We only have 2 big malls here. One is doing fine but the other is not. A lot of stores moved out of it, they filled some of the space with a call center and a gym. I haven't been to that mall in about a year and I rarely go to the other mall either. I think malls are for teenagers, I prefer the big box stores. I go and get what I need, I don't like to browse.

The largest mall in our state just declared bankruptcy a few days ago. $27million dollars in debt. The group that owns the mall also owns around 6 others in different states. No word on how the others are doing. But it is not just the malls. Outlets are loosing tenants also. Oneida and Waterford are the latest stores to close down at the outlets near us, along with Linens&Things, KB toys, Lenox, Mikasa, 2 jewelry stores and a book outlet. Retail all over is taking a beating in this economy. NancyLouise

Several malls are doing bad here, others are doing well. The outdoor outlet mall in our town is considering leasing to doctors/ non-outlet stores just to fill the spaces.

Funny thing is a new outdoor mall was just built a couple towns away.. took a couple of the stores from here.

We have built two malls here in town...The first one is now an Office building...The second one (which I think is around 10 yrs old) is emptying out ....Most of the main stores,including J.C.Penney and Target have built new stores in the new strip mall a couple miles away from the Mall.

I saw on the news that the malls in Omaha are hurting too.

I like the strip malls, sort of...but it's nice in bad weather to be able to travel from one store to another, under a roof.
It's also nice, if you only plan on going to one store to be able to drive straight to it.

I think they should have been smart enough to connect them with a hallway on the back side and their own parking in the front.

Two large malls in Memphis closed down. One was built sometime in the 1980s. It was a really nice mall with an ice skating rink and some great restaurants. The crime rate in that area was high and as a result more and more people quit going. It was finally torn down a couple of years ago.

The other one only had a few stores open. A tornado came through 14 months ago and tore part of it down. Macy's decided not to rebuild. Sears was still there; I'm not sure about Dillards, but most of the small stores had already left. A church recently purchased it. I'm not sure what they are going to use it for.

The city I live in has what they call an open air mall. I call it a shopping center. It's just three or four years old. So far, World Market, Linens and Things, Sportsman's Warehouse and Circuit City has closed. I hope that will be all that close and I also hope something will come along to fill those empty buildings.

Linda

I've been in several malls from east to west coast and the ones that seem to have a hive of activity are the ones that have sensible stores. The best one was in Massachusetts, which I can't remember the name, but it had a Circuit City and a Target (or similar stores, can't remember exactly). Very seldom do you see those type of stores as anchors. Plus those with large food courts seemed to be busy.

Many have expensive stores that you'll make a once in a lifetime purchase; or boutique shops that have pricey items. If they suffer, the mall suffers.

Maybe it's the choice of shops that determines if a mall makes it or not.

Malls in our area seem to be booming.

One is in the midst of a huge expansion project. Nordstrom's just opened there, and there are a lot of high-end satellite stores springing up in the parking lot. I don't shop malls, but you can tell by the cars (always very parked up) as you drive by that there's no shortage of customers there.

Another mall has gone with some more economical stores--a Burlington Coat Factory has just opened there, and there's a Marshall's (or one of those awful discount stores where I can never find anything I want.

I'm exactly the opposite of you. I hate malls, because you have to park at one of the FEW doors, where there's hardly any free parking spaces, and then march through the whole place to get to the store you want.

Most of the new shopping areas being built around here are more the strip type center where all the stores open on the parking lot. Makes so much more sense to me, since I'm usually only going to one or 2 stores, and I can drive up and park right in front of the place I'm going. And I don't have to lug a bunch of big bags for miles to get to my car. Also, at this stage of life, I'm not interested in shopping the pricy mall-type places--I tend to go more for the discounted ones like the Christmas Tree Shop. Just a matter of one's point of view, I guess.

I agree with the above except I usually have luck finding the kids wide width shoes at Marshall's. There's probably about 7 malls here, most are hurting. The outdoor mall is doing great.

Just on msn this morning that mall giant general growth has filed bankrupt. It owns several of the malls.

It may be time to rip 'em down and plant corn again.

I don't have the stamina to spend hours walking past junk I'd never buy to ferret out the two or three things I need. I haven't been IN a mall for many, many years.

CNN recently had a piece about a woman whose buisness was failing. She made utterly useless do-dads out of plastic. One was a plastic goldfish 'swimming' in clear plastic in a plastic baggie. This is just the sort of 'product' DH and I used to convulse laughing over when those old 'Lilian Vernon' catalogues arrived in the mail.

I prefer indoor malls, but the strip malls are alright also. Our strip malls have lots of parking space. I think people like anything that is new and trendy. That is where the new stores are going.

I hate malls.....I hate shopping and malls make shopping even worse...

I've avoided them ever since it became the "in" place for teenagers to run and play.....I'm not sayin' I don't like teenagers...I have 2 teenage granddaughters, but I have been run into a couple of times on the walkway. And the LANGUAGE I heard...Whoa.....

I love the indoor malls with sensible stores full of usable items. I love going to places like Sears, JC Penneys or Dillards where they have clothes and household items. I'd rather shop there than Wal-Mart. My biggest gripe is there are no shopping carts. I usually buy during the big sales so when I buy, I buy a lot.

I have heard that they are dying here too. Lots of "Space for Rent" signs on the empty stores. I haven't been to the mall for years and years. There were no stores I liked, either geared toward a younger group or they were too expensive.

The Sunnyvale Town Center mall, which was just built in 1978, is being 'redesigned'. Back then we lived within a block of it. I remember them tearing down blocks and blocks of old neighborhoods and the really cool old downtown to build it. Now they are tearing it down again and going to build an old fashion downtown with drive through streets and stores with apartments on the second level. It is going back to what it was before. What a waste indeed.
Clare

Here is a link that might be useful: 184-acre Central Core Revelopment Project Area.

I was just in our local mall yesterday, for the first time in many many months. (I went there to return a dress I had bought online.) The mall was dead. And it's no wonder...most of the stores cater to teenagers (clothes, video games, music). The others are one-product stores, such as candy, lingerie, cheap jewelry, shoes, greeting cards. I can buy all those things cheaper online or at Target or Fred Meyer and avoid the inconvenience of the mall completely.

Yes, I said inconvenience. Online shopping is much more convenient for me. I don't have to drive half an hour to shop. I don't have to park hundreds of yards from the store I want to shop in. I don't have to avoid the people who want me to fill out a survey or try their stinky expensive lotion. I don't have to listen to blaring horrible music. And I don't have to pay inflated prices for the same items I can get online.

Our strip malls are useless. The big ones, with large anchor stores like Target, are nearly empty. The small ones all have the same kind of stores: a place to get your hair cut or a tan, a drug store, maybe a teriyaki chicken sort of restaurant, and sometimes a dollar store. Not really a place to browse and/or do all your Christmas shopping.

I don't go to the mall on the east side of town very often, so I don't know if kids hang out there. At the one the west side there is no problem with teens at all. As a matter of fact, when I am around teens I don't hear the vulgar words. Maybe it's different in Kansas. I know my nephews from back east love this part of the US. I agree with who ever said they like the stores in the malls I do also.

Have you been to deadmalls.com? Take a look it is interesting.

I'm very actively involved in our downtown partnership, working with the state on our Main Street program, we were just talking about this at our last board meeting. The new darling of the shopping world are the lifestyle centers. Shopping but also playgrounds, lofts above the stores, dry cleaners, food and grocers, entertainment.....the trend is back to the Town Square feeling of yesteryear. Our 5- year love affair with indoor malls is ending. We are apparently returning, or yearning to return, the look, feel and hopefully the values of ears gone by.

I'm one who believes that the savings of buying online may be the most expensive money we don't spend. It is coming at the expense of our local economies.

Malls are alive and well here. My mall is the King of Prussia mall ( a gigantic mall) - still hard to find a parking space in the middle of the day. Over 300 stores and about a dozen restaurants.

We also have a large Premier outlets mall, which is still doing a very good business.

A lot of strip malls, too. In one of them, Bed Bath and Beyond closed their store last fall. Was over there yesterday, and they are opening it up again...and hiring people.

Shopping is the local past time around here.

It's a difficult decision to shop at some that have been taken over by gangs. Parking lots included!

Monica, have they built any more Walmarts near King of Prussia? The last time I was there I got lost trying to find what seemed like the only one close by.

Yes.
There is one(smallish superWalmart) just off Old Swedesford Rd at Warner Rd...it used to be a Home Depot.

Another one, 10 minutes from there, is on Trooper rd. From KOP, take rt422 expwy to first exit after you go over the river(Trooper rd, RT 363). Go about a mile, straight up Trooper rd. It's on the left, just before Egypt Rd. This Walmart was converted into a Superwalmart just a month ago. it's 3X the size of the one in KOP.

If you go up 202, to Germantown Pike in East Norriton, there's a Walmart there, too - at the corner of Germantown Pike and Swede Rd.

Oops, Walmart on Trooper Rd is on the right...across from WaWa.

I don't like malls. By the time I walk from one end to the other my legs hurt, and the stores I like are never close to each other. I wish they would tear them down and plant grass. Vique.

Interesting how the shopping styles change. Lots of malls around here are having trouble and some have closed but the Mall of America is going strong. It all started in Edina, MN when Southdale Shopping Center opened the first enclosed regional shopping center in the nation. There were certain advantages to the mall concept such as having a number of places to choose your shoes or the like. There'd be various specialty shops, etc. Instead of having someone from housewares come make a key for you, you could talk to a locksmith. When much younger and more willing and able to walk more it was fine, but today I'm not built for malling. There were some smaller malls that did quite well too for a number of years. But then people's shopping habits started to change. The convenience era began. Fast food and fast shopping. One stop and get your turnip seeds, house paint and aspirin in one cart. Walmart, Kmart, Target and more began popping up and Powers, JC Penney, Sears-Roebuck (remember Roebuck?) Montgomery Ward and more began to suffer. Economic ups and downs and malls suffered. People started to prefer specialty stores. Then the traditional mall anchors such as Wards and Sears began to hurt more. Many didn't survive. Add to the problem stores like Kohl's and others I can't recall offhand, have chosen to pull out of the malls and go with freestanding buildings. Some of the malls brought on their own problems. They tried to go cheap. Didn't maintain the building and people didn't like grungy looking places. Leaking roofs didn't help and parking lots that resembled minefields would shoo away people too. Rent is expensive for small tenants and the economic bust of the last near-decade has had its impact too.

Many of the malls around here are being bought and replaced with townhouses. One local one, Apache Plaza was developed into a mini village with streets of small shops, plus a Walmart and Cub foods.

Thanks Monica. I remember stopping at a Home Depot near there too. I'll write these down.

I can't stand malls. Paula..I know what mall you're talking about. When it was built, I loved that mall and went there weekly. Bought all my kids clothes at Gimbels and John Wanamakers. We used to eat there on Sat. night. I think it was built in 1968. I have not been to that mall in many years now even tho I still live in the same place. I pass it going to my son's. I know Barnes and Noble and Panera pulled out so it's going down the toilet. Times are changing and mall are passe. Since I like TJ's and Marshalls , I never shop malls anymore.

"I don't have the stamina to spend hours walking past junk I'd never buy to ferret out the two or three things I need. I haven't been IN a mall for many, many years."

I dislike the mall shopping experience, too. I'd rather go to TJ Maxx or Marshall's and I'll shop "Main Street" in towns near us for unique, well-made, one-of-a-kind items. When I shop for clothes, which isn't often, I usually go to Talbots because their clothes last for years and very rarely go out of style.
I will go to a mall if I'm shopping for something specific, like an item on a bridal or baby registry. I may go to JC Penney because I like some of their smaller home items, but that's about it. I have no use for Macy's or most of the standard department stores because to me, they're overpriced and most of the stuff they carry is pretty ho-hum.

When they were new, malls were HOT! In the early 1980's Chicago 'malled' its State Street, closing the street to all traffic except busses. The suburb of Oak Park did the same. This was an attempt to compete with the then-new suburban malls.

Didn't work. State Street (and Lake Street in Oak Park) were 'de-malled' after about ten years.

Then the Big Box stores came along and the Main Street stores couldn't compete with those. Now we're to believe people want Main Street again? I'm not so sure about THAT either.

When the Navy closed Glenview Naval Air Station NW of Chicago the plan was to create a cozy town with shopping in walking distance. Townhomes and SFHs were built with front porches. Condos were positioned over retail stores and restaurants. I've never seen anyone use those front porches. I can't say if the retail within 'The Glen' prospers on local custom or due to people coming from afar. (It is nice that they have Metra right at their doors.)

I don't shop as a pastime. I don't go TO a mall. I go TO an individual store, like Nordstrom's, Carson's, Saks, etc. (I *used* to go to Marshall Field's! -- sob.) The stores may be surrounded by 'mall', but that's not a draw for me. In fact, it's a turnoff, making it harder to park less than a football field from the store. I think 'Parking' is why strip malls succeed; you can pick the store you want and park close to it.

Maybe retailers should get behind smaller vehicles so that shoppers could park closer to where they are going. Some enterprising stores offer a free service where the items you purchase are sent down to a loading bay and you can pick up everything at the end of your shopping. You drive up; someone loads your trunk for you; off you go.

The latest in design is the open, outdoor mall...clusters of stores, with parking at both front and back. Usually includes some small grassy areas with outdoor seating.

We have several that have opened up in this area, one of the nicest i've seen, being in NJ, on the site of the old Garden State race track. No big department store anchors, the anchors usually are a home center (eg. Lowe's), large restaurant and at least one supermarket.

Covered parking is often included.

Why this change?
Commercial developers are responding to shopper's complaints about long linear walks from store to store in enclosed malls(the worst being Mall of America in Minn), and distance from parking. People also miss the fresh air and claustrophobic feel of especially the smaller malls.

North Hills Mall "was" less than a mile from my house. It had a lot of the older stores in it, and a lot of by owner type stores. It was a very quiet mall and I loved shopping there over the larger more modern mall just a few miles from it. Lots of mall walkers there too.
I was sad to see it torn to the ground. A bit of the city history down the tubes.
It now sits as a crumbled parking lot, an eyesore as well.
The rest of the independent stores in the area seem to be doing well, and I choose to spend my money there rather than at the mall that is left.
I think it is exhausting to try and manuver a huge mall when shopping alone can be so tiring. Crowd overload for me, not to mention nightmare parking.
I hope that if nothing else, the hospital behind the old North Hills Mall will possibly find use for this mall graveyard.

Trin