Comments on: Westminster Mall; Westminster, Colorado

By: GregW

GregW — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:23:17 +0000

@Pseudo3D,

Dreiseszun died in 2007; his family still owns the company (MD Management) from what I can tell. He also owned the former Buckingham Square in Denver, as well as the current zombie malls Metcalf South and Metro North in the Kansas City area. Metro North even had hot air balloons, it seems!

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:15:47 +0000

This mall did not fail because of economic factors. In some cases they were merely a victim of circumstances.
During the late 90’s-early 2000’s:
The Montgomery Wards was rank #1 in the country.
Suncoast, Sam Goody and Musicland were all ranked at the top of their company. in the mid-90’s Musicland was consistently a top performer. Then all 3 companies were bought by Best Buy and subsequently closed.
KB Toys was the #1 store in the nation. Sleep Number (formerly Select Comfort) was top in it’s company.
And those are just the stores I have direct knowledge of.
Countless others closed on a corporate level and had nothing to do with the performance of the Westminster Mall location.
The rest of the downfall of this mall can be placed squarely on its ownership.
Part of the problem is an impotent management. The manager is a old lazy dinosaur that has been around for decades. When you look at successful malls, they are normally managed my young and ambitious types. I think due to their success, they were so used to tenants falling in their lap, that they never went out a recruited stores once the leases declined.
Other terrible decisions have been made.
During its heyday, ownership refused to allow major nationals in the food court. Can you imagine? They wanted local independents. The logic behind that is just absurd.
Also, when a store would close, rather that work to fill the space, the mall would be content on letting it sit empty and collect the rent that was due to them. Stores would leave with 3 years on a lease, and the mall wouldn’t allow a new store to occupy it until the lease was complete.
I sincerely hope they do not turn Westminster into an outdoor mall. Those just don’t work. All over Colorado, the new lifestyle centers are struggling. Hopefully they just knock down the entire Macy’s wing as well as anything beyond Sears. The parking lot is a asphalt jungle. They could turn that into a strip mall, movie theater or even residential.
Very sad to see what Westy Mall has become.

By: J.D.

J.D. — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:44:12 +0000

I just visited this mall today and I was really surprised. One of my friends works in the mall between JCP and Dillards and I just had to see the deadness for myself. I recently moved here from Illinois where my childhood mall (Randhurst) just died. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see it in the last 6 or so years before it finally got torn down this year so I wanted to see what a dead mall looked like.

First off, it really is weird seeing two Orange Julius places so close to each other. Second there are three or so gumball stores. One in the entrance of the old theater which contains some classic arcade games that have auction tags on them (Lethal Enforcers anyone?) near the Macy’s wing. One is a couple stores south of the food court, and one is in the food court.

The mall really is in a sad state. Except for the space between Dillards and JCP, and a few stores north of the main area, you can probably count the stores on one hand. In the Macy’s wing there is the pet store. After Sears the only store is a Lidz until the food court. Then north of the food court which only contains a Teriyaki place, subway, and What Knots, is a lens crafters and a place you can make dog tags. In the same wing (dont know what the anchor was) are two stores that creeped me out. One has a huge train set in it and the colorado themed kids play area pictured above. Both were closed and I was there around 4 o’clock. It’s Your Turn is also pretty eerie with the blue lighting and chess setup. I’ll probably be back in a few years when the place is totally closed and you have to sneak in.

By: Goaltender66

Goaltender66 — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:53:09 +0000

Kind of sad. I worked at this mall in the late 80s and early 90s…first at WaldenSoftware and a couple of years later at Joslyn’s, both on the same wing. I remember sneaking out of work to grab a Cinnabon when I had a few minutes.

One of my best memories is the trick-or-treat WM would host for kids during Halloween. We’d stand out in front of our stores and pass out candy and such. I also greatly enjoyed the car shows that would take place on the occasional weekend. I was in charge of opening the store on Saturday mornings and was sometimes astonished to look out my storefront and see antique automobiles driving by.

Even as a young kid my mom would take me for ice cream and we’d sit and watch the balloons. Even throughout my teens I have lots of memories of wandering around the mall, seeing movies, playing arcade games, cruising around the food court (anyone remember Big Al’s?), and just plain having fun. Odd that a mall would be a venue for growing up, but that’s kind of what it was for me.

By: John T.

John T. — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 05:36:50 +0000

The Dillard’s is closing.

By: Paul Cain

Paul Cain — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:43:43 +0000

The “Dead Jewelry Store” looks like a former Gordon’s.

By: Sandra

Sandra — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:18:43 +0000

It seems perfectly sensible to me (they could formalize the “outlet” model once things are less grim economically). Of the mall’s two “competitors”, the Mills is definitely the one to target. Westminster isn’t connected to the Mills by any highways the way it is to Flatirons, and Westminster would be much easier to transform into a Mills-esque mall than a Flatirons/ Park Meadows type place. (The balloons are already somewhat Mills-like.) Also, outlet stores have always been held in high esteem around here (before Colorado Mills, it was not unheard of to drive out to Loveland) and people would appreciate having them nearby.

By: sally

sally — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:27:28 +0000

Nice writeup, Jacob. My childhood mall is very much dying, too, and I know how it feels. I don’t know exactly why it’s so disconcerting, but it is…

That said, these pictures are very striking, because it looks like almost 2 completely different malls! It seems like the stores that are open have at least some strong names (Victoria’s Secret, Claire’s), and they look very nice, clean, inviting, etc. But the stores that are closed are so desolate and chilling, especially with the lights still on in half of them.

By: Pseudo3D

Pseudo3D — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:10:17 +0000

Why not convert Westminster Mall into something like a discount/marketplace center not unlike Colorado Mills? (without the “bad feeling” Mills malls seem to pick up)

That would be cool and it would complement Flatiron Crossing.

By: Rich

Rich — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:26:06 +0000

It sounds like the inflexibility of the mall space (not to mention the owner’s lack of imagination) and the size seem to be part of the death spiral of this mall. A non-enclosed mall setup would be easier to re-purpose. It’s a good example of why, even in the absence of a recession, developers practically quit building enclosed malls. They were a no-brainer investment 30-40 years ago, now they’re a big risk with enormous downsides.