Category: Maryland

Frederick, Maryland is an outlying anchor city of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area.  Located about 50 miles from both downtown Washington and downtown Baltimore, Frederick is both a commuter exurb and a city in its own right.  With a population of about 60,000, Frederick is the third largest incorporated city in Maryland, after Baltimore and Rockville, and is also the gateway to points west from the DC-Baltimore metropolitan area.

An unusual characteristic about Frederick is, despite a relatively small size, it is home to two medium-sized shopping malls.  Frederick Towne Mall, located on the “Golden Mile” retail strip of U.S. 40 on the west side of town, was the first mall in town, and opened to massive fanfare in 1972.  Francis Scott Key Mall, which opened a few years later in 1978, anchors another retail area on the south side of town adjacent to Interstate 70, which goes east to Baltimore, and Interstate 270, which goes south to Montgomery County and Washington, D.C.

In a classic case of regional retail overload, the Francis Scott Key Mall and its surrounding retail area gradually became the dominant retail area in town, replacing Frederick’s Golden Mile and the Towne Mall that anchors it.  Other regional malls were also constructed in the nearby cities of Martinsburg, Hagerstown, Chambersburg, Westminster, as well as in monied Montgomery County, giving residents from nearby places little reason to come to Frederick to do their shopping.  In addition, the offerings constructed in Montgomery County and Northern Virginia became a draw for Frederick residents who were seeking a more total and slightly upscale retail experience.  As a result, having two malls in Frederick proved to be two too many.

So which mall would Frederick choose to support, and which mall would be thrown in the trash?  The answer would be informed by demographic shift, creating crime or the perception thereof, a dash of mother nature, and three cups of competition.

Beginning as early as the late 1970s, and ramping up through the 1990s, the retail dominance in Frederick began to shift from the Golden Mile/Towne Mall area to the area around Francis Scott Key Mall, along MD Highway 85.  This was precipitated by a few factors.  First, as we mentioned above, the region was saturated with regional malls in nearly every direction, negating the necessity for having two of them in town.

A major shift in local demographics also informed where the dominant retail placement would be.  The area around the Golden Mile became home to more and more low income housing, and after a series of events, earned a reputation for crime.  Violent crime surrounded the area of Towne Mall, and frequent fights began to break out in the mall itself.  These events became well publicized in the media, and locals began reallocating their dollars to the safer retail district across town, near Francis Scott Key Mall.

Mother nature played a role, too.  The creek behind the mall is prone to flooding, and a significant portion of the mall is within the 100-year floodplain.  This makes it tough for anyone who wants to ameliorate the decline of the area, because FEMA has very specific and complicated rules about development in the floodplain, even prohibiting renovations on existing structures.

Topography is also a major factor that has limited new development along the Golden Mile.  Because of large hills on either side of  U.S. 40, development is limited to a short space along the highway corridor, and most of the corridor is already built out.

In response to these challenges on the Golden Mile, developers chose to build a new retail corridor, centered around Francis Scott Key Mall across town.  The new retail corridor would not have any of these challenges, and would have access from both interstates 70 and 270.

In 2001, Montgomery Ward closed their doors nationwide, including their store at Towne Mall.  It was eventually replaced by a Home Depot in 2004, which does not have mall access.

The next store to defect from Towne Mall was JCPenney, which moved to FSK Mall in the early 2000s.  It wasn’t a terrible blow, however, because the space was swiftly replaced by Boscov’s in October 2003.

Despite retaining three anchors throughout most of its history, the interior of Towne Mall has suffered the most over the past decade.  Longtime tenants like Chanticleer Shoes, Gentlemans Choice, Long John Silvers, and others have either closed or relocated, leaving the interior corridor of the mall awash with dead stores and few patrons.  The few stores left cater mostly to either a low income or specialty niche, with several dollar stores and even a dead store converted to a bouncy castle.  The Radio Shack in the mall, which was still open as of August 2010, said that 75 percent of their business was providing cell phones to hispanic customers.

After all the problems, mall owners were quick to react to the situation, and put together plans to renovate the mall into a mixed-use lifestyle center in 2005.  The plan was approved in 2006, and included a new parking deck to the north of the Bon Ton anchor, a line of residential condos, space for new outparcels, and a total remodeling of the mall, demolishing the interior corridors and replacing them with outdoor ones.

However, a few years went by, and murmurs about redevelopment were quieted due to the economy, lack of intered from leasing parties, and the inability to secure credit to build the project.  In 2009, the local paper revealed that a new developer was on board, and that plans may have changed.  A spokesman for the developer, DLC Management, said that they were evaluating and formulating their plan in 2009, and as of 2010 had not brought forth anything concrete.  Reading in between the lines, it looks like nothing is going to happen here until the place either falls down or closes permanently and becomes a blighted eyesore, “requiring” more financial assistance from the government to be redeveloped.  DLC’s page on Frederick Towne Mall links to a storetrax profile which provides absolutely no clues either.

We visited Frederick Towne Mall in March 2004 and again in August 2010.  The difference between those two periods is stark, as the mall was only beginning to show vacancies in 2004 and in 2010 is on life support.  In 2010, the security guard didn’t even have much to do, he was just sitting near the Boscov’s anchor looking bored.

March 2004:

August 2010:

Annapolis, Maryland is a historical city of about 35,000 people and the capital of Maryland.  Located on Chesapeake Bay in the southeast corner of the much larger Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, a region which houses over 8.2 million residents, Annapolis is roughly 30 miles from both downtown Washington, D.C. and downtown Baltimore.

Annapolis has a rich history which spans from the pre-Colonial era to the present, and was even the nation’s capital for about six months in the 1780s.  Today, a modern Annapolis is an important regional node in the Baltimore-Washington area and thrives off revenues from the sailing and tourism industry, as well as from being a hub for military infrastructure and commercial and agriculture distribution.  In addition, Annapolis is a super-regional retail hub, due in part to its almost predestined importance spanning back throughout history, but also due to an opportunistic market seizure in 2007 on the part of Westfield’s Annapolis Mall – or, Westfield Annapolis as they officially call it, but don’t worry, we won’t.

Opened in 1980, Annapolis Mall is currently the largest mall in the state of Maryland, including the area surrounding metro Baltimore and the Maryland side of the Washington, D.C. area.  However, a whopping four malls on the Virginia side of metro D.C. are bigger than Annapolis Mall:  Springfield Mall, Tysons Corner Center, Potomac Mills, and Fair Oaks Mall.  Springfield Mall, which we’ve covered here, is a troubled red giant in a crowded (and fiercely competitive) retail galaxy, but the Tysons MegaMall Googolplex, Potomac Mills and Fair Oaks are certainly formidable super-regional destinations in their own right.

Annapolis Mall has weathered many anchor changes and two significant additions since it opened 30 years ago.  When Annapolis Mall originally debuted, it was anchored by D.C.-based Garfinckels, Hecht’s, and Montgomery Ward.  In 1987, an 84,000 square-foot JCPenney store was added at what was then the east end of the mall.  In 1990, the Garfinckel’s closed, and the site was eventually repurposed into a Borders Bookstore.  In 1994, an expansion and Seattle-based Nordstrom were added to the northeast end of the mall past JCPenney, adding 200,000 square feet of retail space, and in 1998 Lord and Taylor was added on the northwest side, across from JCPenney.  The next year, in 1999, Montgomery Ward closed amid bankruptcy.  To replace the Wards store, Sears moved from nearby failed Parole Plaza, an outdoor center, in 2002.  Finally, in 2006, Hecht’s, a May Company store, was sold to Federated/Macy’s, which converted Hecht’s and all the other May nameplates to Macy’s in September 2006.

Even with all the anchor changes and additions, the biggest change at Annapolis Mall in its 30-year history took place in 2007, when an expansion added 220,000 square-feet of retail space to the mall, nearly doubling the in-line space.  No new anchors were added, but the Lord and Taylor store, which the new corridor runs through, was renovated.  The new expansion is called the “west wing”, and the older, original configuration of the mall is called “east wing”, even though from an aerial perspective they look like they should be aligned more north versus south, respectively.

Annapolis Mall’s current configuration is now quite unique and far more interesting than it was prior to the 2007 expansion.  The older part of the mall, which consists of a straight shot of in-line space in a corridor between Macy’s and Nordstrom, is twinned with a new, parallel corridor that goes from Macy’s, through Lord and Taylor, up to Nordstrom again.  In addition, a smaller diagonal wing connects the Borders/Sears end of the mall with Macy’s, and the entire mall is one level.  Confused?  A complete directory is located here.

The decor at Annapolis Mall isn’t at all seamless between the original mall and the expansion, with the expansion having a more modern look with higher ceilings and atriums, while the older part of the mall looks more traditional and even slightly dated (hey, that’s not so bad…).  The older part of the mall also contains several fountains, though curiously they are all apparently newer than expected, as all of the old fountains were ripped out in a mid-90s remodel.

The dominance of Annapolis Mall can be analyzed in at least a few ways.  First, the lack of dominant, super-regional retail centers in the south suburbs of Baltimore and the eastern suburbs of D.C. created a void that Westfield saw fit to fill in 2007.  Most of the malls in the eastern suburbs of D.C. are smaller and more neighborhood/regional oriented, and this is likewise for the suburban area south of Baltimore.  Furthermore, none of them are upscale-oriented like Annapolis.  Arundel Mills, which was the largest mall in Maryland before Annapolis Mall’s expansion, is an immensely popular mall but fills a niche of a different kind – it’s an outlet mall – and therefore provides a different type of consumption.  The expansion at Annapolis brought in many more upscale stores, and thus provides a different type of shopping experience than Arundel Mills.  In short, the two can probably co-exist due to low overlap.

The addition of almost solely upscale stores in the expansion leads us to another analysis for the latent dominance of Annapolis as regional retail heavyweight.  Annapolis is wealthy, and so too are many of the enclaves nearby.   In addition, wealthy people from both the eastern suburbs of D.C. as well as the southern suburbs of Baltimore will go out of their way for the offerings and selection here.  Also, Annapolis Mall has weathered the recent economic meltdown extremely well.  Even with the crash of the economy, beginning in 2008, the loss of stores has been held to a minimum, and quite a few of the losses at that were the result of failed experiments on the national level and not limited to this specific location (Ruehl, Martin+Osa).

This expansion has also inspired synergy, resulting from the neighboring retail areas around Annapolis Mall working with it instead of competing against it.  The 2007 expansion at Annapolis Mall came just one year prior to the total redevelopment of a failed outdoor mall, Parole Plaza, located just a few blocks away.  Parole Plaza was a decades-old outdoor mall, anchored by D.C.-based Woodward and Lothrop and Sears.  Most of it died in the late 1990s and was torn down in 2004, to make way for an upscale lifestyle center called Annapolis Towne Centre at Parole.  Featuring New Urbanist features like forced density, different styles of housing, grocery, and upscale shops and restaurants, this new development is working in tandem with Annapolis Mall to acquire and keep upscale shoppers busy in the area.  Developers of the new lifestyle center realize that working with Annapolis Mall, while at the same time keeping the same upscale theme, will help them rather than hurt them, as Annapolis Mall delivered crushing blows to Parole Plaza a decade earlier.

Annapolis Mall and its environs are also convenient vacation stops for many D.C. and Baltimore residents as they make their way to shore destinations such as Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and Ocean City.  In similar fashion, Annapolis Mall is also the closest large, super-regional mall for many residents of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the nine counties in the state east of Chesapeake Bay, and to those in southern Delaware.  Delaware may be tax free, but those wishing to visit Nordstrom or many of the other upscale retail stores at Annapolis Mall would come here – at least until 2011, that is, when Christiana Mall in northern Delaware will give birth to Delaware’s first Nordstrom.

We visited Annapolis Mall in Summer 2009 and took the pictures featured here.  As usual, feel free to leave your own comments, experiences, historical facts and any other clarifications.

P.S.  I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos.  My digital camera broke in the middle of this trip so I had to use my iPhone.  I didn’t actually realize they were this terrible until I uploaded them just now.

August 2009:

Baltimore’s busy, urban Mondawmin Mall opened in 1956 as Mondawmin Center, an open-air mall located just three miles from downtown, at the intersection of Gwynns Falls Parkway and Liberty Heights Avenue.  The name Mondawmin was chosen because it was the name of a Native American corn spirit from a 19th century Longfellow poem, and the mall was built on a former corn field.  Mondawmin Center was the very first development by Maryland mall magnate James Rouse, who would later build an empire of shopping centers, planned suburbs and festival marketplaces around the country – before his company was ultimately sold to General Growth in 2004.

Anchored by Sears and a supermarket, it took a few years for Mondawmin Center’s 58 store spaces to be filled to capacity; however, once they were, the mall became very popular.  Meanwhile, competition came calling from nearby Westview Center in 1958, which opened a few miles away in the suburb of Catonsville on US 40, and from Reisterstown Road Plaza, which opened in far northwest Baltimore City in 1962.

In 1963, Rouse enclosed Mondawmin Center, renaming it Mondawmin Mall.  It was supposedly one of the first shopping centers to coin the term ‘mall’ as such, and with the enclosure came a new owner.  Rouse sold the mall during the mid-1960s to a Baltimore real estate developer, which ultimately proved to be a mistake.

In 1973, Sears departed Mondawmin Mall, leaving it without a real anchor.  In 1972, a brand new, larger Sears had opened at the west-suburban Security Square, a regional mall which was much larger and better located along both I-70 and I-695.  At the same time, the demographics in the area immediately surrounding Mondawmin began to change for the worse, as middle class families left in droves following race riots and general social unrest in the late 1960s.  Those who chose to stay in the area were mostly lower income and African-American, which continues to be the dominant demographic today.

The balance of the 1970s and early 1980s were a period of decline at Mondawmin Mall, as the owner of the mall did little to rejuvenate it.  However, previous owner Rouse realized possibilities here, as Mondawmin is one of Baltimore City’s two enclosed malls, and bought the mall back in 1982.  Immediately, Rouse reinvested in it and finally replaced the vacant Sears with in-line space, added a parking deck to the west end of the mall, and renovated the entire structure.  The result was a hodgepodge, confusing floorplan with shopping areas on four distinct levels, though most of the mall is on two levels.

Then, in 1983, the Baltimore subway debuted, and a station next to Mondawmin Mall opened, connecting the mall to downtown and points beyond.  This reinvigoration helped the mall’s success through the rest of the 1980s, though into the 1990s the mall fell into decline once again, mostly due to a perception of crime.

In 1999, Rouse had plans to renovate and expand Mondawmin Mall once again, but they were scrapped, even despite the city’s plans to change the Mondawmin subway station into a regional transit hub.

In 2004, Rouse’s company was sold to General Growth, who embarked upon a 68 million dollar renovation and expansion of the mall, beginning in 2007.  The expansion included adding a Target, AJ Wright, and Shoppers Food Mart grocery store to the mall, and the renovation involved gutting the 1982-era interior.  This project gave Mondawmin Mall anchor stores for the first time since Sears departed in 1973, and gave Baltimore City its first Target store as well.  The reinvigorated interior also included new glass entrances, landscaping, restrooms, lighting, flooring, and other modern design accoutrements.  In addition, the spiral staircase and fountain at center court – the centerpiece of the mall – were also reimagined.  The natural greenery at center court was removed too, so that more kiosks could be installed.  Think you can get away from the dead sea people here?  Think again.

Regarding the renovation, take a look at two sets of photos I took from similar vantage points:

March 2004, before renovation:

August 2008, during renovation:

March 2004, before renovation:

August 2008, during renovation:

Today, Mondawmin is a reinvigorated center positioned for success.  While the perception of crime will keep some away, the mall itself is safer than many realize.  Despite the fact that many murders have occurred in the neighborhoods surrounding Mondawmin, the number of murders that have actually occurred on the property are rare.  And, the number of random crimes that take place at Mondawmin is rarer yet.  Still, many people use the crime statistics for the area in dictating their shopping habits, and choose to avoid Mondawmin completely.  Possibly one of the greatest hindrances for success here has been the perception of crime, and word of mouth marketing as well as the center’s repositioning – away from the dark 1980s look and into modernity – will help Mondawmin in the long run.

I visited Mondawmin Mall twice, in 2004 and 2008.  The differences before and during/after renovation are stark, so be sure to check out the pictures and leave your comments.

March 2004:

August 2008:

Finally, contributor Michael Lisicky sent us these two vintage shots of Sears at Mondawmin Mall:

Last summer, I took a rather extensive trip down to the mid-Atlantic to build up a large stock of photos and content to keep Labelscar going through the winter. I saw an awful lot (and was disappointed at the time that I couldn’t see more) and clearly overestimated how much I’d get done during the cold and supposedly slow winter months. So much for hunkering down with steaming cups of hot cocoa and cranking out three posts a day–I’m still working through that backlog.

One of the more curious malls I visited, and one that I initially planned to post right away, is the General Growth-owned Laurel Mall in Laurel, Maryland, a suburb about halfway between Washington, DC and Baltimore. This fading mall had signs then warning of an impending renovation and revitalization, something that was very clearly in dire need. While the mall was not in awful shape and still had a fair number of tenants, it seemed to be doing surprisingly poorly given the strategic location between two major metropolitan areas.

The 663,000 square foot Laurel Mall opened in 1977, although the present-day mall cobbles together pieces of two older outdoor shopping centers. Laurel Shopping Center housed a Giant Foods and Hecht’s, while a standalone Montgomery Ward was a block away. New York mall developer Shopco bridged the two with the large, two level enclosed mall in 1977, also adding a JCPenney store. By most accounts, the mall did fine through the ’80s and ’90s, although it was less-dominant than area malls like Columbia Mall and White Flint Mall. Then, in 2001, trouble began. Like many malls throughout the country, Laurel Mall was dealt a severe blow by the bankruptcy and closure of Montgomery Ward, and the simultaneous troubles of JCPenney made matters worse, causing the mall to lose two of its three marquee tenants within a year. Customers dwindled and favored other malls and the situation grew increasingly bleak, placing Laurel Mall in receivership a few years back. Today’s anchor stores are Macy’s, Burlington Coat Factory, and International Furniture Liquidators. Note that, as my photos were taken in July 2006, Hecht’s was still around.

According to a recent Washington Post article, the mall is due for a major facelift. The center’s foreboding parking deck, which creates an ugly (and unphotographable) facade along US1, will be demolished and replaced by an outdoor promenade with stores and restaurants. The interior of the mall will remain during Laurel’s reinvention, and will be given a facelift: new owner Somera hope to add a bookstore, movie theatre, and other lifestyle-oriented tenants, while also incorporating decorative elements such as a fountain (it’s outdoor, kids; don’t get too excited) and a clock tower reminiscent of the nearby B&O Railroad station.

It remains to be seen how it turns out, but this relatively charmless mall could certainly use something. Plagued by vacancies, a dingy appearance, and (possibly unsubstantiated) fears of crime, it seems worn out. It’s more successful (and slightly larger) than most typical “dead malls,” which is likely why its getting a deserved second chance. We look forward to seeing how the new plans progress, and are glad that, for once, a revitalization project will focus on maintaining the enclosed portion of the mall while modernizing the center.

Given how long it’s been taking me to produce original content lately, I should probably be naming this post “Chinese Democracy.” Instead, as Mr. Prangeway joked to me earlier, this post is about the “Mall of the Least Resistance;” a center with a relatively small photo set that I can put together before I collapse into a pile atop my keyboard. I swear I won’t be so busy soon; I miss you guys.

Prince Georges Plaza–retitled in 2004 as The Mall at Prince Georges–is a successful, mid-tier mall located in the inner-ring Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, not far from College Park. Originally constructed as an outdoor plaza in the 1950s, the mall was enclosed at some later date. Sadly, my “research” on this mall is turning up quite little, so I may have to defer to the peanut gallery to fill in some details. Unlike a few malls we’ve posted about previously in Prince Georges County, such as the groovy Iverson Mall or the rubble pile over at Landover Mall, this one is located in the suburbs closest to DC’s Northeast quarter, and is not terribly far from College Park (and the Beltway Plaza, another distinctive old mall featured here before).

Despite the mall’s visible age, it appears as though it received a substantial renovation relatively recently, making things bright and shiny (and perhaps a bit boring). A 2002 article about the planned Target store at the center notes they’d replace the space vacated by G.C. Murphy, implying that the space was likely vacant a long, long time before Target arrived. The store finally opened in October 2004, according to this article about the mall’s $6 million renovation, which they peg as happening in 2004. The center mostly employs the classic single-dumbell design, although there are a few things that mix it up. The strange loop in the front of the mall (complete with a truly strange back hallway that hides the bathrooms) and various tucked-away big box anchors are somewhat unusual, as is the way that two of the three anchors are situated at the back of the mall yet in-line with the main concourse–a sure sign that the center began its life as an outdoor plaza.

My photos are somewhat unremarkable, partially due to the busy mall’s narrow main concourse. I did, however, manage to get a just-in-time shot of the Hecht’s store before the great switcheroo of 2006.

Gimme some history, boys and girls, so that I can go to bed.

Downtown Silver Spring is one of the more interesting downtown revitalization efforts that I’ve come across, in a large part because it incorporates an enclosed mall with the rejuvenated streetscape. The development encompasses two separately owned and maintained parcels–the indoor, 5-level (yet small, at only 300,000 square feet) City Place Mall; and the outdoor “urban neighborhood” of Downtown Silver Spring.

Silver Spring, Maryland is located at the top of the District of Columbia diamond, just inside of the Washington Beltway, in affluent Montgomery County. Arguably the second-largest city in Maryland after Baltimore, Silver Spring’s downtown experienced the same post-war lows as many major American cities, but like many has seen its downtown spring back to life in the 2000s.

The neighborhood surrounding Downtown Silver Spring and City Place has its roots (obviously) in Silver Spring’s historic downtown retail district, which included Hecht’s, JCPenney, and Sears in the 1950s. By the late 1980s, however, the area fell into decline and Hecht’s vacated their large store in the center of downtown Silver Spring. The former Hecht’s was converted to a tall enclosed mall–City Place–in 1992, but the mall failed to attract major tenants and became known as a budget mall. This is largely still at least somewhat true today, as City Place counts Marshalls and Burlington Coat Factory as its anchors. In this decade, however, a large portion of the downtown area surrounding the City Place Mall has been redeveloped as an active outdoor streetscape, with a variety of retail, restaurant, and entertainment-oriented tenants. Several streets are closed to vehicular traffic and used as pedestrian malls, and the development has a symbiotic relationship with the existing enclosed mall. Today the Downtown Silver Spring portion of the development has tenants like a 20 screen movie theatre, Whole Foods Market, Borders Books and Music, and Pier 1 Imports.

If I have any complaint with developments like these, it’s that they tend to be far more homogenous than the downtowns they replace. While I applaud any project that brings activity and life back to our faded downtowns, I hate that it has to eternally revolve around Starbucks and Cold Stone Creameries and that the end result feels like Celebration, Florida. For example, little separates the end product at Downtown Silver Spring from much of the work done 40 miles up the road in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor or from the Newport on the Levee development in Newport, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati. Even in their worst downswings, our cities derived their life from the unique businesses they hosted, from local restaurants to used CD and book stores. Developments like these are a start, but hopefully their visitors will fan out to surrounding blocks and enjoy the offerings of neighborhoods that aren’t leased by a single corporate parent.

Westfield is one of my least favorite of the major mall developers because of their tendency to make every mall look the same. However, a recent renovation at the Wheaton Plaza (or “Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton,” whatever) in Wheaton, Maryland merits a quick ‘n dirty post.

As this is the first Westfield mall that we’ve written about, it merits a rant: Seriously, what gives with Westfield’s annoying naming scheme? Don’t they realize that labeling every one of their malls as “Westfield Shoppingtown _____” is a disastrous attempt at over-branding, an effort that strips malls of one of their few marks of personality and likely saps the lone strands of personal or community “connection” that anyone might have a remote chance of feeling towards their local mall? It’s a waste of the only shred of potential goodwill that a large shopping mall could ever hope to engender as part of their communities. People routinely complain that every town in America looks the same; that we all have Wal-Mart and Home Depot and Applebee’s. Why not at least let each individual enclosed mall exist as its own place, with its own name and logo? Ever notice how the band Chicago put out, like, 30 records, and numbered (rather than named) every single one of them and nowadays, no one ever starts raving that “Chicago X was soo awesome, man, so much more awesome than Chicago VIII!”? I don’t work for Westfield, but if I did I would abandon their misguided branding practices completely.

I didn’t expect much from this mall, and honestly Wheaton Plaza is not exactly a unique snowflake. Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton is organized in a pretty conservative “T” pattern, with JCPenney and Target at each end, Macy’s about 1/4 up from one end on a small side hallway, and a dead Hecht’s store at the end of the “T” wing. I have no exterior shots due to the way the entire front of the mall is surrounded up close by a large parking deck (which is a common problem in the DC area, I’ve found), but I got a few cool pictures of the interior, which has a few snazzy upgrades, best displayed in the above photo of the Macy’s store. This new Macy’s store actually opened as part of the mall’s recent renovation that was completed in 2005. It sounds like the Wheaton Plaza, which opened in 1959 as an open-air shopping center, had long struggled against nearby behemoths like Westfield Shoppingtown Montgomery and White Flint, and this recent renovation brought the 1.3 million square foot mall situated just outside of the DC beltway up to par as a successful mid-tier mall, adding tenants like Express, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Hollister. It’s not as upscale as its sister malls, but it doesn’t need to be: Montgomery is the higher-end yet mass-market mall, White Flint corners the higher end of the market, and the Downtown Silver Spring complex serves the entertainment-minded consumers.

Wheaton did have one large vacancy, created recently when Hecht’s vacated their space at the rear of the mall. Unfortunately a little foresight would’ve saved Macy’s from constructing a brand new store only to then close the mall’s Hecht’s just months later, but this is the way of corporate mergers I suppose. I did manage to scrounge the following picture (NOT taken by me) online, for those who’d like to see every last May-signed store they possibly can before it’s too late:

If you’ve got the goods on the Wheaton Plaza’s history, comment away. I came up empty-handed this time.

Security Square Mall is a large, 1 million square foot enclosed mall located in the western suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. Until it came time to write this post, I didn’t actually realize that Security Square Mall is technically located in Baltimore, albeit an unincorporated section of Baltimore outside of the western edge of the I-695 beltway on Security Boulevard. Named for the massive Social Security Administration offices which are adjacent to the center, its location is decidedly suburban.

Built in 1972, the 120-store Security Square Mall is laid out in a large eagle-shaped pattern, with a long, curved main hallway crossed by a large straight hallway. Hecht’s anchors the northern end of the straight cross hallway, and the two ends of the long “wingspan” of the mall are Sears and Modell’s Sporting Goods. The Modell’s space was occupied by Montgomery Ward until the chain’s closure in 2001. The mall has been renovated twice, in 1988 and 1998. Judging by the extensive use of sepia-toned neon throughout the center, I’m guessing that the 1998 renovation was the more minor of the two. The Floridian color scheme and impressively animated shopping bag logo pin it pretty closely to the late 1980s.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Security Square Mall was the anchor at the opposite end of the “straight” wing from Hecht’s. Originally a JCPenney, the space was overtaken in 2003 by “Seoul Plaza,” a two level extension of the mall itself wherein the anchor store was converted to small stores and a common mall area. This “mall within a mall” still includes the escalators from the original JCPenney, and is leased entirely to stores selling Korean goods including a grocery store. For the life of me I don’t know why I didn’t take more pictures of this feature, but here’s the one I did take:

Once Baltimore’s premiere shopping destination, Security Square Mall today seems to suffer from the competition of even more dominant malls. The massive, high-end Mall at Columbia Town Centre is only about ten miles to the south, and the Owings Mills Mall–a large, two-level mall that has also struggled some in recent years–is located about ten miles to the north. Both of these other malls seem to benefit from being located in areas that are at least perceived to be safer. My own visit to Security Square was cut somewhat short (hence the shortage of photos of the exterior) because a particular group of mall patrons, unhappy with our presence, decided to make an unwelcoming comment of a racial nature. While I am certain that these young women did not speak for mall management or the vast majority of the mall’s patrons, it did hang like a pall on the visit and lead us to choose not to linger.

It is unfortunately a sad reality–painted very vividly in the shopping malls throughout the United States–that people of different races or economic classes are still so frequently segregated, even in where they shop. This is, however, a much larger topic for another day. Note this passage from an article on the mall on Security Management.com in 2001: