Posted on 01/05/2015 7:45:37 AM PST by C19fan
Inside the gleaming mall here on the Sunday before Christmas, just one thing was missing: shoppers.
The upbeat music of “Jingle Bell Rock” bounced off the tiles, and the smell of teriyaki chicken drifted from the food court, but only a handful of stores were open at the sprawling enclosed shopping center. A few visitors walked down the long hallways and peered through locked metal gates into vacant spaces once home to retailers like H&M, Wet Seal and Kay Jewelers.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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Dead Shopping Malls.
The hidden financial consequences of ObamaCare slowly destroying families’ “disposable income” ...
And we ain’t seen nuttin’ yet ...
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Malls are dead. When you put together outrageous leases with a lack of foot traffic, you get empty malls. Many of our local malls have integrated movie theaters and large restaurant and bar presences to boost patronage, but it only goes so far.
Many of your traditional anchor stores such as JC Penney, Macy’s, Sears, and Burdines have been faltering as of late and can’t keep people coming to the stores.
The dozen or so mall riots by “teens” will surely bring people back.
Second tier malls are dead. First tier malls are doing just fine. In fact, one of the biggest malls in the country, the King of Prussia Mall, is undergoing a massive expansion. Others in exclusive suburbs of Washington, Atlanta and Dallas, to name a few cities, are too. Its the ones that don’t attract high end stores and that did not improve their appearance that are dying.
Part of this, besides the Obamacare and economy that hasn't recovered, is the pandering to the less than 2% of the population. i.e, the homosexuals.
It takes more than the 2% to keep a business profitable.
The old program was to appeal to as many people as possible.
I feel like they don't want my business because they don't stock the clothes that I like, and I wouldn't be caught dead in what they call clothes, now.
We need to keep malls as safe havens when the undead attack.
“We need to keep malls as safe havens when the undead attack.”
Indeed.
But always remember....cardio and double tap!
The two DC-area malls mentioned in the article, White Flint and Landover, failed because of a change in demographics. White Flint is now too close to illegal sanctuary towns and surrounded by crowded roads, and Landover, where the Redskins play, used to be isolated with interstate access but is now surrounded by Sec 8 housing.
I agree; here in central Europe, malls are doing quite nicely. There’s three in my town, including a brand-new one with some high-end stores. All three are invariably crowded with shoppers.
A high-end mall in Prague (Palladium) recently sold for a little over one billion USD. Palladium is indeed high-end, very high-end.
It’s only competition in Prague is Parižská street, where it’s entirely possible to drop a quarter million bucks in about five minutes. :O
I remember when Landover Mall went downhill. It was mostly due to gang presence who scared off other shoppers, as I recall.
I remember activists complained to the Lerner Corporation that they let the mall fall apart due to not.providing adequate security. But they had nothing to say about the youth gangs who created the big need for security in the first place.
Anecdotal evidence about Landover Mall is that stores there didn’t carry the same merchandise as other stores in the same retail chain. This issue caused some people I know to shop elsewhere, as it seemed the stores were gearing merchandise to other ethnic groups.
And I recall activists saying that Lerner didn’t do enough to recruit high end stores to Landover Mall. Sad to say, major retailers pulled out of that mall one by one. And decision makers of major chains decided to locate elsewhere.
When we hear so much about mall violence in recent weeks, it makes me think of why Landover Mall went under. There were critical numbers of menacing youth at Landover whose presence intimidated shoppers.
There were other indicators of crime as well. I remember the movie theaters seats there were frequently ripped up with all of the stuffing torn out of the seats. Entire rows of seats rocked back and forth because the bolts attaching the seats to the floor had been sheared off. Such experience in a movie theater makes one think twice about ever going back to that place.
Nowadays they build ‘trendy’ malls that look just like downtown blocks and they’re open-air. Who wants to muck about shopping in a selection of stores you’ve got to walk to in crappy weather? Rather ignores the convenient logistics of an enclosed mall. I don’t get that one.
Southwyck Mall - big, beautiful mall near where I used to live in Toledo, Ohio - closed down then demolished after it could not survive losing 3 anchor store chains within a couple of years.
Parkway Center Mall - Conveniently located by an Interstate exit just outside Downtown Pittsburgh, it nevertheless succumbed to the loss of nearly all chains that were formerly tenants (PharMor, ChiChi’s, CompUSA, etc.) The economy actually got it long before it’s predicted fall into a mine shaft.
Century III Mall - once the nation’s biggest, it just lost it’s Sears store, leaving the entire north end essentially vacant. Anchor at the south end is JC Penney. I don’t give ‘em long.
Maybe, maybe not.
BUT! Those stores used to be the only source of specific goods (Craftsman tools, Sears appliances, etc) and clothes that were “higher-end” than elsewhere. Now? Everybody carries the identical foreign-made garbage.
So why drive to a mall when on-line is available for less money, less hassle and carries the same stuff - or evenmore choices? When Walmart has the same as Sears and Nordstrums and Penny's and Target and Sears and Ace hardware and Home Depot and Lowes?
To get “good” tools or specialty tools I MUST go on-line or to industrial supply places - which have to order overnight delivery anyway. And I've NEVER gone “downtown” to shop since the mid-60’s.
I go to a large indoor mall once every three years. The stores I patronize all seem to be in large strip malls. I prefer walking outside to buy stuff to being cooped up inside a mall in a “controlled situation”
for several years now i have avoided the malls during the holidays... i buy online for the most part... i went to the mall twice in December... once to see a movie, and once to eat lunch at a restaurant in the mall... i take that back—3 times... the third time was to meet our large family at Buca di Beppo—which is at the mall...
bump
It cuts down on loitering by feral youth who treat the air conditioned mall as their house.
Wasn’t there a female singer in the 80’s who’s whole deal was putting concerts on in Malls and she even had an MTV video of it? Guess she’s having a tough time getting people to her concerts now....
Randall Park Mall, once the biggest mall in the world, is in the process of being torn down.
Beachwood Mall, the creme de la creme of Cleveland malls, has lost its' sparkle and its' upper-crust appeal because of car thefts, opportunistic black crime and violence.
And now, you can get whatever you need online, so lots of people don't even go there anymore, because it's so much easier, less dangerous, and often cheaper online.
Malls, at least mega-malls seem to have outlived their place in history.
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