gottschalks. The Harris store at East Hills Mall was shuttered a few years ago. This leaves only a United Artists Theatre as a major anchor tenant in the center.
• It’s located in California’s Central Valley, one of the regions of the nation most heavily impacted by the precipitous drop in housing prices from 2007-2009
• It’s located on the *EAST* side of Bakersfield, which is a higher-crime and lower-income part of town.
• East Hills Mall isn’t a terribly large mall overall.

First, just a few notes about Bakersfield itself. Bakersfield is one of the largest cities in California’s central valley, located about 100 miles north of Los Angeles and due west of the Mojave Desert. The region has long been known for its oil production and agriculture, and was one of the prime spots for migrants from the Dust Bowl during the depression. As a result, the region has long held the honor of being California’s most conservative city, due to the influence of Evangelicalism and country music (Buck Owens and Merle Haggard were both from here, and Bakersfield is sometimes referred to as the Nashville of the west). In recent years, however, Bakersfield’s identity has been transforming from its Okie past as new residents–mainly from the Los Angeles area–have come to the area in search of cheaper housing. In addition, a significant number of immigrants from locations as diverse as Mexico, Phillippines, and many countries in the middle east and northern Africa. Bakersfield has even become known as something of a destination for Basque food, which isn’t easy to find just anywhere. Despite the city’s considerable growth, however, it does not remain much of a cultural hotbed, and has significant issues with poverty and crime (as well as a nasty history of racism), and its hot, dusty climate is one of the least favorable in California. With a population of around 330,000 in the city proper and approximately 800,000 in the entire metropolitan area, Bakersfield is the third largest inland metropolitan area in California after Sacramento and Fresno.

The East Hills Mall is one of only two enclosed malls serving the Bakersfield metropolitan area, and is the far smaller of the two. Unfortunately, there’s also almost nothing about the history of this unloved mall floating around on the internet. Judging by the architecture, it appears that the 415,000 square foot mall was probably built sometime in the 1980s. Although we know Harris and Gottschalks were former anchors, I’m not entirely sure if the third anchor was originally a Mervyn’s–something about the architecture of the store tells me it may have been a Target originally (and there is a Target on the outlots of the parcel) but I’m not entirely sure if the timeline matches up for Target to have been in California at the time. I also wouldn’t be shocked if one of these anchors had at one point been a Montgomery Ward or a Robinson’s-May, but I am really guessing here. It does appear that the mall’s decline began a long time ago–late ’90s-ish, and was sold in 2003 to a developer who had a plan to modernize and expand the center, especially to cater to the growing suburban area in the city’s northeast hills. Bakersvillians, help us out!

When I visited in early January 2009, there was a robust plan to redevelop the center, bringing in new tenants and adding more of an entertainment and dining focus. A year later, the anchorless East Hills Mall filed for bankruptcy, its hopes dashed by the low likelihood of a housing rebound in this somewhat depressed corner of California. While the mall remains open, it serves as little more than a lobby for the movie theatres and a handful of local merchants who have been able to survive with so little foot traffic. The bankruptcy itself may also force even more dramatic changes–such as the (possibly likely) outcome that the mall will be demolished and completely replaced. Given its condition, that may not be a terrible option.

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January 16, 2010 | Posted by Prange Way | Posted in New Jersey

Greater Philadelphia, the second largest metropolitan area on the east coast, stretches across four states and contains an impressive 6 million people total.  With a population of around 1.5 million, the New Jersey suburbs of Greater Philadelphia shoulder about a quarter of that total.  Most of these South Jersey suburbs are post-war enclaves of sprawling single-family residential developments, mixed with low-level commercial and some industrial areas near the Delaware River.  For the average tourist, there’s little going on here, unless one happens to enjoy touring post-war sprawl and shopping malls – and we do! – or, for the more daring urban explorer, the city of Camden offers a post-apocalyptic exception to the suburban sprawl, with its disintegrated, densely urban infrastructure crumbling before our eyes.

Nestled 25 miles northeast of Center City (downtown) Philadelphia,  Burlington Center Mall is one of a handful of regional shopping centers on the New Jersey side of the metropolitan area.  Opened in 1982 by Rouse, Burlington Mall is the newest regional enclosed center in Greater Philadelphia, and was conceived in order to fill a dearth of regional malls that exists between Cherry Hill/Moorestown and the mall north of Trenton.  A considerable amount of residential growth in this section of Burlington County, combined with the height of regional enclosed mall development, precipitated the birth of Burlington Mall.  Unfortunately, though, the mall has fallen on hard times as a result of locational disadvantages, competition, and a perception of crime, and is in a significant amount of trouble today.

Originally, competition was not an issue for Burlington Mall.  In fact, Burlington Mall’s 1982 debut eventually helped kill several smaller malls in the vicinity.  The extant built retail environment in this area prior to the construction of Burlington Mall consisted of several smaller local/neighborhood centers – the enclosed set of Cinnaminson Mall and Willingboro Village Mall, and the outdoor Willingboro Plaza – all of which closed and were significantly redeveloped by the early 2000s.

Located along Burlington-Mt. Holly Road on a small strip of land between two major parallel highways - the New Jersey Turnpike and Interstate 295 – the Burlington Center Mall enjoys access to both, and also to a bridge across the Delaware River into populous Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  This locational advantage, along with its size and relative newness, put Burlington Mall many steps ahead of the aforementioned smaller malls in the area, which are mostly located along US 130, a semi-controlled access highway with frequent lights.

During the rest of the 1980s and into the 1990s, the two-level Burlington Mall enjoyed success, reaping the rewards sowed by a great location and a lack of competition in its core market.  In 1996, the first and only expansion of the mall took place, with the addition of a JCPenney store near the crux of the mall’s two L-shaped hallways.  The other two anchors were Sears and Philadelphia-based Strawbridges (changed to Macy’s in 2006), at the far ends of each hallway, respectively.

The end of the 1990s and the dawn of the new millennium saw a shift in shopper preferences which would eventually lead to a downward spiral at Burlington Mall, as offerings shifted from a dominance of staid, popular, national brand stores to local mom-and-pops and vacancies.  Also, the mall had begun to show its age, and, as of 2010 has not received a significant renovation in its lifetime.  In contrast, nearly all of the other malls in South Jersey have undertaken renovations and expansions of varying degrees, the largest being the complete renovation and addition of Nordstrom at Cherry Hill Mall, the largest mall on the New Jersey side and the second largest mall in the Greater Philadelphia area.  Also, in the mid-2000s, the lifestyle center craze of outdoor malls hit South Jersey, and the large Promenade at Sagemore opened in nearby Marlton, contributing to competition in an already-crowded market.

In 2007, Burlington Center Mall received a pall in the form of bad press. On the night of January 13, 2007, a gang fight erupted in the mall, involving over 20 individuals.  The mall closed early that night, but that wasn’t as big of a deal as the ongoing bad press the mall received in coming weeks and months, which earned Burlington Mall the reputation of being an unsafe haven for gang-bangers.  Once a mall is branded as unsafe, a positive feedback loop often begins, regardless of whether or not the reputation is actually earned.  Shoppers begin to avoid the mall, causing stores to close, causing less traffic in the mall overall which, in turn, causes even more stores to close.  This feedback loop correlates with a downward-spiraling trend of tenancy, eventually leading to a mall’s closure, and can often be traced to a single event or series of events exposed by the media.

Unfortunately, this downward spiral is already taking place at Burlington Center Mall.  It has also reached critical mass, as evidenced by a recent blow from Macy’s, who announced in January 2010 that they were leaving the mall, citing poor sales.  Adding insult to injury, the media exposed the larger troubles at the mall in addition to the Macy’s departure.  According to an article that ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer and announced the Macy’s departure at the flagging mall, Burlington Center Mall is a “dead mall” full of “junk stores”.

The same article also had a quote from the mall’s marketing manager, Sunshine Lewis, who has a glass-half-full mentality and stated the Macy’s departure will give the mall an opportunity to court another anchor.  In her defense, the mall isn’t quite dead just yet, and still has a fair amount of national chains like American Eagle Outfitters, Victoria’s Secret, a handful of shoe stores and jewelry stores, and a decent full food court.  But it also doesn’t have far to go before it’s dead, either.

Burlington Mall’s owner is Jager Management, a relatively small player in the world of the PREITs, Simons, Maceriches, and Westfields.  Jager, based in Burlington County, owns two other malls – the very dead Mountaineer Mall in Morgantown, West Virginia, and the Fairgrounds Square Mall, a flagging mall in Reading, Pennsylvania.  Because of their relatively small (and underperforming) portfolio, Jager is not well-poised to ward off competition through updates and renovations, which are necessary tools in today’s marketplace, especially in the face of bad press.   All of the other malls on the New Jersey side of Greater Philadelphia are owned by either Simon, PREIT, or Macerich, all companies that have access to millions of dollars in assets and loans in order to keep their centers current and viable.  And they have – every other center in South Jersey providing competition to Burlington Mall has undergone extensive renovations within the past few years.

So, when Burlington Mall’s manager stated the departure of Macy’s represents an opportunity, she was right.  In order to remain viable, the mall needs differentiate itself from its competition.  The area around the mall still has an above average household income, and the mall’s location is advantageous, so it’s become clear that laissez-faire management has become the major problem.  Use the mall’s location, between two well-traveled highways, to locate a destinational store or attraction there.  Invent an entertainment district.  Put in a discounter or some other non-traditional entity as an anchor.  Renovate and modernize the mall.  There obviously has to be more of a reason to come here, since locals are bypassing this mall and going to others like Cherry Hill/Moorestown and Sagemore, which are 15 minutes away.

We visited Burlington Mall in Summer 2008 and took the pictures featured here.  Leave your own suggestions, comments, and experiences about Burlington Mall.

Michael Lisicky has submitted the following pictures from 2005, before Strawbridge’s became Macy’s, and a close-up of the famous fountain:

And here are some pictures that Caldor took when in the area in November of 2006. The mall felt dusty and deserted, and the Macy’s (former Strawbridge’s) wing felt like it was in especially poor shape, with little other than empty storefronts or hip hop wear stores:

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December 24, 2009 | Posted by Prange Way | Posted in Uncategorized

In what can only be called an early, very bizarre holiday present to us, viewers throughout North America caught a glimpse of Labelscar tonight (12/23/09) on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. 

Yes, that Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. 

???!!?

The bizarre sequence of events unfolded completely randomly and with perfect timing.  Read on and you’ll see what a strange and random occurrence it actually was.

Earlier today, I came home for the holidays to the house I grew up in, in Janesville, Wisconsin.  The night was less than remarkable, and considering we’re having an ice storm I had little plans other than a date with the TV.  However, my mom recently removed the analog TV from my room; it was hooked up to rabbit ears and wasn’t much use after the DTV transition earlier this year.  So, I hooked up the DTV tuner on my laptop to the same rabbit ears, and presto – I had basic TV again. 

I kept the TV on in the background all night while I goofed around on the computer, and around 11:30 I tuned in to The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson on CBS.  It’s a pretty good show – I like the guy’s sense of humor, personality, and delivery.  Plus, he’s Scottish, and so am I, so I decided to sort of pay attention and leave it on in the background, and maybe catch a laugh or two.

About halfway through the show, a segment appeared featuring the show’s resident comic field reporter and SNL alum Tim Meadows.  The setup had something to do with last minute holiday shopping, and Craig mentioned that Tim was on location at the Mall of America.  At that point, they cut to Tim, in front of a green screen, and behind him was – sure enough – a scene from a typical mall. 

Of course, I naturally perked up as soon as I heard “Mall of America” and watched a little more intently.  They bantered about last-minute holiday shopping and were making some predictable jokes, and just when I was about to pull away I noticed something about the mall behind Tim that I couldn’t quite place.  It didn’t look like the Mall of America to me at all, and I’ve been there many times.  I figured he could be in a different part of the mall, or it could be a different mall altogether, but something about it really got my attention and looked very familiar.

Then it struck me.  I noticed an obvious Sbarro on the right side of the frame, which they covered up in Photoshop, and I immediately thought of the Sbarro in the Janesville Mall.  I knew that a Regis hair salon was to the left of the Sbarro in the Janesville Mall, and when they cut to Tim again I noticed that the Regis was there too, and the floor looked very similar as well.   Because I was watching the show on my laptop using a DTV tuner and software, I snapped a couple stills of the segment, still unaware of what I was about to discover next.

Could it be possible that this very same setup exists in a different mall other than the one here in Janesville?  Maybe, but something still seemed very eerie to me.  If this was the Janesville Mall, appearing on national television in this strange comedy segment, how did they get this specific photo?  Why would a random photo like this exist for the Janesville Mall?

…unless I took it.

That’s when I went directly to the Labelscar post for the Janesville Mall.  I still figured that there was no way that CBS would just yank a picture off my site and use it on a popular, nationally-aired program, when the page finished loading and there…it…was.  The exact same photo I took in 2008 was staring at me in both my web browser and on CBS.  It was almost unreal.

So what gives, CBS?  Why’d you use my photo?  Is someone on the Late Late Show staff a fan of the site?  If not, how did you even find it?  Also, why did this happen while I was sitting in Janesville, where I can actually see the mall out the window?  On top of that, it’s not often that I sit and watch TV using my laptop’s DTV tuner, let alone that I’m even up this late.

Really, really weird.

Hope you guys get as much of a kick out of it as I did.  It was a really neat coincidence and I’d like to thank all the forces of randomness, kismet, Santa Claus or otherwise that brought it to my attention. 

Oh, and happy holidays.

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