Located where the coastal plain meets the upland fall line, Roanoke Rapids was originally settled as a port.  Historically, it connected the appalachian upland with a navigable river to the Atlantic Ocean.  Today, Roanoke Rapids has outlived the necessity to be a port and instead functions as the anchor city to a small micropolitan area.  I-95, one of the busiest interstate corridors in the country, has also helped in boosting the local economy as Roanoke Rapids sits roughly halfway from the megalopolis in the northeast to Florida’s sunland.

The city of Roanoke Rapids has a population of only 17,000, but due to the relative remoteness of its location it draws from a large rural and semi-rural area around it; in fact, the trade area is close to ten times the population.  In addition, the nearby larger cities of Richmond, Raleigh and the Hampton Roads area are all over 80 miles away.  Therefore, Roanoke Rapids has developed as a center for commerce in its microregion.  Also recently Roanoke Rapids has been the recipient of an entertainment destination per Dolly Parton called Carolina Crossroads, which will be a mixed-use development featuring an amphitheater, aquarium, hotel, water park, billiards hall and over 300,000 square feet of retail and restaurants.  The site was chosen for its centrality, being approximately halfway from Florida and the seaboard cities of the northeast.

As Roanoke Rapids has emerged, a large retail strip has developed along U.S. 158 near Interstate 95, including many strip malls, restaurants, box stores, and typical retail strip fodder.  Nearly adjacent to the U.S. 158 strip is also a small enclosed mall, Becker Village Mall, located along 10th street. 

Becker Village Mall has definitely seen better days and today the center is almost wholly defunct as a retail destination.  The small, 320,000 square foot mall has seen many departures in the past several years, stemming largely from K-Mart’s closure in 2002 and also from the groundbreaking of Premier Landing, a modern lifestyle/strip-mall development the same year.  Premier Landing has opened in phases since at a more visible location in the center of the strip near I-95 and U.S. 158, and also managed to wriggle Belk and other typical ’enclosed mall’ offerings away from Becker Village Mall, sealing the mall’s fate rather solidly. 

We visited Becker Village Mall in August 2005 and took the pictures featured here.  For even more information and photos please visit Anita Rose’s Sick Malls blog, for a different (and daylight) perspective from Summer 2006.

I know that I’m really keeping these posts coming fast and furious lately, but after I threw up my tome on the Fairgrounds Square Mall outside of Reading, Pennsylvania, I decided to follow it up with the other, better mall serving the Reading area: the Berkshire Mall in Wyomissing.

While the Berkshire Mall is in some ways very typical of a mid-sized mall serving a mid-sized city, it’s stuck in something of a time warp. The decor inside isn’t the most exciting, but it is certainly interesting (and kind of shabby) just by virtue of the way it hasn’t received much attention. In the comment strand to Fairgrounds Square, one of our commenters (Bruce) noted that “It amazes me how bad Berkshire Mall looks, especially given its prime location in upscale Wyomissing. The exterior alone looks like a dead mall and its large sign out front is the worst of 70s ugliness. The owners really need to spruce up this property.”

’70s ugliness? You be the judge:

I might have to agree.

Like with Fairgrounds Square, I wasn’t able to find much online about the Berkshire Mall. I do know that the Boscov’s seen in these shots is actually quite new. It replaced a Strawbridge’s that closed in 2003 or 2004, and was reportedly the worst-performing Strawbridge’s in the entire chain. The space was a Strawbridge’s for a relatively brief period of time; the store was built as a Wanamaker’s. The Sears, as far as I know, has always been here, and I think the same is true of The Bon-Ton, who is based in nearby York. Beyond that, these pictures mostly speak for themselves: the mall’s a pretty basic straight shot, with a small second level at the center court. But some of the various accoutrements sprinkled throughout are in poor shape; between the dried-up, swimming-pool-blue fountains and the bizarre quasi-industrial benches, this place clearly needs some good ol’ lipstick and rouge.

The Berkshire Mall was also the site of a controversy (or, if we want to be more colorful, hullabaloo) in February 2007 when a 29-year old nursing mother was asked to stop feeding her infant or to cover up. It became a bit of a cause célèbre amongst the, er, breastfeeding community, and they staged a “nurse-in” on February 24, 2007 in response. So far as I can tell, the result was… a whole lot of breastfeeding (there’s video at that link, but it’s not creepy).

Which reminds me! You should all ask Prangeway sometime about the time he was thrown out of a mall for (accidentally) taking pictures of a breastfeeding mother. That’s quite a story.

Yes, you saw right.  That’s a working oil well in the middle of a mall parking lot. 

Opened in February 1974 at one of the busiest freeway intersections in Oklahoma City, Crossroads Mall was and is still the largest mall in the state of Oklahoma.  Not only does the mall anchor the large retail strip surrounding it, but it attracts shoppers from all over the area south of downtown and north of the large retail strips in Norman.  The mall has over over 125 stores on two levels with four anchor pads.  Currently, three of them are occupied by Macy’s (formerly Foley’s until 2006), Dillard’s, and Steve and Barry’s, which opened in 2004 replacing Montgomery Ward which closed in 2001.  JCPenney held the fourth anchor spot until earlier this Summer (2007) when it closed, deciding to instead open new standalone stores in nearby Norman and Midwest City.   

Recently, in January 2007, long-time owner Macerich Company unloaded the mall onto an Arkansas-based firm.  Prior to selling the mall, Macerich did some minor renovations to the interior of the mall and helped in anchor placement.  These included adding a large children’s play area and a full-sized carousel, in addition to wooing the state’s first Steve and Barry’s location to replace the vacant Wards. 

In addition to losing an anchor this summer and in light of competition, this center is still mostly viable.  But occupancy has dwindled, and the mall has not experienced as much popularity as Quail Springs or Penn Square across town.  Neither, though, has it fallen flat on its face and become a completely dead mall like Heritage Park and Shepherd Malls elsewhere in the metro.  Instead, Crossroads Mall is treading water, attempting to stay afloat in a seemingly saturated market. 

Aside from competition, the interior of Crossroads Mall is showing some age.  While receiving some minor renovations under Macerich, much of the two-level mall is quite dated, including several original circa 1975 stores such as Orange Julius.  Case full of plastic oranges anyone?  The new owners will have to either learn to contend with the mall’s age, or use some capital to renovate the center in hopes of a resurrection to a top-tier destination.  Alternately, they may choose to capitalize on the downfall of the enclosed trend and use the recently-vacated JCPenney to embark on the ever-popular “Lifestyle Wing” - featuring Coldwater Creek and more!  But seriously, even more issues exist which may thwart redevelopment and the mall’s success, such as ODOT’s plans to reconfigure the I-40/I-240 interchange in front of the mall.  Ironically, this interchange is one of the mall’s biggest assets yet due to the construction becomes its greatest downfall because the reconstruction project will last seven years.

And finally, of greatest interest to me and probably anyone else not from Oklahoma or Texas, is the fact that there is a working oil well in the north parking lot of Crossroads Mall, whirring away in front of Macys.  Take a look at some of the pictures for a visual of this.  The whirring of the well as it pumps is the only thing you hear on this side of the parking lot; it’s simultaneously cool and eerie.  Also, take a look at the other pictures and leave your own comments too. 

San Antonio might be known better for its Latin flavors, the Alamo and its neighboring historic tourist-laden Riverwalk area of downtown, but few tourists venture beyond the riverboats and history and delve into the rest of the city.  Why?  Well, unless you’re a local or in one of the various military installations around the area, there isn’t really that much to do.  Except for us retail buffs, of course.  San Antonio is possibly one of the most over-malled metros in the entire country, and its numerous vacant or recently imploded shopping malls speak to this. 

San Antonio is typical of Texas cities, and of Sun Belt cities in general in its growth patterns.  Unfettered growth, often with little to no zoning regulations has run rampant for several decades and suburban sprawl exists just about everywhere.  In fact, San Antonio has become the second largest city in Texas and seventh largest in the country; however, due to the fact that the city has few suburbs, it is only 30th in metropolitan area rankings. Because of the unfettered growth in the latter half of the 20th century, a lot of retail strips were constructed.  One of the most prolific of these is the I-410 belt around the city, but others exist along the other freeways and major thoroughfares.  Several of the city’s malls were also constructed along this beltway, including the Crossroads of San Antonio, located on the northwest side of the city near the intersection of I-10 and I-410 along Fredericksburg Road. 

Crossroads opened in the 1960s as Wonderland Mall and quickly became a super-regional destination for the entire area.  From what we can tell, the mall chugged along and was fairly successful for quite a few years.  However, as fickle as the retail market is, San Antonians shifted their shopping preferences to other centers, specifically the two which surround Crossroads on both sides of I-410.  Located within five minutes on either side, both Ingram Park Mall and North Star Mall have retained shoppers’ fancy in recent years, the latter being San Antonio’s most successful retail destination for some time now. 

Crossroads is also unique in that it has been profiled since 1986 by the Urban Land Institute in a case study concerning the center’s economic viability over time.  The mall changed dramatically starting in the late 1980s due to swirling competition from better-positioned malls and continued to evolve into what it is today: a value-oriented mall.  As is typical with the downfall and conversion of enclosed super-regionals to value-oriented or obsolete malls, the puzzle pieces don’t seem to fit right.  This was definitely the case here, as while much of the mall has remained viable through off-price and local merchants and anchor stores (ie. Burlington Coat Factory, Hobby Lobby, Stein Mart), good portions of the mall remain vacant today.  Take a look at the study, it also indicates the competition from other malls inspired the center to renovate and expand in 1987 before succumbing to the competition in 1991 and shifting focus to being an off-price destination.  Today the mall exists as such, complementing to the malls on either side of it in its value niche.  But for how long?  In 2005 plans were announced to refurbish the center and reposition it to be more inviting to customers.  Can we say comfy couches and carpeting? 

In terms of decor, Crossroads is currently looking rather aged except for the 1987 expansion featuring the food court and its own wing, which looks very much like it doesn’t belong with the rest of the earth-toned features occupying the rest of the mall.  Its two levels are set up rather interestingly in order to fit into a rather tight footprint between Fredericksburg Road and I-10, yet the mall is still rather large at 700,000 square feet. 

Take a look at the pictures we snapped in April 2007.  Tell us more and let us know the detailed history of the mall, including your own personal stories.

The Fairgrounds Square Mall is one of two major malls serving the Reading, Pennsylvania area. Fairgrounds Square is located on the northern edge of the city between the Allentown Pike and the Pottsville Pike, and at 718,000 square feet, is only slightly smaller than the more successful Berkshire Mall in Wyomissing, but I’m of the mind that it’s a bit cooler!

Reading is roughly an hour northwest of Philadelphia, and at about 81,000 residents is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania. Reading is typical of many aging industrial centers throughout the Northeast United States, and compared to the many other old industrial cities that dot the landscape in eastern Pennsylvania, Reading’s malaise seems, at least anecdotally, somewhat more acute than most. Despite this, Berks County has actually registered a population increase since 2000, largely due to transplants from the Philadelphia area seeking a lower cost of living. Reading is also notable for being the home of Boscov’s, one of the last true remaining regional, family-owned full-line department store chains.

Those transplants are not enough to keep Fairgrounds Square thriving, however. Although Fairgrounds Square was reasonably well-leased and sported a decent amount of foot traffic on both of our visits (in October 2004 and August 2007), the center seems a bit forlorn, complete with second tier stores. This is too bad, since Fairgrounds Square’s distinctly 80s tinker-toy architecture and interesting stair-stepping design are actually pretty cool.

I wasn’t able to find much about Fairgrounds Square on the web, which isn’t that surprising since malls like these tend to get no love. The southernmost anchor is a large Boscov’s store–and its likely good ol’ Boscov’s is a hold out because they call Reading home (we love Boscov’s for this very reason). There’s a large anchor at the mall’s center court–today, this is a Burlington Coat Factory, but upon our visit in 2004 it was a National Wholesale Liquidators, and before that it housed Jason’s Discount Furniture (who were also in the mall–in a different space–in 2004, as shown in the photos). This large store was originally a Montgomery Ward. At the north end of the mall, there’s a large JCPenney Outlet and another, smaller, more mysterious anchor; this is the space occupied by Jason’s in 2004, and now occupied by a shoe store. There is also a Cinema Center in the mall.

According to this presentation, The mall is apparently in the midst of adding a food court to the area closest to the cinema, but otherwise it doesn’t appear much is going on. Since I’ve come up short on information–which is pretty pathetic given this is the first you’ve heard of me in two weeks–feel free to fill in. What do you know about Fairgrounds Square? What used to occupy the Super Shoes space? Was there ever a time that this mall was more dominant than Berkshire Mall in Wyomissing?

Want a treat? Of course you do! Everybody loves treats! Some longtime readers of Labelscar may remember the crappy old VGA camera phone, my 2004 Motorola that was my first camera phone, and which I used liberally for some time to take really piss-awful pictures of malls. I actually have some of those classic, poster print-friendly shots of this place, from before two of the anchors swapped (note the National Wholesale Liquidators, along with my own namesake discount furniture store!). These were all taken October 2004: