Malls

[CdnCarrie]

I stopped in at a local mall this Saturday afternoon. Haven't been there in a few months.
It was busy! Not packed like Christmas but for sure hopping.

Keep hearing about malls dying but not seeing that here at all.

How about in your neck of the woods?

 

[luvnwdwgal]

We use to have a big mall about 20 minutes away but slowly it is dying out. The only big store left is JCP and it probably won’t be there too much longer.

 

[loves to dive]

Our mall has one or two tiny little stores and I think Belks is still there. It has been dying out for years since you can get to the Mall of Georgia in about 45 min. to a hour. I, personally, haven't been to our mall in at least 8 years.

 

[sam_gordon]

The large mall in our area is doing just fine. Probably 90%+ occupied and gets a lot of traffic.
The small mall in our town is probably about 10-20% occupied and not much traffic.

While travelling for work, I try to walk ~30 minutes in the evening. If the weather is bad, I'll go walk around a mall. Elmira, NY, Joplin, MO, and I can't remember where the 3rd one was all were only about 20-25% occupied and very little traffic.

 

[nw6675]

Dying. Macy's and JCP left, but almost nothing else.

Larger metro area near us has a mixture of dying, semi ok, and what I will call normal.

We go on rare occasion. Mostly order online.

 

[BrianL]

We have two malls, and while they can be busy and sitll have some good stores, they also have a lot of no-name stores and can be a little sketchy at times. There have been incidents at both of them. They both have one large anchor store position that sits empty too.

 

[barkley]

we have 2 near us. we happened in to one right before covid was becoming known and were surpised to see so many vacant stores. i've not been back to that one since, went to the other a month or so ago and it's big anchor stores (jc penny and sears) are long gone but no nearly as many empty shops except maybe the 'food court'-only about 3 options.

 

[CdnCarrie]

We have 4 real malls in our city. All seem to be doing fine.

 

[MamaMermaid]

Not good in these parts! Lots of random stores that stay for a bit then close...

 

[HopperFan]

Dying.

I'm there 1-2 times a week for movies but you enter from outside so don't have to go inside. About 2 months ago walked through and shocked by the large percentage of EMPTY stores.

We have JCP, Macy's, Dillards and Von Maur. I live in an affluent area so not like folks can't afford to go shopping but many high end stores (Apple etc) moved out to these village style shopping areas they keep building.

Going through years of different projects being applied for that would demolish half of it and connect to live/work/play but city keeps saying no. So they are happy with a half empty mall.

I have no interest in walking in the mall for shopping purposes, the quality of stores slowly going down, and it just doesn't feel safe anymore.

 

[slo]

Dying. Macy's and JCP left, but almost nothing else.

Larger metro area near us has a mixture of dying, semi ok, and what I will call normal.

We go on rare occasion. Mostly order online.

Same by me
Truthfully….the crime runs rampant around our mall (20 minutes from my house) and people are to afraid to go.

 

[tvguy]

Sadly, malls here in the Sacramento area are mostly dead. There are three within 6 miles of where I live.
One had a Sams Club and a Walmart. The Sams Club closed and became a Costco Business Center. The Walmart closed and was torn down and a building that was supposed to be a Amazon Fresh store built. Building was finished a year ago, and now Amazon has abandoned plans to open there. All the interior stores have been converted to office space, and the department store at the west end is a Federal Office building with the National Weather Service in it. Other than Costco, the only other store still operating is See's Candy. There are about 4 fast food restaurants in the far north parking lot, although Panera has since closed.
Second one, the Macy's store at the north end closed and is vacant, the department store on the south end was once a JCPenney, then a local Department store, is now a grocery store. About 20 percent of the interior was converted into a movie theater. The sporting goods store is now a gym, there is a Ross still there, and a hamburger restaurant.
Third mall, Sears is gone, and many empty store fronts inside. The city it is in wants to tear half of it down and build apartments on the property.
Honorable mention, and mall that never was. It is 30 miles from me in the southern end of the county. Mall was partially built, but never occupied. Project was abandoned in about 2009 and it sat vacant for years and got the nickname "The Ghost Mall". A local Indian tribe got the state to declare the land tribal land, they bulldozed the empty buildings, and built a casino that opened in last August.

 

[Smugpugmug]

The three malls in my area are doing fine. They get pretty busy on the weekends and holidays. One of them has a Medieval Times so that gets super busy around show times. I do notice that many stores in all 3 malls almost never have what I want so I end up ordering it online anyway. Also all 3 malls have enacted a "no unsupervised teen" policy so anyone under 17 is banned from walking around the mall without someone 18 and older supervising them. This was only a policy at 1 of the malls but all of them have it now. It certainly explains why more teens are interacting online vs. IRL nowadays.

While visiting my sister in Florida, I went to a mall nearby and other than the AMC and Bath and Body Works, the mall was dead. It felt weird walking through a giant hallway of empty stores to get to the movie theater.

 

[fla4fun]

Same by me
Truthfully….the crime runs rampant around our mall (20 minutes from my house) and people are to afraid to go.

That’s what happened to the mall closest to me, which was about fifteen miles away. It was a great mall when it was new, but after about ten years it started going downhill. It’s probably been more than fifteen years since I’ve been there, so it could be empty by now.

There are still some good malls in Orlando, if I feel like driving that far. The last time I went to a mall was when I picked up my new phone last September, which was in one of the normal and fairly busy malls, about thirty miles away. They keep building those outdoor shopping complexes here, but it’s too hot from May through October to shop at them (not to mention the summer monsoons).

So long as I can get free shipping, I would rather shop online for most things.

 

[kdonnel]

Some are doing well, some not so well.

The one closest to me is doing well.

The next one down the road is doing ok.

The next one down the road is the stand in for Starcourt Mall in Stranger Things. Back in 2018 the police found a body that had been there over two months in an empty food court store without anyone noticing. Last I heard the mall was closed and only Macy's, Mega Mart, and Beauty Master anchor stores were open.

 

[CdnCarrie]

Wonder if it’s a Canadian/ American thing?
All of our suburban malls are busy and safe.

Rest of Canada?

 

[CynBeth]

The mall in my area closed a number of years ago. There are a few about a half hour away in different directions and the once in a while we are there seems like nice crowds.

 

[Imzadi]

Same by me
Truthfully….the crime runs rampant around our mall (20 minutes from my house) and people are to afraid to go.

I saw a story on Good Morning America a few weeks ago where they reported on a huge shopping mall in the center of San Francisco's tourist district is finally closing down due to how much crime there now is, and how that will impact tourism and all the other adjacent businesses, like hotels & restaurants.

The reporter told us he couldn't even stand in front of the shopping mall to report the story as the police had told him it was too dangerous to be standing outside there at that hour. It was 6am.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

I'm in New Jersey, and the malls I go to sometimes are the Deptford Mall and the Cherry Hill Mall. Deptford seems to be doing better than Cherry Hill with customers. Cherry Hill had a remodel years back and now is more high end, which seems to have slowed its sales. It's only crowded around the holidays.

Honestly, I don't enjoy any kind of mall anymore. If my sister and I feel like going shopping, we go to the Gloucester Outlets.

 

[Jml813]

Dying.

I'm there 1-2 times a week for movies but you enter from outside so don't have to go inside. About 2 months ago walked through and shocked by the large percentage of EMPTY stores.

We have JCP, Macy's, Dillards and Von Maur. I live in an affluent area so not like folks can't afford to go shopping but many high end stores (Apple etc) moved out to these village style shopping areas they keep building.

Going through years of different projects being applied for that would demolish half of it and connect to live/work/play but city keeps saying no. So they are happy with a half empty mall.

I have no interest in walking in the mall for shopping purposes, the quality of stores slowing going down, and it just doesn't feel safe anymore.

Sounds like you're describing North Point Mall. Which is my local also. Agree that Avalon killed it. But Avalon is doing just fine, although I'm not sure how much longer. A lot of the stores are going to make it the sky high rent. I will say Mall of Georgia is doing just fine though.