Comments on: The Maine Mall; South Portland, Maine

By: LO559

LO559 — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:08:34 +0000

GODIVA will be leaving soon

By: B5634

B5634 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:58:51 +0000

@Gary, Absolutely true. Only a handful of “hangers” make a problem for others. The trouble is that in some malls, there’s more than a handful. In some cases, it’s the change in the neighborhood that surrounds the mall, such as Landover in Maryland; in other cases, it’s the bus route. One mall in Trumbull CT stopped running the Bridgeport mainline bus directly to the mall, and the situation improved greatly. They also got rid of stores that catered to inner-city culture to improve the atmosphere there. I don’t think the MAINE MALL is changing at that rate, nor do I think the food court will go anytime soon, but I think the day will come when if the mall wants to bring people to stores that no one else in Maine offers, replacing the food court with more upscale restaurants will ultimately bring shoppers to them who made a special trip to eat there.

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:32:06 +0000

@Gary, and if they REALLY want to put a movie theater at the mall, it wouldn’t hurt them if they put it as an outbuilding on the mall’s periphery.

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:25:39 +0000

@A5634, well the curfew could be enacted if things don’t improve, but I think once the food court is removed, there will be no need for a curfew as there will be no place for these teens to hang out and they will only stay there to shop or at the very least, hang out and grab a bite to eat at one of the sit-down restaurants that may pop up with the removal of the food court. Remember, teens, for the most part, are also shoppers, and some of the stores in the mall are geared towards them. Fortunately, most are well behaved when they come to the mall to hang out and that’s fine but a select few give everyone else a bad reputation. The bad teens are the people we should be weeding out, not everyone else.

By: A5634

A5634 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:04:20 +0000

I want to reply to the “bunch of teens hanging out” comment. I don’t fully agree, and this topic has been discussed in detail by others in this blog. SEPHORA, and the majority of stores that have opened in the mall in the past few years, are not stores that all average teens can afford. And even if they CAN afford, the employees who work at these places have no patience with kids who “hang out” or come in and don’t buy anything. This all goes with employee training, along with keeping a watchful eye for shoplifting. If the MAINE MALL has a problem with teens hanging out, they need to get rid first of the video arcade place, and secondly, the food court. These are the places, and I so agree with others who have said this before, where the problems begin.The mall almost made a mistake of putting in a movie theatre; thank God that deal fell through. But as the leases expire for some of these low-end places, and the retail market shows improvement, if the mall wants people there who come to SHOP and not HANG OUT, they’ll do what hundreds of high-end malls have done, and replace the food court with sit-down restaurants, and add new stores with strict policies against “HANGING OUT.” One move the mall made that I feel is a good one is putting the present low-end stores all in one end; stores like CLAIRE’S, HOT TOPIC, FYE (Many malls have eliminated these) and SPENCER’S. Notice they’re all down by the infamous FOOD COURT!!!! This wasn’t just a coincidence! SEPHORA is in a wing that has vastly improved in the last few years. I don’t think there’ll be any hangers there. The management won’t allow it.
CHRISTIANA MALL, also owned by GGP, is a mall similar in size to MAINE MALL. They’re located in Newark, DE, just outside of Wilmington. They have embarked on a sizable expansion, with NORDSTROM and about 15 new higher-end stores. Although they still have a food court (Actually when they did the expansion, they rebuilt the food court), they now have a curfew restricting young people below the age of 18 from attending the mall without a parent; I believe after 6 PM. I wouldn’t mind seeing that happen here, if problems arise such as they had there.. I’m sure the arcade clan would be unhappy about it. And I forgot to cry.

By: A5634

A5634 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:41:05 +0000

@mall employee, Portland DOES have the market. We not only have he market, but we have a HUGE hinterland around the mall; larger than most cities, because there’s no competition for miles. The new high-end stores have all been successful; I saw in some report that the new COACH was ranked #2 in sales in the entire country. While I’m not sure NEIMAN-MARCUS is right for this area, as it’s located usually in major cities, NORDSTROM, on the other hand, has stores in many markets smaller than Portland. I do think that in a few years, Maine and New Hampshire will be places they will want to come – and Jason Snyder, who is developing the STROUDWATER PLACE Lifestyle Center, is pushing hard for NORDSTROM. I don’t think GGP has been good for THE MAINE MALL. GGP spent so much money on that stupid waste-of-time NATICK COLLECTION – bringing all of those ridiculously high prices stores in that apparently few people care about, and just about neglected our mall. But South Portland has been a good portfolio for them. I wish they would show their appreciation by filling up our SEARS wing and doing something with FILENE’S. I wonder if anyone from GGP reads this blog? Certainly there are enough comments to show the management that we’re concerned and waiting for changes to occur.

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:25:21 +0000

@mall employee, well, I doubt that Sephora would open up a mall location there if they didn’t think that the market could support such a store. Sephora is an upscale retailer and they will only open stores in more affluent areas.

By: mall employee

mall employee — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:16:57 +0000

@B2263, no. not kidding. i guess they want to bring in more restaurants to the area?? as if we don’t have enough already.
we need more retail stores here.

i would love Neiman-Marcus to come here, but honestly, do we have the market for that? customers at the mall complain over the size of FREE water, where some places will charge you for water when you aren’t a customer there.

even with Sephora opening I’m afraid it will be a bunch of teens just hanging out and trying make up.

By: B5634

B5634 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:46:04 +0000

Well, so ends that ray of hope. It should be mentioned that CRACKER BARREL is coming to an outbuilding across from the mall; not in the mall itself. So for all in hopes of something decent in the mall, we seem to be back at square one. I heard that GOBEIL’S may be coming back to that LINENS N THINGS location. Sorry I got all excited for nothing. There’s quite a difference between CRACKER BARREL and CRATE & BARREL – about the same as between MARDEN’S and NEIMAN-MARCUS

By: B2263

B2263 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:37:40 +0000

@mall employee, OH PLEASE! YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! Cracker Barrel was announced over a year ago. But then again…there’s not much difference between Cracker Barrel and Crate & Barrel – about the same difference as MARDEN’S and NEIMAN-MARCUS