Rail transit systems depend on a hub and spoke system to feed people in and out of downtown for work and shoping. The Department stores and Offiices moved to the Suburbs in Office Parks and Indoor shoping malls around the Suberban Interstate Beltways.
Now the malls that killed downtown are dying too…read the follwing blog
Actually, I can point to a number of malls that were “dying” or “dead” which have had a rebirth recently. In Dallas a number of close in malls have had a renaisance. Here in DC there is massive renewal of retail downtown. Baltimore has a thriving area around the inner harbor sparked by large public works projects to bring people into the inner core. There are at least 2 first built suburban malls in Atlanta which have experienced a rebirth after a near death experience. Downtown retail and residential development has also taken off in a number of other cities. Cities have always had life cycles of development and growth. The trick for city management and planning is to figure out how to limit the downturns and stimulate the upturns. People like the new, but they will only deal with so much traffic and congestion before they look for something closer.
They over-built in the 90’s. At least of around Northern Illinois there seems to be a bit of consolidation of malls, where the smaller malls close as the main centeral one takes over thier role. Also the shopping plaza’s seem to have cut into them too. Why share a building with a bunch of stores when you can have your own stand alone store and be speard out (urban sprawl).[2c]
Dixie Mall is in shambles…
Thanks to Jake and Elwood[8D]
Bert
So the demise of malls can be atributed to…Other Bigger malls??
Up here lower prices across the lake in Burlington Vt seem to be the problem…
Back home in Cleveland the suberban population is getting older and does not drive around as much…On the other hand just like railroads Major Depatment stores like Dillards and Macys have merged or consolodated into one unit. So that Malls that have been built with space for 5 large department stores are now stuck with one or two tenents. My idea was to extend to the Light Rail to go Directly into the mall. Potomac Place in Maryland does this.
I know one of the malls out here that was “all that” when my family moved here (11 years ago in September) was in a total nosedive (last time I was there, only 4 restaurants remained in the food court) but a Target is moving in where a JC Penny used to be. The Target opens sometime later this month, we’ll see if this mall has a rebirth.
Naw, too many banks for a long time were willing to hold the paper on mall construction. The industry went crazy and overbuilt.
This easy-money mentality contributed greatly to the savings & loan fiasco of the late 1980s. Plus, too many small malls were built without a solid “magnet” tenant. Without a biggie to pull in the numbers, the small malls slowly died on the vine. Around here, they are not filled so much with high-traffic retail businesses as they are with storefront offices for service businesses like dentists, insurance agencies, lawyers and the like. Landlords may still be getting their rent, but the community is not getting the sales tax revenue it expected when the malls were first proposed as retail bastions.
Milwaukee has suffered from the mall craze too, but for a different reason.
In the late 90’s Northrdige was a pretty big attraction, but crime began to soar as the neighborhood went sour. Mall security didn’t do much to stop petty theft and drug deals in the parking lot (I witnessed several). Finally the big anchor stores pulled out and the smaller stores left too. Today the mall is abandoned, although there is talk of trying to renovate it. The problems that were at Northridge left the mall when it closed and popped up at the malls that remained open. (Mayfair, Southridge, etc.) I guess we’ll see if the owners of those malls are willing to crack down on crime the way Northridge wasn’t able to. Only time will tell.
We had “Old Chicago” in the mid-1970s, at that time one of the largest under-one-roof malls in the world. It got terrific publicity before and around the time it opened. It had a full-size indoor amusement park with Ferris Wheel, Merry-Go-Round, roller coasters, etc. in the center of a square building. The stores were built with staggered offsets, and everything had a vintage look – the floors on the walkways were made from street pavers, there were gaslights along the “curbs” – all creating a warm, 1900s street-like setting. A terrific, novel idea.
Problem is, most stores were in the 600 to 1,500 square foot range. No central “magnet” store. No big spaces. They soon found out the amusement park wasn’t enough of a draw to support the smallish, specialty retail shops – candles, candy, cards, books, sundries, etc. that were the retail tenants. Plus, the carnival rides drew in mostly teenagers, who came there for fun, but lacked the desire or income to shop.
Old Chicago survived maybe for 4-5 years in various incarnations, but is long gone. The land where it stood is now an outdoor auto auction, I believe.
A once thriving mall near Syracuse is now a huge auto dealership.
One “anchor” site at another nearby mall has had four different tenants, and now has an auto dealership in one of the original anchor sites. I can’t count the number of smaller tenants that have come and gone.
The same thing has happened to many “strip” malls - barely a memory of their once thriving selves.
solz, ya beat me to it! Also remember there was Capitol Court, which seemed to meet the wrecking ball as Northridge gasped the last of its life. Now what was Capitol Court seems to have gone inside-out, becoming more of a neighborhood attraction than a sealed-in captive mall. Northridge is slowly coming back to life, also with somewhat of an inside-out design. Southgate was razed to be replaced with a Wal*Mart, though the oldest building still stands as a sort of outlot-minimall. (Railroad content: the basement of this building is home to probably the largest model railroad in the Milwaukee area.) Just south of Southgate, Loomis Point was mostly razed (except for the former Kohl’s Foods which now houses Office Max) to make way for a Super Kmart – right before K’s bankruptcy! So much of the new building went unused for a short time until new tenants were found.
And then there’s Grand Avenue. They’re trying, but I’m still not quite sure exactly what they are trying to do…
Here in Florida, we’re actually demolishing malls built in the 60s and 70s and redeveloping the area, mostly into condo projects with small retail (like coffee shops).
I find something oddly satisfying when I see a defunct mall being torn down.
One rail-related note: When the old Parkside mall was torn down in St. Petersburg, the last two tenants to vacate were a hair salon and the Amtrak ticket office! (the connection buses to Tampa Union Station and Orlando stopped in the nearly empty parking lot).
Golden Ring near Overlea Maryland was torn down to the last brick.
I dont know if they started to rebuild it, but it was one of the first malls in the area and everyone went there to shop Christmas Eve.
White Marsh and others suddenly popped up in the 80’s.
Ive visited many malls in trucking and call the Mall of America in Minn. one of the best.
There are a few malls in the Little Rock area I consider them unsafe especially in the evenings.
…Our Muncie Mall seems to be thriving rather well…{mid size mall and city}, but does have about 5 empty spots recently. But in contrast to that our “old” business street in downtown Muncie is coming back to life…! What a change from a decade ago…It is really going through a possitive updating and a rebuilding. City has rebuilt the street and new street lights and now electric co. is burying power lines…It really is going through a progressive modernizing. A new office and retail building is about to be built on an open block and is already mostly spoken for by new tenants. More street rebuilding is about to be started. Don’t know if any of this will subtract from our mall on the north edge of town. New businesses are opening stores and several restaurants have emerged.
In that order?
[}:)]
Probably LOL.
Ive seen new streets built then dug up for that subway line =)
…Yes in that order…I understand where you are coming from but really they are not making much of a mess…Narrow channels cut down in the streets and paving over them after completing the work reasonably soon. Some of the streets envolved are not brand new pavement but the main one down Walnut st. was. Seems that is the order in which utilities have to work…ha.
Use the reatil space for Housing amnd everyone can live inside just like Logons run? That cheezy 70s movie…
I figured as much [(-D]!!! Actually, I don’t think that is all that bad, especially with the condition of a lot of asphalt jobs lately. A section usually has to be cut out and reapplied because of, I’m not sure, a lack of material in that spot? A bubble in the paving mix? Maybe we should start a road paving thread… ummm, no!