Prange Way - Labelscar: The Retail History Blog

Stratford Square Mall; Bloomingdale, Illinois

Stratford Square Mall is a large, super-regional center serving west and northwest-suburban Chicagoland. Located in the village of Bloomingdale, the mall is about 30 miles from downtown Chicago. With 5 anchor slots and 1.3 million square feet of leasable space, Stratford Square is one of the larger malls in the Chicago region; however, the mall has faced recent struggles as it adapts to the economic downturn and general decline of large, enclosed malls nationwide. Opened on March 9, 1981, Stratford Square Mall was the end result of a planning strategy from one of suburban Chicago’s oldest settlements. Bloomingdale, which was located on maps as far back as the 1840s, is so old that the origin of its name is a mystery. The early settlers were German farmers, and Church services were held in German in the village as late as the 1960s.

Opened on March 9, 1981, Stratford Square Mall was the end result of a planning strategy from one of suburban Chicago’s oldest settlements. Bloomingdale, which was located on maps as far back as the 1840s, is so old that the origin of its name is a mystery. The early settlers were German farmers, and Church services were held in German in the village as late as the 1960s.

Here’san ad from Stratford’s opening, from the Bloomingdale library:

Things changed dramatically for Bloomingdale and northern DuPage County in the 1970s. The building boom around Chicagoland was in full swing, and Bloomingdale sat directly in the path of growth moving westward. As the original German pioneers established the small village core of Bloomingdale some 100 years earlier, suburban pioneers fleeing the city of Chicago began to move westward in the 1960s and 1970s. The core of the old village was very small, and located along Lake Street (U.S. Highway 20) at Bloomingdale Road. Suburban Chicago began to envelop the small village, and the residential suburbs of Glendale Heights, Roselle, Addison, and Carol Stream sprang up around it.

By the late 1970s, Bloomingdale wished to capitalize on all this growth and make itself a regional hub for suburban-style retail. The center of this hub was to be a super-regional mall, located on the west side of the village at the intersection of Gary Avenue and Schick Road, just north of Army Trail Road. In building Stratford Square, developers sought to fill in this retail hole in the western suburbs, between the malls in Lombard and Aurora to the south, Oakbrook and the city of Chicago to the east, and Woodfield to the north.

Stratford Square opened to instant success, and became the anchor it was intended to be for a massive retail corridor on the west side of Bloomingdale. After Stratford Square opened, many big box-anchored strip malls opened in the coming years to complement the mall, mostly along Army Trail Road and Gary Avenue.

Here’s a photo taken of Stratford Square in all its glory, not long after it opened, also from the Bloomingdale library website. This is center court. Note the columns and high ceilings, which are still present today. Sadly, the trees and stepped fountains are not:

Unfortunately, though, this retail synergy between the mall and its retail environs peaked sometime in the 1990s. Beginning in the 2000s, Stratford Square and its retail corridor began to slide, punctuated by the departure of original anchor Wards in early 2001. The slide was precipitated by competition, access, and national trends, and during the balance of the 2000s Stratford Square developed more vacancies and began a slide toward obsolescence.

Let’s explore the impetus for Stratford Square’s decline, beginning in the 1990s with the arrival of fiercer competition and moving towards changing trends in retailing in the 2000s, with a separate focus on Stratford’s locational analysis.

First, Woodfield Mall completed an overhaul and expansion in 1996, adding many new stores and a new two-level wing. Following this expansion, Woodfield’s market dominance has continued to today. Woodfield’s dominance can also be attributed to a centralized location in Chicago’s northwest suburbs, located near the intersection of Interstates 90 and 290.

In contrast, Stratford Square’s location is slightly maligned. Like some other struggling Chicago-area super-regional malls (Randhurst, Charlestowne) Stratford Square is not located directly on any expressway or interstate highway. The closest major routes to Stratford Square are U.S. 20, a slow surface road with many lights, located a couple miles away, and I-355, a major north-south thoroughfare through Chicago’s western suburbs, located about 4 miles to the east.

Also, national trends beginning in the 90s and 2000s rallied against super-regional malls, especially those that aren’t the top of their game like Woodfield, Oakbrook, Old Orchard, Orland Mall, and Fox Valley Center. During the seemingly unending growth during the same period, too, many new strip malls and Lifestyle centers were constructed in the region, causing an overbuilding of convenience and leaving many of the older centers in and around the Stratford area to develop vacancies.

All of these processes created a perfect storm for decline at Stratford. Basically, Stratford has become a regional center in the husk of a super-regional mall. While parts of the mall are still successful and contain many popular national stores, other areas of the mall contain vacancies and many lower rent local and temporary stores. This is especially true of the Burlington Coat Factory/Carson’s wing of the mall, though it’s also visible in the Marshall Field’s wing. The center of the mall, which houses a popular food court, new mega-theater, and access to anchors Sears and Kohl’s, seems to be faring better.

Many anchor changes and additions have taken place since Stratford Square opened 30 years ago. Wards was replaced in 2001 by Burlington Coat Factory, while another original anchor, Wieboldt’s, departed Stratford Square in 1987 but was quickly replaced by JCPenney. Also, Sears was added as the sixth anchor to Stratford Square in 1990, and during the 1980s a Main Street store was added to the mall, which became Kohl’s in 1989. Original anchors Marshall Field’s and Carson Pirie Scott have remained, though Marshall Field’s became Macy’s in 2006. A Steve and Barry’s also operated at the mall from about 2006 until 2009, until that chain folded as well.

Stratford Square was most recently sold in 2005 to Feldman Properties, who immediately embarked on repositioning the aging center. They bought the mall for just over $93 million, and at the time the mall’s occupancy rate was 90%.

In 2006, Feldman purchased the mall’s JCPenney anchor for $46 per square foot, leasing it to JCPenney. The mall was renovated, and the existing 4-screen movie theater was quadrupled in size to a mega-sized all digital 16-screen experience, featuring a cappucino bar, marble flooring, and stadium seating. The theater opened July 4, 2007.

In addition to the theater, Feldman hoped to transform some of the exterior entrances into clusters of popular restaurants, much like The District on France, a strategically-positioned cluster of destinational restaurants at Southdale Center in suburban Minneapolis.

Unfortunately, though, the envisioned clustering never fully materialized; however, several restaurants have opened, like Orchid (Asian), Ballydoyle (Irish Pub), and Red Robin (Burgers).

Also rather unfortunate is the economic downturn of 2007 and beyond, which robbed Feldman of access to capital and put it in some real trouble. In 2008, Feldman attempted to dump Stratford Square, as well as several other malls in their portfolio, to a company called Inland American. In early 2009, however, the deal fell through, and Feldman ultimately kept Stratford Square as well as a mall in Ohio, until it was put into receivership. Today, Feldman still owns Stratford Square as the only property in its portfolio.

Feldman also operates an outdated leasing website for Stratford Square, including a slide show featuring the completed movie theater and some of the proposed changes; however, many of the touted “high-profile” tenants have since left the mall under Feldman’s tenure, including Abercrombie and Fitch, Forever 21, Gap, Disney, and American Eagle.

One slide in their presentation (fast forward a few slides, it’s a Flash page) does strike a chord with potential viability, though. It outlines the hub and spoke structure of Stratford compared with its environs, outlining the incomes, population, and traffic counts in the area. It also labels all of the strip malls and big box anchors along Gary Avenue and Army Trail Road near the mall. Strikingly, the household income in the area is around $100,000, and the 5-mile radius population is 263,000. At 5 miles, these residents are far closer to Stratford Square than any other retail center, so the center should be able to easily capture these residents and thrive as a regional mall. The only problem with this is that Stratford is built to be a super-regional center, and draw shoppers from 10+ miles. While the 10 mile radius population is over 850,000, many of these residents are closer to Woodfield, Yorktown, Geneva Commons, and other options.

A possible solution, when the economy allows for it, would be to complete Feldman’s idea of creating destinational restaurants, and possibly adding more entertainment venues. I know the Ballydoyle here has popular musical acts and is open late, sometimes even featuring American Idol alum Gina Glocksen.

We’ve visited Stratford Square several times over the years, and have also noted the slow decline in popular national brands. And while this mall is far from defeat, we’re a bit saddened at the lack of focus for its renaissance. While it’s true that Stratford isn’t that close to expressway/interstate access, it is the center of a densely populated, relatively wealthy suburban region. A little TLC can go a long way in these cases, and once the economy perks up I fully expect Stratford to rise from the retail ashes. Hopefully Feldman, or whoever owns it at that point, can find more capital to perk the place up, and diversify its offerings to get people in the door. I have every confidence that it’s possible.

I captured these photos of Stratford Square Mall in Fall 2010, except for the three older ones I took from the Bloomingdale library’s site. Feel free to leave your own comments and thoughts on the mall.

Martinsburg Mall; Martinsburg, West Virginia

Crown American’s Martinsburg Mall debuted in 1991, located west of downtown directly along I-81. When it opened, the mall was anchored by Wal-Mart, JCPenney, Sears, and Allentown-based Hess’s, with space for about 60 additional retailers, and, according to ICSC, 556,000 square feet in total. Interestingly, Crown American owned Hess’s at the time, so putting a store here was a natural fit. This one level mall also features a food court, and was Crown American’s signature period mall design, similar to the centers they built in Lancaster (which we’ve featured on this site) and Newark, Ohio. All of these malls are designed with two main hallways and a “loop” at one end containing the food court area.

Martinsburg, West Virginia is located in the fast-growing eastern panhandle of the state. With a population of 17,000, Martinsburg is the hub of the eastern panhandle and the county seat of Berkeley County. It’s also part of a larger corridor that stretches along I-81, linking the Shenandoah Valley to western Maryland, including the cities of Winchester, Virginia and Hagerstown, Maryland. Recently, the eastern panhandle of West Virginia has become subject to an influx of new residents from the more populated and nearby Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area.

Martinsburg was a relative late-comer to the mall scene, for a few reasons. First off, malls were built in nearby Hagerstown in 1974, and in Winchester in 1982. Both cities are a short 20-minute drive from Martinsburg. In addition, Martinsburg simply didn’t have the population to support a mall until fairly recently. As late as 1990, Berkeley County only had about half the residents it does today.

In the late 1980s, Pennsylvania mall developer Crown American decided Martinsburg could support a mall, independent of the offerings in nearby Winchester and Hagerstown. At the time, the quiet economy of the eastern panhandle of West Virginia was projected to soar with new businesses (like United Airlines) moving in to capitalize on West Virginia’s business-friendly tax model in tandem with the close proximity to both Washington and Baltimore, which are both about 80 miles away. The anticipated business growth was expected to fuel a massive population boom in Martinsburg, and this eventually did happen; however, it was not because of the business growth that never really materialized, but due to planning policies supporting the massive growth of exurbs and suburban sprawl. The population in the eastern panhandle grew mostly from commuters who were priced out of the Washington/Baltimore markets, wanted more house for their money, a pastoral rural setting, lower crime and taxes, more space, better schools, or any or all of the above. To support this growth, MARC began daily regional train service from Martinsburg, ferrying commuters into Union Station in downtown Washington.

However, unlike some of Crown American’s other malls, Martinsburg Mall was never notably successful. Wal-Mart was always big draw, especially in the mall’s early days when Wal-Marts were new to the national scene. Initially scared about the presence of a new mall in Martinsburg, the malls in both Winchester and Hagerstown fared much better than expected with their brand new competition. Also, both Winchester and Hagerstown built extensive retail strip areas and large power centers surrounding each of their malls, which became regional draws in themselves. By comparison, Martinsburg had fewer ancillary retail centers; so, even though Martinsburg had the mall, area residents still went to either Winchester or Hagerstown to do other shopping.

In 1994, Crown American sold off its Hess’s stores, and the Martinsburg Mall location became a Bon Ton.

Wal-Mart made a contentious decision affecting Martinsburg Mall in 1998, and it became an obvious wound to the center. Wal-Mart renovated its store into a Supercenter format that year, and subsequently shut their entrance to the mall entirely. Because Wal-Mart likely owns their parcel separate from the mall, this decision was apparently allowed with no say from Crown American. I’m sure W-M probably even studied that their loss would be mitigated by not operating two separate entrances, and that they’d continue to do business there just fine, but this has to be annoying and inconvenient for shoppers who value convenience and want to visit other businesses in the mall. If it’s snowing, raining, too cold, or too hot outside I’m sure people would have appreciated the connection. Wal-Mart continues to be the most popular destination at Martinsburg Mall, and requiring shoppers to go outside and go back in to visit any of the other stores, to me, seems kind of rude. I’m sure it was a major blow to the mall itself, dropping foot traffic considerably. Here’s Wal-Mart’s former mall entrance – they boarded it up and put up a mystery structure to tease us:

In 1999, Hagerstown’s Valley Mall embarked upon a major expansion project, adding a wing of stores and a new Hecht’s (later Macy’s), Old Navy, and a multiplex cinema. As I mentioned earlier, big box power centers and retail strip began to pop up in Hagerstown, and in Winchester, but not so much in Martinsburg. Visiting popular national stores like Target, Kohls, Petsmart, Borders, Circuit City, Office Max and Dicks required driving to Hagerstown and/or Winchester, and probably helped the malls in those cities due to synergy. This same lack of synergy disallowed Martinsburg Mall to reach its full potential, if it had any to begin with.

By the 2000s, the outlook for Martinsburg Mall continued to be bleak, though far from completely dead. In 2004, Crown American was sold to another Pennsylvania company, PREIT, who promptly unloaded Martinsburg Mall and a bunch of other “non-core assets”. The mall’s new owner, Lightstone Group, operated the mall under its subsidiary Prime Retail, and ended up defaulting on the mall by 2008, returning it to its lender in early 2009.

Meanwhile, the retail synergy that Martinsburg Mall hoped to possibly capture finally came in the form of a massive power center that opened in 2009, an exit south of the mall and on the other side of I-81. The Commons, owned by AIG Baker, is a multi-anchor power center featuring Target, Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Books-a-Million, Five Below, Staples, Michaels, TJ Maxx, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Petsmart, with many smaller stores and restaurants to boot. The Commons is clearly a slap in the face to Martinsburg Mall, who would have probably gladly welcomed some of those tenants. On the other hand, the growing WV panhandle probably appreciates not having to drive 20 minutes to Winchester or Hagerstown to shop anymore.

In early 2010, Mountain State University, based in Beckley, West Virginia, a considerable distance from Martinsburg, bought the mall from receivership with plans to expand into the mall and hold classes there. MSU had already operated a Martinsburg campus from a former outlet mall it purchased in 1999. As of early 2011, though, the campus has not yet moved from its current location into Martinsburg Mall.

Today, Martinsburg Mall is far from dead, and seemingly not in rapid decline. Yet, the offerings here have always been meager, and it seems though for its size it isn’t – and hasn’t ever – reached its full potential. Maybe Martinsburg didn’t need a mall – even despite all its growth there are two formidable ones only twenty minutes away, and the entire Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area is just over an hour’s drive. There are still national stores here, but also quite a bit of vacancy. The college hopes that synergy can be achieved by opening up disused parts of the mall to classes, and that’s not a terrible idea. College students are certainly an appropriate demographic for malls, so hopefully it’s not too late.

I visited Martinsburg Mall in April 2011 and took the pictures featured here. I was very entertained by some of the folks at the mall, as well as by some of the local stores that operate here. In the food court, one popular stand offering ice cream was named “55-60s Ice Cream” – not sure what that means, but it looked good. Can anyone explain? Also, look at this man, whose advertisement is placed on a dead storefront. He’s really excited about home improvement:

Also roving the mall the evening I visited were two very amorous young gay men and their female friend, who had no qualms about public displays of affection. And giggling. And lastly, not to get anyone in trouble, but the sight of the girl working the customer service/information booth totally engrossed in FarmVille on a giant, outdated CRT monitor made me giggle. I actually always appreciate and absorb the people watching, culture, and local color in a mall, for better – or even sometimes – for worse. It’s amusing, and it’s something that isn’t usually transferred by the myriad of strip or outdoor malls that lack public gathering spaces. Food for thought. As always, feel free to leave your own comments and experiences concerning this mall.

Photos from April 2011:

The Shops at Georgetown Park; Washington, D.C.

on September 27, 1981, a 100-store retail mall called The Shops at Georgetown Park opened adjacent to phase one with 128 additional condominiums. The mall contains three full levels and a mezzanine level, houses a food court in the basement, and is listed at just under 450,000 square-feet of leasable space according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. The mall is visually stunning, yet slightly dated, with wood floored hallways, skylights, cast-iron braces, brass and glass elevators, and hand-built oak kiosks. It feels a little darker than it should in there, even during the day.

The neighborhood of Georgetown is located within Washington, D.C., only a couple miles from the White House, Pentagon, Capitol, National Mall, and all its monuments. Originally a separate city founded in the 1700s, Georgetown’s early residents included big names like Thomas Jefferson and Francis Scott Key, and George Washington also worked here while he acquired land for the country’s new federal city.

Georgetown is the only significant, established place within Washington that predates it. The modern city of Washington, planned by Pierre L’Enfant in the 1790s and later completed by Andrew Ellicott, actually came later and eventually swallowed Georgetown completely. As it was the only actual organic city within Washington, Georgetown has always been a center of culture and commerce, with historicity and legitimacy that Washington originally lacked. Georgetown was officially amalgamated into Washington in 1871, and its streets were renamed to coincide with Washington’s streets in 1880.

After a period of decline during the 19th and early 20th centuries, Georgetown rose up once again in the 1920s and 1930s after a series of efforts and a growing Washington put it back on the map. A bridge was built in 1915 along Q Street, connecting Georgetown with the rest of the city, making subsequent development inevitable. However, smart urban planners quickly began drafting documents and planning policies to make Georgetown a historic preservation district, which was eventually codified into legislation in the 1950s.

About the same time, the last vestiges of old school industry that powered Georgetown closed, and there was renewed interest in neighborhood redevelopment. As Georgetown gentrified, it transitioned from a largely African-American and blue-collar demographic to house the Washington white-collar elite. Elite families became interested in the neighborhood’s historical nature, and big names returned to the neighborhood. The John F. Kennedy family moved into the neighborhood in the 1950s while he served as Senator, and by 1960 the area was widely known for its fashionability as a result of Jackie Kennedy’s elaborate and well-publicized parties. From the 1960s onward, Georgetown has retained this cachet as the most exclusive, upscale neighborhood in all of D.C., and is the best shopping district as well.

The major retail corridor in Georgetown centers around the corner of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, with a retail critical mass at this intersection. Today, walking down K Street is a place to see and be seen on weekends, and the roster of stores rivals the better shopping districts of any major world city. From local boutiques and restaurants to national chains, Georgetown is the by far the best cohesive shopping area in all of D.C.

There’s even a significantly sized mall here – The Shops at Georgetown Park – located directly at the intersection of critical mass at K and Wisconsin. An anchorless mall, The Shops at Georgetown Park was developed in 1975 and opened in 1981 as the planned centerpiece of the Georgetown shopping district. After years of success, in recent years the mall has fallen on hard times and has a nearly 50 percent occupancy rate. The mall is currently considered a failure, and redevelopment is pending. But how did this happen? How could a retail entity that seemed like a turnkey operation fail, in the middle of the best shopping district in one of the largest and most important cities in the country.

The site where the current mall stands, located in the middle of historic Georgetown, is naturally ripe with history. In the 1830s, the site was a tobacco warehouse which opened directly up onto the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, located right behind it. Part of the modern structure today includes pieces from this original use. In the 1850s, the site became home to stables for the horses that powered the first horsecar line between Washington and Georgetown. Later, the site was converted into a shop for streetcar maintenance, and became disused after Washington abadnoned its streetcar lines in 1962. Thereafter, the United States Defense Communications used the building for secret-God-knows-what until the 1970s.

In 1975, Donohoe Construction Company, in partnership with Western Development Corporation, got a hold of the site with plans for a mixed-use retail and condominium project. The project was said to be one of the largest on the East Coast at the time, and included preserving the 100-plus year old facade on Wisconsin Avenue, building a 300-space underground parking garage into solid rock, and adding superstructure to the 10-foot thick, 35-foot high wall which was used to build the C&O Canal.

The partnership’s plans went ahead, and phase one of the project, which included a Conran’s home goods store and 35 condominiums above it, opened in 1980. The next year, on September 27, 1981, a 100-store retail mall called The Shops at Georgetown Park opened adjacent to phase one with 128 additional condominiums. The mall contains three full levels and a mezzanine level, houses a food court in the basement, and is listed at just under 450,000 square-feet of leasable space according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. However, a recent article in the Washington Post cites the mall only has 300,000 square-feet of space. Hmmm. The mall is visually stunning, yet slightly dated, with wood floored hallways, skylights, cast-iron braces, brass and glass elevators, and hand-built oak kiosks. It feels a little darker than it should in there, even during the day.

When it opened, the mall housed many upscale national retailers as well as local boutiques, restaurants, and most of the stores were in line with Georgetown’s upscale atmosphere. Original stores included the East Coast’s first Abercrombie and Fitch, Godiva, Ann Taylor, and a small branch of D.C.-based Garfinckel’s department store.

The Shops at Georgetown Park was an instant success. Many people came from all over the D.C. metro area to shop at the mall. A well designed mall, access was given to all four sides of the mall, to all levels, meaning no part of the three-level mall was a functional dead end. In addition, the stores along M Street, a popular pedestrian corridor with retail boundaries far in excess of the mall’s footprint, were given separate entrances, allowing M Street’s retail corridor to retain cohesion and seamless facade of continuous retail. In fact, the mall is almost too camouflaged from the street; its entrances aren’t as grand as at suburban malls.

Georgetown Park retained its glory even well into the last decade, the 2000s. In 1994, it was even featured prominently in the hit movie True Lies, where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character has a chase scene and an ensuing shootout erupts throughout the mall. According to web.archive.org, many popular stores were even present at the mall in 2001, including Abercrombie, Aeropostale, Ann Taylor, Casual Corner, Benetton, FAO Schwarz, The Limited, Godiva, Polo, Talbots, Victoria’s Secret, Waldenbooks and Sharper Image. By 2007, many of these were gone, and today only a handful of national stores remain.

Many of the stores in Georgetown Park today are local, and the center sports a nearly 50 percent occupancy rate, down drastically from recent years. According to a 2010 Washington Post article, the mall was only 10% vacant at the beginning of 2009, and that jumped to 56% by April 2010. This isn’t shocking at all, but Yelpers have even taken notice.

Why did the mall clear out so quickly? The mass exodus is at least partly the result of a squabble between two real estate giants in the area. Western Development, who originally helped build the mall, purchased the mall in 2006, and inked a deal for Bloomingdales to come to the mall in 2008. Unfortunately, the economy also collapsed about the same time, and Bloomingdales backed out. Western defaulted on their loan and the mall went into foreclosure. It was eventually sold at auction to a New York firm, with Vornado brought on to manage. Adding another wrench to the situation, Georgetown developer Anthony Lanier also lay legal claim to the mall. Western said that in claiming a right to the property Lanier prevented the owners from refinancing it for redevelopment or from signing leases with retailers, which caused the mall to empty out.

In 2011, renewed interest in the mall has sparked rumors about redevelopment solutions. According to the Georgetown Current, a local paper, both Target and Bloomingdales are indeed coming to the troubled mall. An interesting combination, it will surely spawn debates about the appropriateness of the modification as well as the onerousness task of including these stores without disturbing the local character and charm of Georgetown itself. Also, surely some people feel that Target doesn’t necessarily belong in Georgetown, though others will disagree and say that Target has enough of a hip cachet and vibe to belong here. Some even feel that a shopping mall of any scale here is not only unnecessary, it’s bad, and they have a point too. Places like Georgetown don’t really need malls.

Personally, I feel adding Target and Bloomingdales is forward-thinking for a mall. In today’s retail climate malls can’t afford to be universally upscale – or downscale, for that matter. Adding a mix of retailers will get more people in the door, and having the second Target in the District will certainly prove popular here.

A major question remains, though, regarding the redevelopment rumors: how will the additional anchors stack in the mall? I’ve read that Target will occupy the lower level, where a moribund food court now sits, but what about Bloomies? At the very least, half of the mall’s retail space will disappear. What will become of the other half? Will it remain an enclosed mall?

We’ve visited Georgetown Park a few times in the past 10 years, and have seen the decline first-hand. Even a few years ago, the mall seemed to be doing a lot better. It’s kind of interesting that it didn’t die due to consumer preferences, and instead emptied out due to bickering between owners. At least now the redevelopment is apparently back on track, and the mall will be rejuvenated with these new anchors.

Pictures from Spring 2011:

Orchards Mall; Benton Charter Township, Michigan

The Orchards Mall in Benton Harbor, Michigan opened in October 1979. The mall was built on the site of a former apple orchard, giving it its name. The location of The Orchards Mall is less than a mile from Interstate 94. In 1979, when the mall opened, most of the area surrounding the mall was vacant or farmland. Benton Harbor is located next to the city of St. Joseph, Benton Harbor’s twin city, home of The Whirlpool Corporation.

The following submission came to us from Michael Winford of Michigan. If you have any questions about his submission or wish to contact him, please email him here.

The Orchards Mall in Benton Harbor, Michigan opened in October 1979. The mall was built on the site of a former apple orchard, giving it its name. The location of The Orchards Mall is less than a mile from Interstate 94. In 1979, when the mall opened, most of the area surrounding the mall was vacant or farmland. Benton Harbor is located next to the city of St. Joseph, Benton Harbor’s twin city, home of The Whirlpool Corporation.

Prior to the opening of The Orchards Mall, locals from Benton Harbor and St. Joseph shopped at Fairplain Plaza. The plaza was located less than a mile away from The Orchards Mall. Fairplain Plaza was the usual open air plaza of the 60’s/70’s era. When The Orchards Mall opened the Plaza was still doing decent, but past its prime. The plaza featured a Woolworth, Goldblatts, as well as a Kroger grocery store, Rite Aid Drug store, a five screen cinema, and a Big Boy restaurant. A good handful of merchants made the move from the plaza to the mall. Other merchants would continue to move from the plaza to the mall in the years to come, leaving the plaza to become a ghost town by the late 1980’s.

When Orchards Mall opened it featured three anchor stores: J.C. Penney, Sears and Walgreen’s. J.C. Penney and Sears both moved from their downtown Benton Harbor locations. Downtown Benton Harbor had been seeing some large economic decline for some time. Also located in the mall was York Steakhouse along with approximately 10 food outlets in the food court. Adjacent to the food court was an arcade.

The Orchards Mall has always been a mid scale mall, nothing too fancy. No fountains or marble and only one story. The mall used to have quite a bit of live plants and trees indoors, but over the years they have all disappeared, most likely due to cost cutting measures. There are four entrances that lead directly into the mall, with about 60 to 70 retail spaces. The Orchards Mall has always featured a food court, something that didn’t become common in malls until the 1980’s. The mall’s color scheme was the typical 70’s/80’s brown and orange. I remember my parents taking my brother and I there quite often, especially during back to school time and Christmas. I remember the shiny brown tile on the floor and the orange fabric on the benches. There was also something like a dugout in front of J.C. Penney. This was always a fun place to play as a kid. This dugout area was where they would have special events such as Santa at Christmas time.

The mall remained quite busy throughout the 1980’s. The closest malls are the University Park Mall in Mishawaka, IN located about 40 miles southwest and Crossroads Mall located in Portage, MI about 47 miles east of Benton Harbor. With both malls being so far away, they were not too much of a threat to Orchards. By the late 1980’s the poverty and crime from downtown Benton Harbor started to carry over into the area of the mall. It didn’t become a major problem until the mid to late 1990’s when things really started to take a turn for the worst.

Over the years the mall featured many stores including Gap,County Seat, The Hang Up, Baker Shoes, Fox Jewelers, Carlton Cards, Glamour Shots, Card America, Hallmark, Chess King, Kinney Shoe store, Famous Foot ware, So Fro Fabrics, Jean Nicole, Lerner New York, Banner Books, Foot Locker, Spencer’s, Recordtown, Camelot, FYE, Imperial Sports, Hickory Farms, K B Toys, Gordon’s Jewelry Store, The Original Cookie, Sherman’s Ice Cream, Afterthoughts, Command Performance, Regis, Candy Candy, Foxmoore, Richman’s, Gem Dandy’s,Casual Corner, Shoe Sensation, Factory Brand Shoes, Thom McAn Shoes, The Buckle, Radio Shack, The Great Steak and Potato Company, and Subway.

York Steakhouse went out of business in the mid to late 1980’s. That location sat empty until around 1990 when Bonanza filled that spot. A year or two later Bonanza changed it’s name to Ponderosa Steakhouse. Ponderosa stuck around until the mid 1990’s when they closed their doors. Walgreen’s moved out of the mall in the early 90’s when they built a bigger location about a 1/4 mile down the road from the mall. The former Walgreen’s location remained vacant for quite a few years. In the early 1990’s a few empty store fronts became visible, but the mall was still running at least at a 70/80 percent occupancy rate.

A little hope for The Orchards Mall came when Elder Beerman, a department store from Dayton, Ohio, announced plans to build a store connecting to the mall. Some said Elder Beerman was a bit too upscale for the mall, while others were happy to see a third anchor store moving in. The Elder Beerman store opened in the fall of 1992. The store was much nicer than the J.C. Penney and Sears at Orchards Mall as well as a little bit pricier than the two other anchor stores. Prior to the opening of the Elder Beerman store the mall underwent a major renovation. The mall was completely re tiled in white, mauve, and teal flooring. The dugout areas were filled in to be made level with the rest of the mall’s surface. All the orange fabric benches were removed, and were replaced with oak benches. Palm trees were placed throughout the mall and new tables and chairs were put in the food court. With the remodel complete and 3 anchor stores in the mall it seemed the Orchards Mall was making a bit of a come back, which unfortunately only lasted for a few years.

By the mid to late 1990’s the crime and poverty from downtown made its way into the area of the mall. Robberies in surrounding businesses drove away customers. The Aldi store located on an outlot near the mall was robbed at gun point, and the manager at a Red Lobster located in an outlot right in front of J.C. Penney was murdered. Shortly after the murder at Red Lobster, Darden, the parent company of Red Lobster, chose to close this location, leaving the building empty. All of this was not good business for the mall, and many shoppers started driving to the two other malls which were a ways away but were in better areas, with more stores to offer. There were also a few reports of muggings of mall shoppers in the parking lot. The 3 anchor stores remained through the 1990’s, but many of the smaller stores in the mall closed their doors.

By 2000, the mall was only running at about a 50% occupancy rate, and most of the national chains within the mall had closed their doors for good. One exception was Bath and Body Works, which opened in the mall around the mid 2000’s. In the late 2000’s Jo Ann fabrics moved into the mall, filling the former Walgreen’s space and overflowing into a few of the neighboring vacant stores. It took the mall nearly 15 to 20 years to fill the former Walgreen’s location. For a brief time, The Orchards Mall boasted 4 anchor stores, although many of the stores in the mall remained vacant.

In 2009 Sears announced they would not be renewing their lease and closed their doors, leaving the mall with only 3 anchor stores. The owner of the Sears building was a different owner than the rest of the mall. The owner of the former Sears building decided to donate the building to a local church. The owners of the mall tried to fight it, but they lost the fight and the building was awarded to the church. Because of this situation, there is no hope for the mall to attract another anchor store to that location. The Sears optical and driving school still remain but they moved into empty stores in the mall near J.C. Penney.

The Buckle closed their doors in January 2010 as well as B. Dalton bookstore. As of February 2011 the 3 anchor stores still remain. J.C. Penney is in desperate need of updating, dirty carpet that looks worn out in spots, mismatched linoleum that looks like it has been there since the early 1990’s.

Also, the decor in the mall continues to show its age with a bland color scheme from the 1990’s. All of the live plants are gone, and some of the oak benches look like they have seen better days. The Orchards Mall has not seen any updating in almost two decades. The food court is a very sad site with only one food outlet remaining – a small independent Mexican restaurant and some vending machines placed in front of the former Sherman’s ice cream location. Most of the tables and chairs have been removed, since they are no longer needed.

Beyond the 3 remaining anchor stores the national chains that are still currently located inside the mall are AT&T, GNC, Payless ShoeSource, The Finish Line, Bath and Body Works, Rainbow Fashions, Claire’s, Deb, Zales, and Man Alive. I believe this mall was one of the first locations for The Man Alive mens store chain. That most likely explains why they are still open at this location. Most of the mall storefronts are empty and a handful of the empty locations are now spaces for non for profit organizations to raise awareness for their cause. There are also a few independent retailers in the mall such as a travel agency, a nail boutique, a store called This N That, a store called Odds and Ends, and a cowboy/leather store called Off the Edge, just to give you an idea of what type of interesting independent stores this mall has to offer.

I very rarely go to this mall anymore due to the lack of what they have to offer. I drive about 47 miles in the opposite direction to The Crossroads Mall located in Portage, Michigan. I did, however, make a trip to the Orchards Mall yesterday and that is when the current pictures were taken. It’s sad to see this mall die such a slow and painful death. I wish there was some type of redevelopment plan in the works, but, no word of that. The future of the mall doesn’t look too bright, with the poverty and crime levels still somewhat high for the Benton Harbor area. Michigan also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. I figure they will just let the mall continue to die with its empty store fronts and 1990’s decor. As for J.C. Penney, Elder Beerman, and Jo Ann Fabrics, I don’t see them putting much money into these stores in the near future. On the same token, if it wasn’t for these 3 anchor stores I believe this mall would have closed a long time ago. Lucky for the mall, these 3 anchor stores still remain, but who knows for how long?

I have included some pictures of The Orchards Mall, some from the past and some from the present day. I apologize for the glare on a few of the pics but I had to take a picture of pictures of the mall’s past. If anyone has any more info or pics of the mall I’d love to hear from you. I was born in 1981 so I was just a child in the 1980’s. I tried to do some research about this mall but wasn’t able to find much on the Internet. Most of what I have written had to come from memory and from family and friends who were around before the mall’s opening.

Prangeway: I’ve also been to this mall several times. The first time was over ten years ago when Caldor and I visited together, and we were amazed, even then, at the lackluster offerings. I haven’t been back in recent years, but from the looks of it the mall has gone downhill fast. Now that Sears has departed, I fear that the situation here is grim. One comment on Yelp regarding this mall sums it up pretty succinctly:

“Sorry to be so harsh, but this is the worst mall I’ve ever seen. Only about 40% of the stores are actually occupied, there are shady characters constantly roaming around, and the last time I was there there was a petting zoo with animals peeing all over the floors. Honestly, I will never go back if I can help it.”

What’s most interesting to me about this area are the demographics and the sharp juxtaposition between Benton Harbor and its twin city, St. Joseph. The two cities are similar in size and located next to one another, on either side of the St. Joseph River, yet otherwise they’re completely different. St. Joseph is 90% white, and has a vibrant downtown commercial district with many shops and restaurants, and is popular with tourists. Benton Harbor is 90% black, and while the downtown has experienced a nascent renaissance of sorts, it’s not yet to the level of St. Joseph. Furthermore, Benton Harbor has been frought with socioeconomic problems and blight. For such a small city, Benton Harbor has been dealt a fiercely hard blow, especially as the economy of Michigan at large suffers with stagnation and unemployment at a pace greater than the national level.

While The Orchards Mall and its surrounding retail corridor is commonly thought to be in Benton Harbor, it is actually in Benton Charter Township, not in the city itself. Benton Charter Township is an incorporated township with home-rule advantages, making it as separate from the city of Benton Harbor as can be. The demographics of Benton Charter Township indicate a 50/50 split between blacks and whites, and the income levels are more favorable. In addition to the large retail district around the mall, Whirlpool Corporation is also within the township. If these entities were within Benton Harbor itself, the addition to the tax base would probably help the city recover greatly.

As far as other retail competition, there are the two better malls Michael indicated, both located about 40 miles away near Kalamazoo and South Bend, Indiana. There’s also another mall in Michigan City, Indiana, also about 40 miles away, but that mall isn’t anything anyone would drive that distance for, and we’ve featured it here. Michigan City also has a popular outlet mall, though, and both Grand Rapids and Chicago are located an hour to an hour and a half away. In addition, downtown St. Joseph also has many popular shops and restaurants that attract both locals and tourists alike.

The Orchards Mall also suffers from a small trade area, serving only Berrien County. With a population of 160,000, Berrien County isn’t large enough to sustain a regional mall anymore, especially as it’s hemmed in on two sides by better malls just 40 minutes away. Even though super-regional malls like the ones in South Bend and Kalamazoo continue to have success, smaller malls like this one have fallen out of favor on a national level.

As always, feel free to leave your own comments about The Orchards Mall.

Elsewhere on the web:

Vintage photos of Orchards Mall (Taken as photos of photos in March 2011 by Michael Winford):

Photos from March 2011 (Taken by Michael Winford):

Retail News Digest for Monday, March 14, 2011

Comings and goings:

Upscale furniture chain Robb and Stucky is liquidating after not being able to come up with the cash to continue operating their stores. Also unable to find a buyer, the 95-year-old chain is forced to go out of business. Based in Ft. Myers, Fla., they have locations in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada. They were the largest chain of upscale home furnishings.
Last month we reported that Borders was closing 200 stores, with the option of closing 75 more. According to the Detroit Free Press, they are now exercising the option. 75 of 136 stores that were considered “on the bubble” of profitability will close, and exactly which ones will be announced next week. The decision will ultimately be made on lease agreements, so if your store gets a good deal it’ll likely stay put.
Target and Bloomingdale’s are an unlikely pairing for a mall, but both will be moving into the outdated Shops at Georgetown Park in Washington, D.C. I wonder how this will reconfigure the mall? Will there be an interior corridor at all anymore?
8 of the 10 food court eateries at Hampton Roads’ MacArthur Center Mall are closing in short order. What’s going on there? Is the mall dying?
Costco is coming to the Sarasota (Fla.) Square Mall, after receiving a permit to demolish the extant former Dillard’s building. I wonder if Costco will eschew mall access like it has in the past at other malls?

Other retail news:

An article on Bloomberg.com investigates the growing trend of putting grocery and upscale/foodie vendors in malls. The grocery thing isn’t new, though. Early malls frequently had a grocery store anchor, and most closed by the 1970s-1980s. Malls in other parts of the world, even Canada, often currently feature a grocery anchor. It’s neat that the trend is coming back though, because I’m not entirely sure why it left.
According to WSB-TV in Atlanta, the Atlantic Station project will be changing from a ‘mall feel’ to be ‘more like Atlanta’. I’m not sure exactly what this means, but they plan to retenant about 25% of the development and give it a more local, personalized feel.
Westfield’s Warner Center development is underway in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles. When complete, the area will be a new ‘downtown’ node for the area, if not for the entire valley.
According to The Atlantic, Facebook.com will be the mall of the future. Is this entirely a new idea? On one hand, many people do spend an inordinate amount of time surfing Facebook, but does aggregating online retail purchases from many sites into one somehow completely usurp bricks-and-mortar establishments? I think being able to go to a store and physically feel merchandise will always be the trump card for keeping actual retail stores in business in many sectors.
A blogger on Allbusiness.com explores the implications of sameness in malls across the country, and the reasons why fewer local stores exist in malls today.
Maplewood Mall in the suburban Twin Cities is getting a much-needed renovation to compete with Goliath, also known as the Mall of America.

Tampa Bay Center; Tampa, Florida

Opened in August 1976, Tampa Bay Center was one of Tampa Bay’s biggest and brightest shopping destinations. Centrally located north of downtown Tampa along Martin Luther King Jr Blvd (called Buffalo Avenue then) east of Dale Mabry Hwy, Tampa Bay Center was next to Tampa Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It was the place to be during the late 1970s and 1980s; but, despite rapid growth in the fruitful Tampa Bay area over the coming years and decades, Tampa Bay Center’s fate was ultimately sealed by far too much competition. When it opened, Tampa Bay Center had over 700,000 square feet of retail space and two anchors: Tampa’s first Burdines store and Sears, which actually opened before the mall did, in March 1976. The two anchors at Tampa Bay Center were arranged at each end of the structure, and a two-level mall corridor connected them.

This one’s long gone, so enjoy.

When it opened, Tampa Bay Center had over 700,000 square feet of retail space and two anchors: Tampa’s first Burdines store and Sears, which actually opened before the mall did, in March 1976. The two anchors at Tampa Bay Center were arranged at each end of the structure, and a two-level mall corridor connected them.

Due to the mall’s early success, Montgomery Ward was added as a third anchor near center court in 1980, bringing the center to almost 900,000 square feet. It was the first and only major addition to the mall during its entire history.

A piece of random trivia: Tampa Bay Center opened one day after another long-gone Tampa mall, Eastlake Square, which was similarly sized and located 6.5 miles away.

Designed by Maryland-based Rouse, Tampa Bay Center featured a tall, latticework trussed ceiling design, flanked on both sides by skylights, which bathed the entire center in natural light during a time when dark, drab colors and drop ceilings were common. However, the dark tile floors at Tampa Bay Center were more period-appropriate, as were the fountains and the tall trees placed throughout the first level. In addition, a glass elevator at center court was the mall’s centerpiece, and a unique-for-Florida design included a slope to the property, which meant shoppers could enter either level of the mall directly from the parking lot.

In terms of competition, Tampa Bay Center’s biggest foe was nearby WestShore Plaza, which opened in 1967 as the Tampa Bay area’s first mall and was located only a couple miles away. WestShore and Tampa Bay Center had complementary anchors and thrived nearly side by side for years; however, WestShore was always the more upscale, more conveniently located counterpart to Tampa Bay Center’s stadium-adjacent austerity. Eventually, WestShore began to emerge as the winner while Tampa Bay Center slowly spiraled downward.

By the late 1990s, Tampa Bay Center was in serious decline. WestShore Plaza announced plans for a dramatic expansion, beginning in 1997, which was basically the beginning of the end for Tampa Bay Center. A larger WestShore, directly on I-275 and centrally located within the Tampa Bay area, would spell disaster for Tampa Bay Center.

In addition to the WestShore expansion, a huge brand new mall, Brandon Town Center, opened in 1995 to serve the fast-growing sprawl in eastern Tampa, and in 1999 another massive mall called Citrus Park Town Center opened to serve Tampa’s north and northwest areas.

Meanwhile, in June 1998, Burdines announced they were leaving Tampa Bay Center, due both to building a new Citrus Park store as well as having a store just a few miles away at WestShore. For eight years, Burdines had operated stores at both WestShore Plaza and Tampa Bay Center after Burdines took over the Tampa-based Maas Brothers chain in 1991, which had a WestShore location. In 1999, Burdines closed their Tampa Bay Center store in favor of opening one at the new Citrus Park Town Center.

In late 2000, Montgomery Ward issued Tampa Bay Center another blow, by going out of business nationwide. With only Sears remaining, stores began leaving in droves, favoring either Citrus Park or WestShore locations.

As if all this competition weren’t enough already, regional mall-developer Taubman swooped in and decided to develop yet another large mall, located adjacent to Tampa’s airport and directly in between Tampa Bay Center and WestShore Plaza – only a mile from each. Called International Plaza and Bay Street, Tampa’s newest mall to date was another large, two-level behemoth, and with Dillard’s, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Lord and Taylor as anchors, it was proposed to be even more upscale and successful than WestShore.

With International Mall and Bay Street set to open in 2001, Tampa Bay Center faced an incredibly challenging uphill battle. By early 2001, many stores had already left Tampa Bay Center, and by Summer 2001 the remaining few stores were on month-to-month leases.

The final death knell came in Fall 2001 when Sears, Tampa Bay Center’s final anchor, announced it was leaving. Recognizing they were underwater in the deluge of competition and no longer under the obligation to maintain the 892,000 square-foot mall after Sears announced its departure, Rouse kicked out the mall walkers and whatever stores were left and closed the interior of the mall in January 2002. Sears, the final anchor at Tampa Bay Center, closed in September 2002. Though, with the mall already closed, Sears wasn’t anchoring much. Sears left due to opportunity: International Plaza lured Dillard’s away from WestShore, WestShore had a vacancy, and Sears saw an opportunity to jump from a sinking (sunken?) ship.

After Sears left, Rouse decided to market the mall for sale, and DeBartolo indicated interest in purchasing the mall to build an open-air retail center, but ultimately declined. Rouse came to the conclusion the site was no longer viable for retail given so much area competition. Rouse then sold the mall on December 31, 2002 for $22.8 million in cash to the Glazer family, owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who intended to turn about half the site into a training facility to complement the neighboring stadium.

Of course, this meant no more mall, and Tampa Bay Center was demolished 2005. The Bucs moved into the training facility in time for their 2006 season. The rest of the site became home to an overflow lot for Bucs games, and in 2007 the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit West Tampa Transfer Center opened to wow bus crowds near and far, but probably mostly near?

I visited Tampa Bay Center in May 2001 and took the pictures featured here, a short time before the mall closed permanently – please ignore my teenage mug in one of them. Tampa Bay Center, while once a successful retail pillar of Tampa, ultimately succumbed to one of the fiercest levels of competition we’ve seen yet. As usual, feel free to leave your comments and experiences.

Elsewhere on the web:

Photos from May 2001:

Retail News Digest for Sunday, February 27, 2011

Comings and goings:

Borders filed for bankruptcy protection on February 16, and is closing at least 200 stores and possibly 75 more. Here’s a sortable list of the closings from the WSJ.
According to the Palm Springs Desert Sun, several more of the few remaining merchants at the derelict Palm Springs Mall are moving, including True Value, Rite Aid, and Time Warner Cable.
Dillard’s is closing their two stores at the Decatur (Alabama) Mall.
Ultimate Electronics is closing all of its stores. The 46-store Colorado-based chain had gone through growing pains as recently as 2004, when it closed half of its locations. But recently, they were in expansion mode until they lacked the funds to buy more merchandise. Oops.
The frozen yogurt craze is apparently far from over. Yogurtland, a chain of over 100 froyo shops, plans to have 550 locations by 2015.
According to the Omaha World-Herald, 41 outlet centers are planned to open across the country between now and 2013. This, combined with the surge of dollar stores and discounters, paints the picture of an America coping with recession but making the most of it.
Westcor, a mall developer based in Phoenix, is set to break ground on a new mall there called Estrella Falls. So far, Dillard’s, Macy’s, Harkins Theaters, Coach, White House Black Market, Industrial Rideshop and Chico’s have signed on as tenants. The mall will open in 2014.
Macy’s will reopen their store at the Warwick (R.I.) Mall on March 16, nearly a year after a record flood destroyed the mall. Another mall that flooded in 2010 isn’t so lucky: Opry Mills in Nashville will definitely not reopen this year, if ever.

Other retail news:

The Cookeville (Tenn.) Herald-Citizen profiles the Cookeville Mall’s recent decline, which has left JCPenney as the only remaning retailer there.
An elementary school teacher landed in jail after a spat with an elderly couple in their 70s at the Parks at Arlington mall in Arlington, Texas.
According to ABC6 in Philadelphia, the suburban Granite Run Mall is failing. The mall is currently 17% vacant.
No Fear, the California-based company that sparked a nationwide t-shirt trend in the 1990s has declared bankruptcy. After the t-shirt craze ended, they moved in a skater-y direction along the lines of Pac Sun, but apparently that isn’t going so well.

Retail News Digest for Sunday, February 6, 2011

Comings and goings:

hhgregg, an Indianapolis-based electronics and appliance big box retailer, is opening between 35-45 stores in the next fiscal year, entering the Miami, Pittsburgh, and Chicago markets.
Moe’s Southwest Grill, an Atlanta-based fast-casual Tex-Mex chain, is planning to double its nationwide units to 800 locations by 2015.
Subway is also still growing strong, planning to add more than 800-1000 units in 2011.
JCPenney is closing 5 full-line stores, all 19 outlet locations, 1 furniture store, 1 home store, and 2 call centers. The full-line closings are at the Spring Hill Mall in suburban Chicago, Southridge Mall in Des Moines, Oak Hollow Mall in High Point, N.C., Dominion Square in Culpeper, Va., and Southlake Mall in suburban Atlanta. There are indications that some of the closing outlet stores could be turned into full-line stores, and there is a petition to save the store in Machesney Park, Illinois, at the ailing Machesney Park Mall.
Here’s an update on news we reported in July 2009: Goody’s Family Clothing, now operated by Stage Stores, is continuing to open stores across the southeast, with plans for 181 stores.
Dick’s Sporting Goods plans to double its stores from 432 to around 900 over the coming years. Dick’s has become a mainstay in regional malls over the past decade as traditional mall anchors consolidated and went out of business.
Metro Atlanta’s Union Station Mall (formerly Shannon SouthPark Mall) has abruptly closed, except for anchors Macy’s and Sears. We’re a bit late to the game on this one, as it closed Nov 2, 2010 after Georgia Power cut the lights for unpaid bills.
Gap is closing many stores, mostly in smaller markets, including Janesville, Wis., Saginaw, Mich., Mary Esther, Fla., Racine, Wis., Concord, N.H. and others.
FYE is also closing a round of stores, including Middletown, R.I., Hazleton, Pa., Charleston, S.C., Grand Junction, Colo., Mesa, Ariz., Braintree, Mass. and others.
Many malls across the eastern two-thirds of country closed at some point this week for the massive blizzard. One, Holyoke Mall in western Massachusetts, is closed due to too much snow on the roof.

Other retail news:

The long-promised revitalization of Metro D.C.’s Springfield Mall is apparently a stone’s throw away. According to management, extensive renovation of the aging facility will be underway as soon as this spring, with a 10-year revitalization plan in place.
A Seattle man was sentenced to 17 years in prison after he murdered one teen and wounded another at suburban Seattle’s Southcenter Mall. All of the involved were said to have gang ties.
A California man was federally indicted on charges of arson, stemming from an October incident when he started a fire that destroyed a quarter of suburban Sacramento’s Galleria mall.
An Omaha man is being charged with misdemeanor stalking for an incident at the Von Maur in Westroads Mall, where he used his cell phone camera to shoot video up a woman’s skirt as they rode the escalator together.
Several fires were set inside the nearly vacant Heritage Park Mall near Oklahoma City, and investigators believe it was arson.
A southern Illinois mall has a new owner and a new name. Illinois Centre, located in Marion, was purchased by Barrett Rochman, who re-christened the mall as Illinois Starr Centre. I’m not so familiar with the area – does the name Starr have any local significance? If not, that’s incredibly stupid.
The redevelopment of the Machesney Park (Illinois) Mall may be stalled by JCPenney Outlet’s recent announcement of closure.
According to WTVG in Toledo, the long-struggling Woodville Mall may soon be given a new lease on life, due to new management and new ownership. About a dozen new businesses have signed leases and are soon to move in.
CBL is embarking on major renovations to several of its properties, including Hamilton Place in Chattanooga, Oak Park Mall in metro Kansas City, and RiverGate Mall in metro Nashville.
Yorkdale Mall, one of metro Toronto’s largest malls, is expanding once again, adding 40 new stores.
Eagle Ridge Mall, a long struggling mall in Central Florida, is on the rebound, according to new management.
A recent article in the LA Times suggests urban malls are doing well, with a case study featuring the renovation and transformation of Westfield Culver City and Santa Monica Place.
The tiny Lincoln Mall in Freeport, Illinois is close to leasing its final available space, just a few years after the mall was almost completely empty.
Finally, a New York Times blog puts a new spin on abandoned shopping centers and their implications for not only aging suburbs, but aging suburbanites as well.

Forest Fair Mall / Cincinnati Mills / Cincinnati Mall; Cincinnati, Ohio

The phrase “If you build it, they will come” was coined in the classic 1989 film Field of Dreams, and, for the most part, it holds true to form. A mall can be built in the middle of nowhere and succeed; however, sometimes this is not the case. The infamous Dixie Square Mall was successful for a decade before it went to hell. Forest Fair Mall, located in north-suburban Cincinnati, was never that successful. It had a few moments when it was a decent mall, but ultimately it failed again and again.

Editor’s note: The following write-up was based on a submission by reader and contributor “Jonah Norason” in December 2010. It was summarily edited for clarity, and sparingly for content – I added some dates and a few contributory facts where appropriate. Enjoy it, this is one of my favorites. The pictures accompanying the post are mine.

The phrase “If you build it, they will come” was coined in the classic 1989 film Field of Dreams, and, for the most part, it holds true to form. A mall can be built in the middle of nowhere and succeed; however, sometimes this is not the case. The infamous Dixie Square Mall was successful for a decade before it went to hell. Forest Fair Mall, located in north-suburban Cincinnati, was never that successful. It had a few moments when it was a decent mall, but ultimately it failed again and again.

The era was the late 1980s. Shopping malls, long past the “climate controlled shopping cities” era of the 1960s, were glorified by TV shows and movies. And of course, value malls were built too, for those who wanted to spend less than at the higher-priced “real malls”. LJ Hooker, an Austrailian company, decided to team up with Cincinnati-based Hyper Shoppes Inc., which had created a new hypermarket called bigg’s and was interested in taking it nationwide. Hypermarkets were a relatively new concept at the time, combining supermarkets (grocery, butcher, bakery, etc.) with general merchandise (clothing, electronics, etc.). Their joint venture (Editor’s note: How awesome would it have been if, when they teamed up, they called themselves Hyper Hooker?) was to construct a mall in Cincinnati that was both value and mid-range, featuring bigg’s, Dayton-based Elder Beerman, and Higbee’s, a Cleveland-based department store (you’ve probably seen the flagship in A Christmas Story when Ralphie asks Santa for a Red Ryder BB gun) that was to enter the Cincinnati market.

But somehow, along the way, enough just wasn’t enough. During Forest Fair’s planning process, the CEO of LJ Hooker, George Herscu, decided to add upscale tenants Bonwit Teller, Sakowitz, B. Altman and Parisian to the mall, creating a “supermall” template that would feature a larger mixture of tenants, and run the gamut from value-oriented to upscale. Herscu hoped malls like these would be built across the nation. However, there was a snag: the aforementioned upscale department stores Herscu planned didn’t want to locate in Forest Fair Mall, a blue-collar suburb of Cincinnati. In response, Herscu’s solution was to buy controlling shares of them, integrating them into LJ Hooker and forcing them to locate there. Might makes right, but what results can you expect when you force the market?

Bonwit Teller was a posh New York department store with its flagship store in Trump Tower (the original flagship was demolished). B. Altman was was an old fashioned, established department store, also based in New York on 5th Avenue. Altman’s had a “reputation for gentility and conservatism“. Sakowitz was never even in that area of the United States, as it was based in Houston and had locations from Houston to Phoenix. Unlike B. Altman and Bonwit Teller, it never preferred malls. Parisian was a Birmingham-based store that had other locations in Ohio, but mostly was located in the south. Higbee’s did not show up, as it was bought by Dillard’s and pulled out of the project entirely.

The overzealous mall ran overbudget and was forced to open in phases. bigg’s and a few other stores opened in the eastern corridor in 1988. This was the “value” end of the mall, and shoppers could take shopping carts from store to store. In March 1989, the rest of the mall opened, and oh, what a mall it was! The “Y” shaped two level corridor opened with B. Altman and Parisian anchoring the two variant branches of the “Y”, along with a two-level food court. Elder Beerman rested on one outside corner of the mall, while Time Out rested on the other. A full-service amusement park, featuring mini-golf, bumper cars, a carousel, a ferris wheel, and space for 200 inline stores rounded out the mall.

In addition, Sakowitz and a two-level store called Sports USA took up in-line space. The center of the Y had a sunken area for an amphitheater, and, on the east end of the lower level, the corridor ended with the Forest Fair 8, an eight-screen movie theater.

According to DeadMalls.com, Forest Fair Mall was “absolutely ornate… far more so than anything else in Cincinnati. It featured arched copper roofs (still on the mall!), enormous skylights with brass bars running across them featuring a dizzying amount of tiny light bulbs. Also at the time I believe there were many large fountains, and an enormous center court featuring an ornately detailed ceiling”. The mall also cost $200 million.

Forest Fair’s grand opening extravaganza featured celebrities, including Phyllis Diller and country music group Exile.

Featuring everything from posh hundred-dollar suits to bananas, there was no end to the shopping possibilities at Forest Fair. Or was there?

Despite the visible Interstate-friendly location and optimistic outlook, Forest Fair was doomed before it opened, according to one analyst.

“Retail observers predicted Forest Fair — then Ohio’s second-largest mall — was doomed before it even opened in March 1989. They didn’t like its mix of value retailers in one wing and high-end stores in another. They argued its chi-chi department stores, B. Altman and Bonwit Teller, were too upscale and unfamiliar to the Cincinnati shopper.” —The Cincinnati Enquirer, 1999

Herscu was arrogant about his project, saying people would call him a “damn fool” if he failed. Indeed, within several months the mall lost its upscale anchors, about 50% of its stores, and filed for bankruptcy. How could this happen? For starters, the nearby median income was $36,921: not the demographic who could afford the fine retailers on the west end of the mall.

In addition to arrogance and misjudging the market, competition was another factor in Forest Fair’s failure. Two malls, located close to Forest Fair, launched impressive remodeling and expansion plans, causing a retail surplus in north Cincinnati. Tri-County Mall, located a few miles from Forest Fair along I-275, added a second level and anchor store McAlpin’s to round out a solid retail roster. Northgate Mall, also located just a few miles away from Forest Fair, in the other direction, finished an early 1990s remodel. Both Northgate and Tri-County were the anchors to larger retail corridors featuring numerous strip malls, restaurants, and big box stores; Forest Fair had far fewer of these complementary stores nearby because it was between the other malls and their established corridors.

In addition, Kenwood Plaza, a strip center in an affluent part of northeast Cincinnati was torn down and rebuilt as a two-level enclosed mall called Kenwood Towne Center between 1987-1988. It had Lazarus, JCPenney, and McAlpin’s, and would become the Cincinnati area’s best mall.

The departure of upscale anchors rattled Forest Fair. Sakowitz closed and was replaced by Parisian. B. Altman closed its Forest Fair store and went out of business. Bonwit Teller was sold to the Pyramid Companies of Syracuse, New York in 1990, and the Forest Fair store closed due to unprofitability. Parisian disconnected from LJ Hooker and kept the Forest Fair store open. bigg’s and Elder-Beerman held on as well.

Unfortunately, LJ Hooker plunged into bankruptcy (guess he was a damn fool after all), and Forest Fair was sold in 1991 along with Herscu’s other two malls: Thornton Town Center, a small mall in the Denver area anchored by little more than a bigg’s and a large amusement area, and Richland Fashion Mall of South Carolina. Thornton has been demalled, while Richland Fashion Square has been renamed to Midtown at Forest Acres and is not successful.

The early 1990s were an empty, sad time at Forest Fair, culminating in a restructuring period after the mall was sold. According to DeadMalls.com, a bizarre chain of events occurred, consisting of marketing twists, gang wars, and a fire in the food court. However, there were some small victories during this period. The Bonwit Teller was gutted for a new concept, The Festivals at Forest Fair, which opened in 1993. The Festivals at Forest Fair opened inside the mall featuring entertainment and nightclubs. With stone tiles imported from India to invoke an “outdoor experience”, the entertainment district offered several bars, nightclubs, and other shops. The two-level section included America Live!, Gator’s Beach Bar, and America’s Original Sports Bar, among other venues.

The theaters also became a dollar theater, which, after a few name changes, remain today.

The Festivals entertainment district wasn’t as successful as planned, and the mall continued to limp along. A stalwart group of existing tenants and new anchors, including the addition of Kohl’s in late 1994 in much of the former B. Altman and a CompUSA in the bigg’s wing, brought the mall to 75% occupancy. It was nowhere near the success it was designed to be in 1989, nor the competition-crushing behemoth it was expected to be.

In 1996, Forest Fair was sold again to Gator Investments Group, a Miami-based company that promised to make it the mall it was designed to be. It was going to be hard work, especially since CompUSA and Parisian pulled out within months of each other in 1998. However, Guitar Center signed on, and by 1999, Forest Fair Mall had secured a lease with the giant outdoor chain Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World, which opened in the former Parisian space. Ambitious plans were drawn, and Gator started signing new tenants for the mall through Glimcher Properties Trust, their leasing agent. There were some significant losses, though, as the Time Out on the Court amusement park closed.

By 2001, the mall was on the slow road to recovery. The food court was nearly full. Media Play, a big-box retailer selling electronics, books, music, videos, video games, and DVDs, opened. Off Fifth, the outlet form of Saks Fifth Avenue, opened. Babies R Us opened (though it was temporarily occupied by Stein Mart Outlet prior to this). Berean Christian Stores signed on as another junior anchor. A nightclub complex opened next to Kohl’s (disconnected from the mall concourse) called Metropolis. It replaced the last Festivals nightclub, Bourbon Street, as the whole Festivals annex was gutted for Burlington Coat Factory, which filled in the rest of the B. Altman space. A large amusement area for children, Namco WonderPark, opened and functionally replaced Time Out. Showcase Cinemas opened in the former spot of the theme park with Ohio’s first Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear below. Moore’s Fitness World opened on the top level of the old food court. The mall was to feature a mix of off-price and mid-line stores; however, only off-price, value-oriented stores showed up. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it wasn’t the realized vision promised by Gator Investments.

Finally, by the end of December 2001, things at Forest Fair were looking up. The mall was going to be renamed to “Forest Fair Fashions”, and it was home to Ohio’s first Bass Pro Shops and its first Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear.

“We’re spending almost $15 million renovating almost all of the storefronts and putting in a grand staircase,” said Michael Dunham, senior vice president of leasing and Gator’s top executive at Forest Fair. “We’re putting in giant billboards below the ceiling with fashion graphics. The entire Kohl’s concourse will have hardwood floors.” (Cincinnati Enquirer)

In addition, the amphitheater was backfilled to allow for some cafés in the space.

Gator also hinted they planned to sign Just for Feet and an ice rink, but that never happened, because Gator Corporation lost interest in the mall after a dispute involving Polaris Fashion Place in Columbus. So, the mall got a new owner again.

Enter The Mills Corporation. The Mills built its fortune constructing huge, sprawling mega-malls in large metropolitan areas across the country. They were always branded the same and named [_____] Mills. The first part of each Mills’ name was the name of the city, suburb, or state it was built in (Katy Mills, Gurnee Mills, Arizona Mills, St. Louis Mills, Grapevine Mills), or even a significant landmark or cultural/historical name (Franklin Mills in Philadelphia, Potomac Mills in Washington DC, or Opry Mills in Tennessee). One, Discover Mills near Atlanta, was even named after a credit card. These malls would often feature a floorplan that resembled a racetrack (with a few exceptions, Sawgrass Mills in Florida, the largest, was originally supposed to resemble an alligator). They all had big theaters, outlet stores, many anchors, entertainment, and one more thing: they were all one story.

The Mills bought Forest Fair Mall in 2002 and decided to convert it to its Mills prototype, giving it an extensive remodel. This was the first (and last) time Mills bought a mall to totally convert it; soon afterward, Mills began buying larger, big-ticket malls, adding their own unique spin of entertainment and dining. Also, rather than peacefully converting Forest Fair, Mills decided it would completely shut Forest Fair in order to gut it and embark on the remodel. Unfortunately, this required giving all interior tenants the heave-ho, including original 1989 charter tenant Nadler Mens Store.

By February 2003, the entire mall closed, save the anchors. Elder Beerman decided not to stick around either, leaving only bigg’s as the last original tenant. bigg’s, Steve and Barry’s University Sportswear, Bass Pro Shops, Wonderpark, Kohl’s, Burlington Coat Factory, Berean Christian Store, Media Play, Off 5th, Babies R Us, and Guitar Center remained for business as usual.

In July 2004, the inside of the mall reopened with great fanfare, as Cincinnati Mills. It opened at 75% occupancy, 93% occupancy by early 2005. It was probably the mall’s biggest success to date. The top level of the old Elder Beerman also became home to Cincinnati’s own Johnny’s Toys.

As with all of the other times reinvention was attempted, problems soon began to befoul Cincinnati Mills. Mills malls were starting to become known as places where trouble-making teenagers would hang out. So, Cincinnati Mills enacted a dress code and enacted a harsh rule of no groups more than three in the mall.

But, as it turned out, The Mills was a terrible manager as well, and major success did not materialize for long. Johnny’s Toys closed down and Steve & Barry’s took the entire former Elder Beerman, while the old Steve & Barry’s was sold to Urban Behavior. Stores began to trickle out. Media Play was the first casualty in 2005 and was not replaced.

Here’s a Cincinnati Mills mall directory from 2005, courtesy archive.org:

Meanwhile, The Mills itself had problems on its own and was bought by Simon in April 2007. Simon continued to keep The Mills malls as a separate unit, though Mills’ two other projects (Tewksbury Mills in Massachusetts and Candlestick Mills in San Francisco) were cancelled entirely.

The mall was two-thirds full in 2007, but mall officials believed the future was bright.

As always, they were wrong.

By May 2007, things began going south at Cincinnati Mills, beginning with the loss of bigg’s. The 245,000 square foot bigg’s, the largest tenant in the mall, was losing money. The lease was almost up, and bigg’s was not looking to renew it. In addition, the other Midwest hypermarket, Meijer, had opened way too close for comfort, and bigg’s had previously converted to a smaller “outlet” format.

As 2007 ended, the mall began to spin out of control. Wonderpark closed in March 2008 after the manager was discovered paying his employees (who were minors) to pose for sex videos. bigg’s closed in July, leaving the huge space vacant. Simon began discussing selling the mall.

The disappointing holiday sales of 2008 did not fare well for the mall either. Guitar Center and Urban Behavior high-tailed it out of the mall. Steve & Barry’s, which occupied the former Elder Beerman, went out of business as well. The structure once designed for 150 stores was now 40% vacant, emptier than ever. Not that it looked bad, either. Due to the 2004 remodel, the condition of the mall was great, except for the total lack of stores and shoppers.

Simon dumped Cincinnati Mills in March of 2009, selling it a realty company called North Star Port Authority. The “Mills” name was officially dropped, having not transferred with the sale of the mall, and the mall was renamed Cincinnati Mall. The new company had non-demolition redevelopment in mind, though some plans did indicate that the bigg’s end would be demolished. They managed to attract totes ›› ISOTONER Warehouse Clearance to the old Urban Behavior a few months later, only to have Off 5th move out a few months later for (get this) an outlet mall!

Cincinnati Mall, as you may expect, did not turn the mall around. The totes ›› ISOTONER Warehouse Clearance closed, Showcase Theaters was bought by Rave Theaters, but it pulled the plug on it before conversion (it closed in March 2010). The bigg’s wing is now closed entirely.

SOURCES:
This topic on UrbanOhio
CityData.com
DeadMalls.com
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Wikipedia article, which I helped contribute to prior to this article
Shopping Mall Museum

Editor’s note: I visited Cincinnati Mall most recently in November 2010. I arrived slightly after dark, around 6 or 7 at night. My first assumption was that the mall was closed. There were no cars in any of the lots nearest the mall entrances, the only cars I saw were located in front of Bass Pro. Thinking I’d give it a try, I parked at one of the ghostly, empty mall entrances and walked up to the door. The lights inside the mall appeared to be off, but I approached the doors anyway. Surprisingly, the mall was unlocked, and I hesitated for a moment before entering. Was I supposed to be here? Is it really open? The regular lights still appeared to be off, but nighttime lights were on, basking the interior of the mall in an eerie moonglow.

As I entered the doors, I noticed a couple people walking around in the dim corridor that approached Bass Pro, whose entrance was closed off to the mall. I actually wondered if I was supposed to be in there because it was so dark, but I kept going after seeing others. After walking down the corridor leading from Bass Pro toward center court, I noticed not one store was open except for Babies R Us, an anchor. Nearing center court, the crux of the Y, I discovered something that gave me pause. A Claire’s store was open on the lower level, in the dark. Yes, in the dark. Look at the photos, I did no camera tricks here; it was really this dark in there while open. I had never encountered this before, and it was both creepy and alarming. After reaching center court, there were some normal, brighter lights on, and a few more people milling around.

I continued past center court, and walked toward Kohl’s. Darkness again. The Kohl’s wing was just as dark as the Bass Pro wing, and parts of it were sealed off with rope. Kohl’s had also closed off one of its entrances to the mall. Coming back from Kohl’s to center court, I saw another store open in the darkness on the lower level, Payless ShoeSource. Again, I’ve never seen anything like this before!

After reaching center court again, I haded down the third and last corridor which used to go to bigg’s. I encountered the ‘Picnic on the River’ Food Court area on the lower level, which surprisingly still had Gold Star Chili in operation, but little else. Auntie Anne’s and Game Stop were still open on the second level. The info desk on the second level had been abandoned, and the entire upper level of the mall in this wing was fenced off from the former bigg’s store onward. In addition, throughout the mall, large portions of entire wings were sealed off. Burlington Coat Factory and the Danbarry Dollar Cinemas were still open in addition to Kohl’s and Babies R Us, but I can’t imagine the interior stores in this mall can sustain much longer.

More recently, In January 2011, Cincinnati Mall has turned up in the news again. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer and Columbus Business Journal, owners of the mall recently presented suggestions to revitalize the site from its current sorry state. Some of the suggestions included a Candlewood Suites hotel, an agricultural museum (!?), a hockey arena, other entertainment venues, and an indoor mountain bike park. At this point, the ideas are not solid plans, because none of the ideas carry financing deals. Locals are probably cautiously optimistic, at best, because the site has changed hands so many times in the past decade.

At any rate, World Properties, the New York-based firm who has owned the mall since March 2010, hopes to have these non-retail entities in mall within the next 2-3 years. They probably also hope the four current anchors don’t plan on leaving, so they can get retailers back in the mix as well. The new owners, on paper at least, seem committed to the site and we hope they aren’t just blowing smoke. After a string of absentee owners and bad decisions, hopefully an eclectic, creative mix of non-retail entities can achieve the balance needed for success here. I think owners were wise to realize the site is not marketable as retail-only, and also considered the failure of the previous entertainment district, so adding more options is a worth at try, provided they can get financing for it. We’ll keep an eye on the progress here, and, as always, feel free to leave your comments and reactions.

Elsewhere on the net:

November 2004:

November 2010:

Retail News Digest for Sunday, January 16, 2011

This is a relatively new feature to our site. While we’ve periodically reported retail news throughout the years, we’d like to establish a regular digest of major retail events on a bi-weekly or as-warranted basis. We’ll see how it goes.

As with our mall articles, interactivity is key. While we’d like to try to cover all major news stories, this is not possible for practical purposes. There are some stories we will inherently miss – we live in a big world full of a lot of information. As such, you can help us gather the news by posting relevant recent happenings to the comments page for these news features. And, as always, you can post specific news items to their individual mall posts, if we have one. So, feel free to add stories you’d like to discuss and leave comments on the ones we’ve listed.

Comings and goings:

Anchor Blue, a mall-based, youth-oriented fashion retailer, is going out of business, closing all 117 stores. The chain, based in Southern California, is a mainstay in malls in the western United States. Originally Miller’s Surplus, and then Miller’s Outpost, the chain once had stores in the Midwest and Southeastern states, but during recent troubles had pared down its locations.
Target is taking the Great White North by storm, offering to buy up most of the Zellers locations throughout Canada. I haven’t seen the list yet, but this will give Target a presence in many Canadian malls. This strategy came as a surprise to many analysts, who did not expect Target to be this aggressive. There are many details to be worked out, but Target hopes to open 100-150 stores in Canada by 2014. In a twist of the story, they may have to use a different name, due to another company’s extant trademark on the Target name in Canada.
Sears at the former Rolling Acres Mall is closing by April 2011. Sears, along with JCPenney Outlet, was one of the mall’s original tenants in 1975, and had stayed open after the mall closed permanently in October 2008.
Sears is also closing its store at the failing Charlestowne Mall in St. Charles, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, where it was also a charter tenant. The mall’s occupancy rate has dwindled in recent years due to a geographic shifting in retal investment in focus away from the North Avenue corridor and onto the Randall Road corridor.
Sears is closing yet another store at the beleagured Raleigh Springs Mall near Memphis. Sears is the last anchor store at Raleigh Springs, so don’t expect this one to be around much longer.
Sears’ Kmart division is closing a bunch of stores.
Macy’s is closing at Austin’s nearly empty Highland Mall in March 2011. Austin Community College is considering buying the space, and the few remaining tenants in the mall are worried about their futures.
Macy’s is also closing its store at south-suburban Atlanta’s failing Union Station Mall. Originally called Shannon SouthPark Mall, the departure of Macy’s leaves the mall with only one anchor, Sears.
Borders has revealed major liquidity problems, including being unable to pay its vendors and publishers. They are closing many stores, including the high profile Michigan Avenue location in Chicago as well as a distribution center in Nashville. Their problem is not unique among bricks-and-mortar bookstores, as many others are losing out due to eReaders, iPads, and internet booksellers.
Saks Fifth Avenue is leaving Denver’s upscale Cherry Creek Mall in Denver, where it has been a charter tenant since 1990. In 2010, Saks closed stores in San Diego and Orange County, CA, Portland, OR, Long Island, NY, Charleston, SC, and Plano, TX.
Bealls Texas is leaving the troubled Midway Mall in Sherman, TX.
Abercrombie and Fitch is apparently paring down locations, closing stores at the Post Oak Mall in Texas, Broomfield Crossing near Denver, Southgate Mall in Missoula, MT, and Peachtree Mall in Georgia.
Tax-free upscale shopping comes to the northeast corridor, as Nordstrom plans to open its first Delaware location at the Christiana Mall in April 2011.
Lowe’s opens soon at Bergen Town Center in Paramus, New Jersey, formerly Bergen Mall. Wonder what they did with the underground Village Mall relic?
Opry Mills, a large Nashville mall that has been closed since flooding devastated it in May 2010, sees a glimmer of hope for re-opening. It probably won’t be until 2012 or later, though. The mall has been mired in troubles since the flood, including fights between the owner and the insurance company.
Target and Dick’s Sporting Goods are coming to replace the vacant Boscov’s at South Hills Village, a successful mall near Pittsburgh. They plan to be open by July 2012.
The north Tucson Safeway grocery store will reopen today, one week after a national tragedy occurred there.

Other retail news:

A gunman holed himself up at Baja Fresh in the Chandler (AZ) Fashion Center after firing shots at undercover police officers outside Sears, causing a five hour long standoff that eventually ended peacefully.
The Syracuse Post-Standard reported today that Destiny USA has not indicated when it will finish construction on the 1.3 million square-foot addition to Carousel Center mall, which was abruptly halted in 2009 despite being 90 percent finished.
A flashmob, apparently organized through social media, apparently turned into a disturbing, scary fracas on Jan 2 when it descended upon a suburban Milwaukee mall. Witnesses at Mayfair Mall said they were trampled and had to run for cover, fearing for the worst, as 50-60 youths ran through stores and trashed them. “A crowd of like 50 to 60 kids just came barreling through the upstairs door at Boston Store, knocking down everything they could touch. They went running down the stairs. All that we heard was glass breaking. There was security yelling to every manager to lockdown the doors, lockdown the mall, lockdown the store,” one customer said, according to WISN-TV. Also, at the same time the flashmob occurred, gunshots were fired in an attempted robbery in the parking lot. Mayfair is one of Wisconsin’s largest and best malls, and Milwaukee is no stranger to the perception of crime killing off retail venues. A 1992 murder in Milwaukee’s Northridge Mall parking lot, perpetrated by a white man against his pregnant wife, and blamed on a black man, began a perception of crime at the mall that contributed significantly to its downfall and closure a decade later. What will happen to Mayfair after this incident, which coincidentally was perpetrated by mostly black youths? According to a WISN-TV poll, 42% of over 2,500 respondents indicated they would not be returning to the mall, ever.