Tear mall. Lose business. Walmart.

[hardcorestitch]

The Monroeville Mall in the Pittsburgh area is gone forever, and you can thank Walmart for kicking nearly 120 other businesses. Although in the future there will be opportunities for businesses to return under the new mixed use development, some may not come back ever.

 

[citruscurtis]

....and how many rivers flow by the mall.... would one of them be the Amazon???

 

[tamitru32]

I'm on west coast and several of our large local malls have either closed or are being held open by less than 25% of original stores. Not sure if it's the plethora of big box stores, online sites or both.

 

[barkley]

we have 3 malls in the city near us. one I think stays open b/c it has some nicer eateries, the AMC, nordstroms (only one for almost 300 miles) and is near the tourist area draws. the others? one is primarily shoe stores it seems and the other I went to for the first time in about a year to find that it is heavily inhabited by all kinds of stores selling plushies of all sizes (not seasonal-year round stores). I think barnes and nobles along with regal cinemas keeps that one open. we have and have had for years a wealth of walmarts-they are not impacting those buisnesses. COVID took the wind out of many of the mall retailer's sails and they've never recovered/come back.

 

[hardcorestitch]

I'm on west coast and several of our large local malls have either closed or are being held open by less than 25% of original stores. Not sure if it's the plethora of big box stores, online sites or both.

You can partially blame online shopping (bleugh) for that. Then again, you can’t try clothes online. And most especially from Disney, you can hug Mickey behind a screen.

 

[slo]

We still have malls by me - some are successful and some are not. All have Walmarts, Targets, Amazon warehouses and etc by them. What dictates which malls are successful is the crime that takes place at them. I have a great mall about 20 minutes from me, because of the crime that happens there it’s failing. I love going to a nice mall, and now I need to drive 45 - 60 minutes to go to a nice one. Kinda stinks!

 

[kanerf]

Part of the problem is that the mall stores mostly concentrated on young people, teens to twenties, and many if not most of those groups now shop mostly online. Also, the mall as a hang-out for same has mostly gone away as these same groups spend much of their time online which they can do from anywhere. How often have you gone to a fast food place and seen a group of teen's all on their phones and not talking to each other. The mall is dead until they find a way to attract other groups.

 

[5kidsmommy]

We have a nice outdoor mall near us. When it was built I thought it was a laughable idea but it's still going strong. They have houses, apartments, a greeting card company's headquarters and lots of high end stores and eateries. Plus a hotel. It's like it's only little city.

We have a more traditional mall about 20 minutes away. It's a mish-mash of big name stores and mom and pops. It clearly is struggling but still there. Every year I think it'll be the last but it still exists.

 

[Suger Mag]

It has been interesting watching the evolution of our nearest mall town (Hadley Ma)

I remember when the new mall was built the anchor store was a JC Penney, movie theaters, food court

Then a Walmart moved in, then a Target, Barnes, PetSmart, DSW etc... all these big exterior facing stores .... the area is bustling and the mall is still there, but all of the action is on the outside stores, and inside the actual mall it is struggling to keep the little stores filled.

 

[ddluvsdisney]

Deleted

 

[QueenIsabella]

The mall in our city is surviving--for now--by reinventing itself. Many stores are now outside-entry (Ulta, 5 Below). They added a Lidl--again, outside entry only. Parts of the parking lot have been repurposed to house strip mall type offerings, mostly food places.

The newer shopping venues, for lack of a better word, contain a lot of mixed-use space. One has housing above the stores, and is meant to mimic a village, where people live, work, and shop. I don't care for the style--they're meant to be "walkable", which just means that parking is limited and can be far away. You have to drive to get from Barnes and Noble to World Market, unless you live there (you wouldn't want to schlep from one to the other and back, especially carrying shopping bags). Another one of these faux villages has my dentist in it--never enough parking--as well as the hotel where my DD and her husband stay when they visit. It's good for them--they can walk to grab a bagel or French pastry. But, I rarely shop in that area.

I don't think it's fair to blame Walmart--they go for a different demographic than these outdoor shopping areas I'm describing (and none of them have a hardware store or general merchandise, although they do have a grocery).

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

Are Outlets considrered malls? And further what is obsession with the outlets, I never seem to find any great deals at least for thing I go for.

 

[Suger Mag]

Are Outlets considrered malls? And further what is obsession with the outlets, I never seem to find any great deals at least for thing I go for.

Might as well be...

when they were real outlets you used to get great deals... they were very limited in number and were often nearby the parent factory/business.... then that changed. More 'outlet' stores/centers started springing up all over.... really just carrying regualr priced items and it basically became a new name for a shopping center (outside mall) with brand name exterior facing stores

 

[kdonnel]

I have three nearby malls.

Two are seemingly doing well. They are both full with with only a store or two that are vacant. The vacancies are usually filled quickly. The spaces are crowded with people, at least on the weekends.

One is a traditional mall, the other is branded as an interior outlet mall, but is really just a mall, I'm not sure what makes it outlet.

The third, well it is the stand in for Starcourt Mall in Stranger Things. It has been years since the interior of the mall has been open, only two anchor stores, if you can call them that, are open now. The county has been trying since 2018 to buy the anchor stores from the owners and I believe have just one hold out at this point. Redevelopment of the acreage is part of the counties 2045 plan.

There have also been several of the newer style outdoor malls that have opened nearby. I guess the pendulum always swings.

First we had strip shopping, then someone said hey let's put all the stores in an airconditioned/environmentally controlled space, then someone said I am tired of parking near one store and walking to all the others, let's build a strip shopping so people can drive to each store instead of walking, we will call it an outdoor mall!

I don't think it will be long before someone says hey, I have this great idea! Let's put a roof over the outdoor malls and make them indoor malls so you don't have to walk to and from your car repeatedly in the rain!

 

[QueenIsabella]

I have three nearby malls.

Two are seemingly doing well. They are both full with with only a store or two that are vacant. The vacancies are usually filled quickly. The spaces are crowded with people, at least on the weekends.

One is a traditional mall, the other is branded as an interior outlet mall, but is really just a mall, I'm not sure what makes it outlet.

The third, well it is the stand in for Starcourt Mall in Stranger Things. It has been years since the interior of the mall has been open, only two anchor stores, if you can call them that, are open now. The county has been trying since 2018 to buy the anchor stores from the owners and I believe have just one hold out at this point. Redevelopment of the acreage is part of the counties 2045 plan.

There have also been several of the newer style outdoor malls that have opened nearby. I guess the pendulum always swings.

First we had strip shopping, then someone said hey let's put all the stores in an airconditioned/environmentally controlled space, then someone said I am tired of parking near one store and walking to all the others, let's build a strip shopping so people can drive to each store instead of walking, we will call it an outdoor mall!

I don't think it will be long before someone says hey, I have this great idea! Let's put a roof over the outdoor malls and make them indoor malls so you don't have to walk to and from your car repeatedly in the rain!

30-some years ago, Saratoga (NY) built a village-style "faux outlet" mall. It was intended for you to park and walk around to the various shops. It was perfectly fine in the summer, but they somehow overlooked the fact that Saratoga gets, on average, about 7 feet of snow a year. So in the winter time, you were schlepping in from your car, climbing over snowdrifts as you went from store to store, carrying your packages, while wearing a heavy winter coat, plus hat, gloves, and so forth. It was not a success. They tried turning into a small business-type venue--our accountant was there for a while--but I don't know how it's done since.

Meanwhile, a similar design (less the outlets) seems to do fine in Myrtle Beach--more year-round traffic, less snow, among other things.

 

[kdonnel]

30-some years ago, Saratoga (NY) built a village-style "faux outlet" mall. It was intended for you to park and walk around to the various shops. It was perfectly fine in the summer, but they somehow overlooked the fact that Saratoga gets, on average, about 7 feet of snow a year. So in the winter time, you were schlepping in from your car, climbing over snowdrifts as you went from store to store, carrying your packages, while wearing a heavy winter coat, plus hat, gloves, and so forth. It was not a success. They tried turning into a small business-type venue--our accountant was there for a while--but I don't know how it's done since.

Meanwhile, a similar design (less the outlets) seems to do fine in Myrtle Beach--more year-round traffic, less snow, among other things.

Environment does play a big part in the success or failure of the latest style outdoor malls.

But I think there is more to it than just environment.

People, myself included, are attracted to new.

New tends to also have all the stores that are currently popular.

So people in less than ideal climates put up with it. I know I actively avoid the outdoor malls on rainy days, on the hottest summer days, and on the coldest winter days. It's only the perfect spring and fall days that I actually prefer outdoor malls over indoor malls.

 

[_19disnA]

Traditional malls seem to be going away for a number of reasons. People don't make a day of 'shopping' like they used in the past going from one store to the next. Many indoor/enclosed malls where I used to live became hang-outs for unruly teens who had nothing better to do making them less desirable for those who actually wanted to shop. Heating/cooling large indoor areas had to be a significant expense for the mall operator. I don't think it is as simple as blaming Walmart. Others stores like Target sell similar items and some items are better to see in person than buying online. I don't see any one type of other store as being the total picture regarding malls falling out of favor.

There is an outdoor style mall near when I now live and it seems to be doing fine. They have a variety of stores from a department store, phone store, Starbucks, shoe store, candy store, grocery store and a few small restaurants. That seems to be the more successful format lately. People can more easily pick/choose where to park and shop based on what they are looking for.

 

[hardcorestitch]

I have three nearby malls.

Two are seemingly doing well. They are both full with with only a store or two that are vacant. The vacancies are usually filled quickly. The spaces are crowded with people, at least on the weekends.

One is a traditional mall, the other is branded as an interior outlet mall, but is really just a mall, I'm not sure what makes it outlet.

The third, well it is the stand in for Starcourt Mall in Stranger Things. It has been years since the interior of the mall has been open, only two anchor stores, if you can call them that, are open now. The county has been trying since 2018 to buy the anchor stores from the owners and I believe have just one hold out at this point. Redevelopment of the acreage is part of the counties 2045 plan.

There have also been several of the newer style outdoor malls that have opened nearby. I guess the pendulum always swings.

First we had strip shopping, then someone said hey let's put all the stores in an airconditioned/environmentally controlled space, then someone said I am tired of parking near one store and walking to all the others, let's build a strip shopping so people can drive to each store instead of walking, we will call it an outdoor mall!

I don't think it will be long before someone says hey, I have this great idea! Let's put a roof over the outdoor malls and make them indoor malls so you don't have to walk to and from your car repeatedly in the rain!

Outlet = perceived lower prices.

Now if only MY local outlet malls had the Disney character warehouses or outlets (the one up in Williamsburg used to have a Disney store until last decade )…

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

I don't usually go in malls. There's an indoor/outdoor mall within about 30 minutes that I'll get to maybe once every other year, and I'm usually only in the outdoor part of it. When I need something, I usually get it online. I don't really enjoy browsing/shopping, if I'm looking for something specific, it's easier to find online than in person, and I also prefer to avoid crowded shopping areas due to the mass shooting possibility. It seems like a few times a year we'll hear about a shooting at a local mall, or even just a loud noise mistaken for shooting that then causes a panic. Not interested in that.

 

[longboard55]

This might sound crazy, yes Amazon, and Walmart but I also blame social media. There was a time not long ago when people would go to malls just to do something. Now we play on our phones. Look at the people in the mall next time you go, half have their phone in their face