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!

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.

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.

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.

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.