June, 2006 - Labelscar: The Retail History Blog

My Lights Are Green

Traffic Light Montage

I believe we’re both going off on vacation for the holiday weekend, so there might not be much in the way of updates over the next few days unless one of us gets a chance to toss something up from the road. Personally, I’m headed down for a long recon trip through the Mid-Atlantic, and with any luck will have visited hundreds of square miles of new, thickly-packed retail territory by the end of next week. This means I’m hoping to have enough material for dozens of new posts on malls around Baltimore and Washington. Given the flooding all over the news, however, it may not be so easy to get everywhere! Wish me luck, and a happy 4th of July to all of our readers!

Lincoln Mall; Lincoln, Rhode Island

Prologue: Like all of the enclosed shopping malls in the state where I grew up, Lincoln Mall holds a special place in my heart. It was an accidental trip there in January 1998 that began my modern fascination with malls, and–quite literally–how the “other half” lives. When I say “other half,” I’m talking about a geographic (not economic) disparity. I lived in the suburbs south of Providence, and Lincoln Mall existed in the northern suburbs. As such, I very rarely had cause to go there, and it was during one leisurely visit spent people-watching on a rainy day that the whole mall obsession really dug its claws in. This was the other side of my city, with totally different people shopping in a totally different shopping mall, yet I didn’t know it or them. From then on, I’ve always had (in every way) to know what’s around the next bend.

Rhode Island’s Lincoln Mall was built in the mid-1970s at the junction of routes 116, 146, and I-295 in Lincoln, Rhode Island. At a little over half a million square feet, the mall was mid-sized, and its design–one long hallway with a 45 degree crook in the center and anchors at each end–was relatively standard for the time. The mall was initially anchored by Zayre and Woolco, with three junior anchors: Cherry & Webb, Peerless, and a movie theatre.

Tenants would shuffle about over the years, and by the mid-1980s, Caldor would replace the Woolco and Kmart would build a rather shiny and attractive store in the former Zayre space. Despite these decidedly mid-market tenants, the Lincoln Mall did quite well and courted a large roster of standard mall tenants such as The Gap and Lerner. One long-time fixture was the Christmastime presence of “Randy the Talking Reindeer,” a Santa Claus-like attraction that was advertised heavily on Providente television every year.

The mall was also the only mall serving the relatively populous Woonsocket trade area, and is located near the sprawling CVS Pharmacy Headquarters, the Amica Insurance Headquarters, and a large Fidelity Investments office campus, all of which would bring well-paying jobs into the area for many years. There is very little other chain retail located around the mall, which likely served it well in its earlier years but hurt it in later years as it was impossible to cross-shop with other big box chains, all of which were 15 minutes away.

Like many malls of its type, Lincoln Mall took many hard hits through the years. Built as one of the first wave of enclosed malls constructed around Providence, it was the lone mall in the city’s northern suburbs until the late 1980s and had no immediate competition. In 1989, the massive Emerald Square Mall (with 170 or so stores spread across three levels) would open a few miles away just over the Massachusetts border, but the mall would be relatively unaffected by its presence, continuing its operations prosperously for another decade. In 1999, Lincoln Mall was hit with twin challenges: the even larger (and very upscale) Providence Place Mall opened up, also about ten minutes away, and the mall lost Caldor when the entire chain folded. For awhile, the mall limped a bit, but was given a major boost with an extensive (mainly exterior) renovation in 2000. Despite the loss of many of its junior anchors, the mall rebounded by replacing them: Pay/Half moved into the Cherry & Webb space, HomeGoods took the long-underused Peerless space, and the movie theatres were taken over by a medical center. The Caldor anchor was mostly demolished and replaced by a Stop & Shop, which (for obvious reasons) did not open into the mall. It did, however, drive traffic, and the mall continued on. Eventually, Marshalls took the remainder of the former Caldor space and a tiny bit of the old mall and acted as the mall’s eastern anchor. As recently as January 2003, the mall was almost fully leased.

Also, in 2002, another major contender opened just a few exits away at US-44 and I-295. Smithfield Crossing is a large outdoor shopping center that hosts many traditional mall tenants and wooed some tenants (such as The Gap) away from Lincoln Mall. It would have more of an impact on the Lincoln Mall than either Emerald Square Mall or Providence Place.

Unfortunately Kmart would close their 110,000 square foot Lincoln Mall store as part of a round of closings in 2003, and the loss would impact the mall severely. Stores began emptying out at an alarming pace and by February 2004 the mall was over 50% vacant. The still newly-opened Marshalls also shut their mall entrance, dooming the mall. The center was sold to WP Realty at about this time, and they announced plans to demolish much of the mall and replace it with an outward-facing plaza. Demolition began in mid to late 2004.

Now, the mall is an extremely strange mall and plaza hybrid. The majority of the western Kmart wing was demolished in 2004 and has been replaced by an outdoor strip plaza anchored by a Target. The eastern wing was also largely big-boxed, with Marshalls, Home Goods, and a party store having exterior entrances only.

Strangely, two pieces of the mall interior remain. The cross hallway (and eastern entrance) closest to Marshalls (former Caldor) has remained in place–and remained open–seemingly so patrons can access a nail salon hidden deep inside of the old mall. Notice that the Marshalls sign above their shuttered interior entrance actually remains! I recorded this anomaly with this picture:

Similarly, most of the center court area of the mall was not big boxed and in fact remains today exactly as it always has been. There is a mall entrance in the front to access the center court, and there remains room for about 20 stores in the mall’s interior. Many of them (well over half) are vacant. Despite having frontage with the side of the Target store, it does not open into the mall, and the other end of the mall faces Career Education Institute, a job training school that’s long been a tenant at the mall even when it was successful. They moved to this larger space, taking up much of the interior of the old hallway (and separating this part of the mall from the dead area near the Marshalls, shown above).

In addition, a rather large “Cinema World” movie theatre was added to the back of the mall as a part of this renovation. It seems that the center court of the Lincoln Mall is now acting as a de-facto movie theatre lobby, and in fact the only new tenant to open inside of the enclosed portion of the mall during this time has been a Subway.

I’m not sure why the enclosed portion of the Lincoln Mall was kept, but I’m grateful for it. It does raise some false hopes; if Target would knock down the wall separating them from the mall, and if the CEI space was removed, then about 66% of the original mall from Target to Marshalls could be reopened and could again function as the enclosed mall it always was. Will this happen? Sadly, almost certainly not. But is this one of the stranger repositionings that I’ve seen? Absolutely. It’s puzzling as to why WP Realty would keep the center court yet not have mall access to abutting anchors, such as Target. There’s enough of the mall remaining to have a substantial enclosed center still, but as it is now its doomed to be a low-rent haven with little visibility.

I took all these pictures a couple weeks ago, and in the time since that the Lincoln Mall was recently sold again.

Prangeway: I visited Lincoln Mall on August 25, 2001 and took the following pictures. It’s interesting how mostly successful the mall was when I visited and how many changes it has gone through to become the “Frankenmall” it is today. Hopefully the new owners have a long-term vision for the mall and aren’t essentially just winging it with this fragile little mall.

Western Plaza; Amarillo, Texas

I discovered this gem of a dead mall while on a road trip to California in July of 2004. Now, Amarillo was a strange place for me to begin with. Something about the flat, wide open spaces on the way into town, and the many signs along I-40 advertising the Big Texan Steak Ranch, where if you eat 4.5 pounds of steak in an hour it’s free. Something about the way I-40 seemed to be the main commercial corridor for Amarillo, and the rest of the city seemed to be locked in a mild slumber. Amarillo’s definitely unique.

When I first saw Western Plaza beneath I-40, I was immediately alarmed to the fact that this mall might no longer be open. Shockingly, it was open, so we went in. Inside were less than a handful (no, really) of stores open, including a Furr’s Cafeteria and a local dance club. The decor inside the mall was ancient. The mall had clearly not been renovated at any point in its history, and although I’m unsure as to the age of the mall I’d bet money that it’s at least from the early 1970s. However, as of my visit I’d say the mall was kept in good condition.

There are definitely some pieces missing to the mall’s story. From what I’ve gathered, the mall was interestingly the location of the first Hastings store in the chain, which opened in 1968. So, I’m guessing it’s about that old. Through the 1970s, the mall enjoyed a great deal of popularity, and had stores like Radio Shack, Orange Julius, Woolco, Montgomery Ward, and Dunlaps. In 1982, Amarillo’s successful, larger Westgate Mall opened just west of Western Plaza along I-40. This probably had a lot to do with the downfall of Western Plaza, as Westgate has all the typical mall stores that any major superregional center would have. In 1997, a tragedy occurred at the mall when a well-known local young man was murdered in the parking lot. An article from 1999 cited the mall as a clustering of hispanic stores serving that community. When I visited in 2004, even this was gone, and nothing was left to replace it. There were far more senior citizens walking the mall than stores for them to shop in. In 2005, it was reported that the mall was no longer heated in the winter and people could see their breath inside the mall. In June, 2006, the Western Plaza mall sign came down, and plans were in the works to eventually raze the entire center and build a new retail development. The Furr’s location has also closed. No word as to whether or not the center is in fact still open for walking.

Obviously there are some missing links in the history of Western Plaza. I’m interested in what exactly the mall’s anchors were, and did the mall fall down fast or was it a slow, gradual death? Maybe there are other factors that led to the mall’s failure. Have any more information? Please feel free to contact me or leave a comment. All photos taken July 2004.

Heritage Village Shops (formerly Beaver Dam Mall); Beaver Dam, Wisconsin

Beaver Dam Mall is a one-story, small enclosed shopping center located at the interchange of Hwy 151 and Business 151 North in Beaver Dam, WI (population: 15,000). Beaver Dam Mall opened in 1980, anchored by Woolco, Minnesota-based Herberger’s, and JCPenney. It was presumably built as part of the growing national trend for any decent sized city in America to have a shopping mall. The Hwy 151 bypass around Beaver Dam was slated for completion and the mall would be located on it, spurring a commercial strip along Business 151 leading north from downtown.

In 1983, the entire Woolco chain folded and that anchor closed. Not long after it was replaced with Wal-Mart. During the 1990s, Herberger’s was eventually acquired by the same company that operates Boston Store and Younkers. By the mid-2000s all the stores owned by this company (Boston Store, Carson Pirie Scott, Younkers, Herbergers, Bergners) would brand exactly the same. In August of 2004, Wal-Mart opened a brand new Supercenter across Highway 151 from the mall and closed their smaller mall store; the mall parcel remains empty today. In January of 2005, JCPenney decided to throw an axe chop into the efforts to kill the mall and made their swift departure as well. In the past few years the number of vacancies within the mall have also increased despite the fact that as recently as 2000, there were several ubiquitous mall chains such as Bath and Body Works still operating. Sadly, I would definitely classify this mall in its current state as almost beyond repair.

The floor plan of Beaver Dam Mall is shaped like a carat(^), with Herberger’s in the middle and JCPenney and Wal-Mart abutting the ends (before they closed). There are entrances on all sides, but the main entrance is in the middle in front of Herberger’s. The decor of the mall appears original (ca. 1980) with no large-scale renovations; however, planters and mall seating areas have been more recently updated. Some stores in the mall, such as Regis Hairstylists, were shockingly still using their early 1980s-era stained wooden storefront and logo. This Regis was in operation in April 2004. It has closed since. Also, the Aurora Pharmacy looked like it was once an Osco Drug, but I’m not certain.

Why is Beaver Dam Mall faltering? I would cite mismanagement along with the national trend away from enclosed malls and toward strip malls with outside-only access. We already know about that trend, so let’s focus on what’s happening in Beaver Dam specifically. For one, Beaver Dam was never really large enough to support this type of mall, which is much more typical of a city twice Beaver Dam’s size. Also, Beaver Dam is about a half hour of the 1 million square foot, recently renovated East Towne Mall and every big box store under the sun in Madison. Forest Mall and many stores in Fond du Lac are about the same distance. Beaver Dam Mall could have also attempted to make Kohl’s fill space in the mall vacated by Wal Mart, which left about the same time Kohl’s opened across the street from the mall. To that tune, they could have also wooed the stores opening in both strip malls attached to the new Wal-Mart and Kohl’s, respectively, to the mall.

What’s next for Beaver Dam Mall? In 2006, a Slumberland furniture will open in the former JCPenney space. However, there are still a very large number of vacancies in the mall as well as the dead Wal-Mart anchor. It’s obvious that they haven’t scrapped the idea of the mall entirely, allowing an anchor to add onto it, but why did they allow this to happen in the first place? The law of diminishing returns definitely applies to these types of situations, so does reinvesting in the mall by adding Slumberland as an anchor make any sense? Is really going to bring the type of traffic to the mall that the few stores that are open need to survive? The mall still has Herberger’s as its saving grace, but for how long? Only time will tell. Any updates and additions to the information I’ve posted would be greatly appreciated.

Photos: April, 2004. Full list of tenants, April 2004: Wal-Mart, Herberger’s, JCPenney, Aurora Pharmacy, Flamingo Bay, Sterling Optical, Floral Expressions, Regis Hairstylists, Freier’s Fine Jewelry, Wonder Nails, Alexandra Jewelers, Claire’s Boutique, GNC, Emerson’s Hallmark, China Palace, Carlson’s Travel, CR Communications, and many empty spaces. Tenant list, early 2006: Herbergers, Flamingo Bay, China Palace, Wonder Nails, Floral Expressions, Sterling Optical and Evenson’s Hallmark.

UPDATE 5/29/2008: A few interesting, significant changes have been afoot at the former Beaver Dam Mall since we first posted almost two years ago. First, the mall has been renamed to Heritage Village Shops and Professional Center. And, as one of our commenters posted last fall, ownership has changed hands. The new local ownership, consisting of Dick and Todd Hedberg, Dave Fister and Jeff Kitchen, has begun to woo retailers back to the center. In addition, the mall has a website for the first time. The new website for Heritage Village Shops indicates future plans for bringing in a mix of local and national retail chains, dining and recreation destinations, and office-y businesses. The website also focuses on an area in the mall where comfy chairs and furniture are available for relaxing, the mall walking program, the farmers market, floral shop, the Chinese buffet, and the fact that the mall is climate controlled – a selling point often overlooked for enclosed retail centers in extreme climates.

We think this is an excellent path for the mall and really the only way it could be reconstituted as viable without major renovations. Such a small mall in an equally small market can only survive with local ownership who are willing to monitor the mall and be there regularly to work on its progress. It was said that the former owner, who lived about 5 hours away in Minnesota, did not care about the mall and did little when it lost all its stores over the past several years. This new ownership, new name and new logo should inject a reinvigoration for the mall, and become an effective metaphor for the new owners and their readiness to fix things up.

Hopefully we will see Heritage Village prosper in time, or at least hold its own by providing an adequate tenant mix to keep people coming inside. But first, they need to get the ball rolling, because as of right now there are only a small handful of businesses operating inside, including anchors Herberger’s and Slumberland Furniture, which replaced the former JCPenney. Once one or two tenants are in, others may trickle in as well, like a retail domino effect, and hopefully people in the area won’t need to drive to Madison or Fond du Lac as much for their shopping.

One question I have for someone who has been to the mall recently: Does the Slumberland have access into the mall or just an exterior entrance? Is it even open? The mall’s website has a pdf which shows Slumberland, but the tenant roster does not indicate it at all. Hmmm.

Federated Sells Lord and Taylor for $1.2bil

Federated Department Stores played hot potato with the Lord and Taylor brand earlier today, selling it off almost immediately after acquiring it from May Company.

Federated Department Stores reported today that it would sell its Lord and Taylor division for $1.2 billion in cash. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported that the probable buyer was a partnership between Apollo and NRDC Real Estate Advisors. The buyer already owns the Linens ‘n Things chain as well as 14 million square feet of retail space across the country.

Lord and Taylor was recently acquired by Federated in a merger with May Company. L&T currently has 49 stores, mostly in upscale malls in larger cities in the eastern half of the country.

Now that Federated has divested itself of the Lord and Taylor brand, it can be speculated that they will focus entirely upon their burgeoning Macy’s division. Later this year, Federated plans to finalize the May stores acquisition, which will dissolve eleven regional department store chains (Robinsons-May, The Jones Store Company, Famous-Barr, Marshall Fields, LS Ayres, Filenes, Kaufmann’s, Hecht’s, Foley’s, Strawbridges, Meier and Frank) into the Macy’s name. After this, Macy’s will indeed be a nationwide chain as ubiquitous to malls as Sears and JCPenney. They will have stores from Hawaii to North Dakota to Florida. Because Lord and Taylor is an upscale brand, it is worthy of salvage from conversion to the Macy’s name. Also, converting the L&T stores would be redundant as many share anchor space in malls that will already have a Macy’s after the merger anyway. In addition, L&T is comparable to Bloomingdales, an upscale department store brand that Federated already owns.

Many wondered what might ultimately become of the L&T brand. It seems that, for now, it will be saved. As for the other eleven brands acquired by Macy’s in the May merger, you can kiss those goodbye; they’ll become Macy’s within a few months. So, if you haven’t already, you’ll soon get your Way to Shop….whatever that actually means.

Pearlridge Center; Aiea, Hawaii

We’re always eager for something a little different in the realm of retail. Whether it be a nonstandard site floorplan, dated or unique decor, uneven mix of stores, it catches our eye. The largest enclosed mall on the island of Oahu in Hawaii is one of these situations. Located just off the H1 freeway near the mouth of Pearl Harbor, Pearlridge Center sits on top of a hill, amid a long string of strip malls and big box along Highway 99.

So why’s the mall interesting? I can think of at least three ways. First, Pearlridge is split in two and the halves are discontiguous. They’re in two entirely separate buildings. The building closest to the highway is called Downtown and anchored by Sears on one end, and a two-level mall extends to the other end ending at a series of doors. A food court sits in the middle of this section, on a third level above the entire mall. It’s connected by escalator into the rest of the mall and the third level only exists for the food court. The other building’s mall is similar and called Uptown, though Uptown is anchored by Macy’s on one end and Price Busters (Think Family Dollar, Dollar General) on the other end.

What else? Well, the mall’s parking structure in the mall building closes to the highway, called Uptown if you were paying attention before, has a large parking structure attached to the FRONT of it. An entrance to the mall is inside, but instead of taking you right into the mall, it takes you into a basement court, BELOW the two-level mall. The basement court has Long’s Drugs, and some other services, but is not large at all. It mainly functions as the escalator to take you up into the actual mall. The parking structure extends to at least three levels away from the mall, too.

The third special design feature of Pearlridge Center is the Monorail connecting the two mall buildings, Uptown and Downtown. Yes, I saved the best for last. As far as I know, this is the only functioning monorail in a mall in the country, or even the world? I’m not sure. Anyway, this was a shocking, amazingly awesome design feature to find. The monorail connects the food court in Uptown with the food court in Downtown. It’s called Skycab, and it costs fifty cents for a one-way trip. I was kind of taken aback by the fact that they charge for this service, when the mall doesn’t even charge for parking, but I’m sure it’s pretty expensive to operate. It’s about a two minute ride (if that?) and the monorail snakes around the corner after leaving each station, crosses the canal made for the nearby watercress farm, and arrives at the other station. Not surprisingly, it’s used frequently by people who want to avoid the parking lot traffic, heat, and blazing sun walking between the two malls. It also effectively makes the two food courts one.

So what about the mall itself? Well, aside from the aforementioned anchors, Pearlridge Center is a pretty standard, modern decor. Being the largest enclosed mall on Oahu and the center of retail for all of western Honolulu, it has all the standard national stores and some local ones too. It’s very well kept up and always packed. This is a very popular place. However, the fact that the mall consists of two totally separate buildings and they connect by monorail makes this mall five stars. Go to the mall’s website for more info. Pics taken June, 2006 by me.

Wakefield Mall; South Kingstown, Rhode Island

At Labelscar, we love tiny malls. Maybe it’s because there’s a thrill in hunting them; they’re stealthy and low-profile, hard to catch and rarely documented on the internet. The International Council of Shopping Centers generally ignores them. They’re fun little surprises, and some of them go undetected by us for years even in well-worn territories. The Wakefield Mall is a bit different because it’s in my home state, which is also really tiny. What a perfect pair!

Wakefield Mall is a really tiny–under 200,000 square feet by some measure–enclosed mall in southern Rhode Island. But more interesting than its size is the sheer awesomeness of that logo and facade! Located in the middle of the suburban shopping district of Wakefield, itself just a village located in the larger town of South Kingstown, this aging and tiny center serves the upmarket farthest-south Providence suburbs.

If you want to say serving, anyway. The Wakefield Mall is one of the smallest traditional enclosed malls I’ve visited, with only 15 stores or so. Years ago, the mall was anchored by NHD (a hardware chain that was acquired by Ace Hardware in the mid-late 1990s) and a rather large and modern Woolworth store (it had the blue logo scheme if that is at all indicative of its vintage). The Woolworth closed several years before the remainder of the chain and became a Rich’s Department Store (not the Georgia kind, the New England kind: they were more in the Wal-Mart vein). That was short-lived; it closed in 1996 or 1997. The space was then drastically re-worked and its mall entrance was removed to create room for a modern Shaw’s Supermarket. The NHD (which may or may not have stayed in the mall long enough to ever be bannered as Rocky’s Ace Hardware) would become a Staples sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Staples also removed their mall access.

Despite being unfairly shunned by both anchors, the tiny Wakefield Mall holds its own, with a near 100% occupancy rate. Long-time tenants include Fashion Bug, FYE, Waldenbooks, Hallmark, a local jeweler, KB Toys, and Olympia Sports. At various points, the mall hosted a relatively small Cherry & Webb store, Poore Simon’s, Weathervane, and (as reported by Deadmalls Dot Com) a Papa Gino’s location that closed ages ago. The Wakefield Mall is incredibly small and dated, and the kind of mall that would’ve generally been big-boxed. It’s probably survived because it is located in a popular suburban area that’s been growing and is a popular tourist destination. South Kingstown is also the home of the University of Rhode Island, so there’s a constant supply of young people moving in and out of the area. These photos are all from June 2006.

Prangeway: Here are some photos I took of Wakefield Mall the night of August 23, 2001. The mall hasn’t changed much at all since then; however, I thought the mall’s classroom motif advertisement was hilarious. Not only were the cursive letters of the alphabet written in chalk at the top with “Good morning class!” scrawled underneath in chalk, but the mall’s 15 stores were used in a “Spelling List” and a geography lesson, complete with a chalk outline of the state of Rhode Island, featured the towns in the mall’s immediate area. It was great.

Parkway Mall; Saint John, New Brunswick

This is going to be post number 112,495 where I apologize for the quality of the pictures taken with my old camera phone! Sorry! Eventually you’ll get tired of hearing me apologize for this (I know I’ve gotten tired of doing it), but you’ll forgive me when you see gems like these. Even when kicking it VGA-res style like it was still the grunge era, you can tell that the Parkway Mall in Saint John, New Brunswick is a gem. And guess what? It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. So I probably won’t be back. This is what we get then.

Another thing about this mall: I don’t know anything about it and the good ol’ interweb won’t bail me out this time. I can say this: Saint John is a city of about 70,000, making it the largest in the province of New Brunswick. It’s very much a northern coastal city; it’s a sprawling blue collar city filled with oil tanks and paper mills and shipping ports, and it’s quite unlike most comparable New England cities. Saint John is also notable because–like many Canadian cities–it seems to have about one mall per every 10,000 residents. I saw five of these, but I may have missed two more! Don’t worry, I’ll post some fuzzy pics of those others someday. Eventually.

Parkway Mall is a relatively small center located at the intersection of McAllister Dr. and Westmorland Rd. on Saint John’s east side. It’s located directly across from McAllister Place, the city’s largest shopping mall and the reason I was in the area in the first place. Parkway Mall didn’t come up on my radar beforehand, and came as a very pleasant surprise. Despite being in the middle of the city’s most active retail district, these pictures illustrate that, as of when they were taken in June of 2005, the center had very little left operating inside. If I remember correctly, there was a shoe store and a dollar store, and “The Bargain! Shop,” which only had an exterior entrance.

As you can see, this one is a true dead mall gem. That sad little luncheonette in the center of the main mallway is my favorite; I can only imagine that when it was built, it was probably a really cool place. Those purple and blue stripes look like something I would’ve had on some cheap sneakers about 20 years back, too. The Parkway Mall is simply amazing, and worth a stop if you’re ever in the area (which is admittedly pretty unlikely). If you know any of the history of the mysterious Parkway Mall, please comment!

Windward Mall; Kaneohe, Hawaii

Imagine a place in paradise where you are minutes from verdant, lush rainforests, steep mountains, and some of the best beaches on the bluest water you’ve ever seen. The puffy clouds hide the bright blue sky, and the weather’s nearly always perfect. This can all be found in the cities of Kaneohe and Kailua, across the Ko’olau Mountains and about 15 minutes from Honolulu on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. The population on this side of the island is approximately one-fifth that of Oahu at large, or about 180,000 people. The retail on the windward side of the island is centered mainly along the Kamehameha Highway in Kaneohe, with several shopping centers along the road including the Windward Mall. The windward side’s only enclosed “traditional mall”, Windward Mall is anchored by Macy’s, Sears, and a 10-screen stadium seating theater. The mall also has over 100 stores on two levels, and a satellite city hall for Kaneohe.

Windward Mall is shaped like a wish-bone, with three major mallways intersecting at one main center court. Each mallway is anchored by either Macy’s, Sears, or the movie theatre at its end, and each is also two levels. The decor of the mall is amazing: think of the malls you shopped in as a kid, or however old you were in the 1970s or early 1980s. The entire floor on both levels is a very shiny maroon brick. The railings along the second level are dull and wooden with very thin, white slats. The mall opens up at center court and the ceiling is raised to expose a large, circular UFO-like skylight. Along at least one wing, giant elephant-earring like clear circular lights shone on the shiny floor from atop black posts. The stores in the mall were very mid-range, catering to a variety of demographics. More succinctly, the mall feels like your average typical suburban mall of middle America. From 1980. Despite the dated decor, the stores are current and represent most of the national as well as local chains. I was elated at the mall’s decor as well as its beautiful location in the shadow of the 3000-foot mountains, with the beach just minutes away.

According to an article posted by the mall’s owner, the Kamehameha Schools, in January, 2006, Windward Mall will soon be undergoing an extensive $23 million interior renovation. Likely, this means the days of the giant pearl lights and the shiny maroon floor are numbered. This will be the mall’s first renovation since it opened in 1982! In addition, General Growth Properties was retained to help the mall acquire a more national tenant mix and add more popular retailers to Windward Mall.

All pictures were taken by me in June, 2006.

Kahala Mall; Honolulu, Hawaii

Located next to the eastern terminus of Oahu’s H1 freeway and nestled close to the base of Diamond Head Crater, Kahala Mall is one of three suburban, enclosed malls on Hawaii’s most populous island. The mall is a two-level footprint in an ‘L’ shape, anchored by Macy’s, Star Markets, and Long’s Drugs. There is also a large movie theatre, the Kahala Theatres. The demographics surrounding the mall are decidedly upscale, and the mall mimics these trends with stores such as Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, Godiva, The Body Shop, and 90 other shops, services, and restaurants. Dining establishments include California Pizza Kitchen, Carl’s Jr, Chili, Pizza Hut, L&L Drive Inn, and several more counter service food-court style establishments. Outside the mall, a two-level parking deck surrounds the mall on several sides. On the second level of the parking deck are more shops and services, including a Barnes and Noble. Behind the mall are the Kahala Office Tower and Kahala Office Building, with dozens of professionals including doctors, dentists, and financial services.

The outside decor of Kahala Mall is fairly modern with a tropical twist. The colors on the outside of the mall are vibrant: the purple letters of the mall rise above the mall’s entrance with a brown stucco floral wall behind them. The inside portions of the mall are carpeted in portions with a sturdy gray commercial carpet; the remaining floor is covered in cream-colored tile. There are several skylights in the mall; however, the mall seemed a bit dark inside in places. The seating areas, planters, and some storefronts suggest the age of the mall, and it is not new. However, all areas of Kahala Mall were busy and the vacancy rate was low. This mall is definitely successful. According to the mall’s website, there’s even free Wi-Fi in center court for the astute traveller on the go. I didn’t use it on my recent visit, but it’s always nice to know I can get connected in one of my favorite venues: a mall.

All photos were taken by me in June, 2006.