I feel those days are gone Laura. At least for the most part. A recent addition to the city of Atlanta is called Atlantic Station. This project combined large retail space with residential towers that were in high demand in the area. A micro-community of sorts where a resident has full access to amenities and retail on foot. As usual, prices for residential space was kept high to discourage the criminal element, and if the area can be kept safe, it may stand the test of time.

Outside of that model, it would seem that shifting demographics and crime statistics are making a hit-and-run retail model much more attractive for a retailer to avoid heavy losses. I would think that high rent and energy costs will easily stifle the old enclosed mall model. Couple that with shifting economics and urban flight, and many nails go into that coffin.

It would seem that the tactics of Walmart are good example of hit-and-run retail. Their model is mainly a stand-alone facility that is not expected to anchor a retail mall model. These facilities can be opened and closed quickly, and are designed to pay for themselves in short order. That model is highly mobile, and reacts instantly to fickle economics, demographic changes, and shifting crime rates. It’s much more survivable.

For some further historic info, there was a nice Aladdin’s Castle inside and a cookie store by one of the anchors that made proper M&M cookies (a sugar cookie with M&Ms on it). We used to get one and eat it in that center court.

There were two bookstores (B Dalton and Walden) which was pretty fancy for its day. The anchors I remember were Sanger Harris, Sears, and JC Penney. For some reason, I have absolutely no recollection of Titche’s, Dillards, or Joskes being there. Go figure.

It had one of the larger Oshmanns Sporting Goods I’ve seen. The center court had a ton of red carpet and the wood back then was all dark instead of that lighter color. While it was technically the only enclosed mall in south Dallas, Six Flags and Forum weren’t too far away. Sometimes, we’d make a Saturday of going to all 3.

For years and years, there was a mattress store right off the Interstate. Outside the mall in the same parking lot there was a Best and a Showbiz Pizza. Other things in the mall area I remember are a Highlands electronics, a Luther’s/Colter’s, Mervyn’s, and an awesome Mexican restaurant called the Monterey House. We probably ate there once a week when I was younger.

And it didn’t help that, as the area’s demographics changed, people started referring to it as “Black Bird Mall.” That’s probably the main reason for the change to the (admittedly rather sterile) Southwest Center.

“The “protests” outside the mall are insanity. Can you imagine whites doing that to a “black mall”?”

Good ol’ John Wiley Price; he’s really a brilliant and effective county commissioner (who gets reelected again and again), but he’s rather extremist in the area of race; the protests can grow tiresome after a while. (One of those protests made a bunch of us wait through about five traffic light cycles to cross the street on the way into the Cotton Bowl game. Considering the cost of the tickets, the protest accomplished little aside from ticking off everyone in the crowd, even those who might have otherwise been sympathetic to his cause.)