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The best malls in the US Ive been to:
1. Fashion Island, Newport Beach
2. Pentagon City Mall Arlington VA
2. Mall of America, MN
4. The Arcade, Providence RI (as retail its a failure but as Architectural History its phenomenal)
5.Tysons Corner Center (known only on this thread as Tysons 1, I get, same owner)
Worst
1. King of Prussia, dumpy except one part, who has 2 malls that you have to dodge thru a damn parking lot to get in? And the entrance is Macys mens dept? and call it ONE mall? What Crap
2. Galleria of Tysons VA (known only on this thread as Tysons 2, I get, same owner),has the Ritz and a Paul USA but it suxxxx. Its a half mile from TCC bisected by Rt123/Metro. Dumb.
Theres a bunch of middlins I like that I have been to including:
Fashion Valley Mall San Diego
Grossmont Center, La Mesa CA
Woodfield, Chicagoland
Oakbrook Center, Chicagoland
Theres some Ive been to that idk the hype- lookin at you Dallas Galleria
And theres some I just detest- Westfield Old Orchard, Chicagoland (damn Skokie!)
idkw to think about "LIFESTYLE CENTERS". I hate the Disneyfication of design (Reston Town Center, Mosaic District, Fairfax VA)<maybe they save malls.. see renos on Springfield VA, and what Centenial has done but I still feel it increases sprawl and is wasteful.
Guess you haven't been to Kop in a long time, there is a large wing connecting the former Court & Plaza into one unified mall, plus a mall-wide renovation. Nor would I rank KoP or Tysons Galleria as anywhere near the worst malls I've been too, or dumpy. I find it hard to believe that out of every mall you ever visited, you would rank those 2 as the worst?... Unless you mean from the most well-known malls?
Guess you haven't been to Kop in a long time, there is a large wing connecting the former Court & Plaza into one unified mall, plus a mall-wide renovation. Nor would I rank KoP or Tysons Galleria as anywhere near the worst malls I've been too, or dumpy. I find it hard to believe that out of every mall you ever visited, you would rank those 2 as the worst?... Unless you mean from the most well-known malls?
Every person has different tastes obviously.
But frankly, anyone who hates Tysons 2, KoP or even Galleria Dallas, but loves Mall of America and a glorified Farmer's Market in Providence obviously sees malls as amusement parks to play in and don't care about the stores available to shop at.
But frankly, anyone who hates Tysons 2, KoP or even Galleria Dallas, but loves Mall of America and a glorified Farmer's Market in Providence obviously sees malls as amusement parks to play in and don't care about the stores available to shop at.
To be fair to that guy, he described the Providence Arcade as "a failure" as retail but "as architectural history it's phenomenal."
And architectural history is far from an amusement park. I think that's a legitimate ground for rating a building highly, and the Arcade in Providence is actually the oldest enclosed shopping mall in the country. I would agree with his assessment of the building as a building.
It just wouldn't rate highly as a place to shop. But I'd have to go back to the OP to see whether that was an absolute must in order to rate a shopping mall highly.
Judging from what's on its website, the Providence Arcade is now an apartment building with ground-floor retail consisting mainly of a food court, plus a sci-fi bookstore and some service retail. So in terms of current function, it may not even qualify as a "shopping mall" at all. But given that so many other, newer shopping malls have been "demalled" and had residences, offices and entertainment added to them*, I'm not sure that we shouldn't be talking about a new category of mixed-use structure instead.
*One of the fading malls here got partly demolished and turned into a Main Street-style office-over-retail "town center" strip. What's more, the New Jersey borough it's located in moved its borough hall into the mall's former anchor department store.
To be fair to that guy, he described the Providence Arcade as "a failure" as retail but "as architectural history it's phenomenal."
And architectural history is far from an amusement park. I think that's a legitimate ground for rating a building highly, and the Arcade in Providence is actually the oldest enclosed shopping mall in the country. I would agree with his assessment of the building as a building.
It just wouldn't rate highly as a place to shop. But I'd have to go back to the OP to see whether that was an absolute must in order to rate a shopping mall highly.
Judging from what's on its website, the Providence Arcade is now an apartment building with ground-floor retail consisting mainly of a food court, plus a sci-fi bookstore and some service retail. So in terms of current function, it may not even qualify as a "shopping mall" at all. But given that so many other, newer shopping malls have been "demalled" and had residences, offices and entertainment added to them*, I'm not sure that we shouldn't be talking about a new category of mixed-use structure instead.
*One of the fading malls here got partly demolished and turned into a Main Street-style office-over-retail "town center" strip. What's more, the New Jersey borough it's located in moved its borough hall into the mall's former anchor department store.
Fair enough.
I should have said amusement parks to play in *OR* art galleries.
The Houston Galleria is in a class by itself. As far as regular no frills malls go, no roller coaster, no ice skating rink, no amusement park to draw people in, Barton Creek Square in Southwest Austin is getting close to 40 years old and it's still just as nice as it ever was. It's clean and well kept, has lots of good stores and a nice place to kill some time. One will be hard pressed to find a better and nicer mall. And it has the best food court in a mall that I've ever been to.
The Houston Galleria is in a class by itself. As far as regular no frills malls go, no roller coaster, no ice skating rink, no amusement park to draw people in, Barton Creek Square in Southwest Austin is getting close to 40 years old and it's still just as nice as it ever was. It's clean and well kept, has lots of good stores and a nice place to kill some time. One will be hard pressed to find a better and nicer mall. And it has the best food court in a mall that I've ever been to.
To be fair, the Galleria has the ice rink. And I understand it’s not a situation like MOA where the amusement park IS the attraction point. Unlike the MOA, the Galleria has world class shopping and this is its seller. However, the ice skating rink is an attraction that draws people in that you dont really see in South Coast Plaza and KOP.
When I'm at a mall, it's usually a little strip mall where I can park my bike at a store, or I'm boarding a bus to somewhere else. When I had a car, I didn't see the appeal of driving to a mall, parking a quarter mile out, and walking more distance through the mall to find a store. I like the model of living above downtown stores, with everything I need on one street.
The best malls in the US Ive been to:
1. Fashion Island, Newport Beach
2. Pentagon City Mall Arlington VA
2. Mall of America, MN
4. The Arcade, Providence RI (as retail its a failure but as Architectural History its phenomenal)
5.Tysons Corner Center (known only on this thread as Tysons 1, I get, same owner)
Worst
1. King of Prussia, dumpy except one part, who has 2 malls that you have to dodge thru a damn parking lot to get in? And the entrance is Macys mens dept? and call it ONE mall? What Crap
2. Galleria of Tysons VA (known only on this thread as Tysons 2, I get, same owner),has the Ritz and a Paul USA but it suxxxx. Its a half mile from TCC bisected by Rt123/Metro. Dumb.
Theres a bunch of middlins I like that I have been to including:
Fashion Valley Mall San Diego
Grossmont Center, La Mesa CA
Woodfield, Chicagoland
Oakbrook Center, Chicagoland
Theres some Ive been to that idk the hype- lookin at you Dallas Galleria
And theres some I just detest- Westfield Old Orchard, Chicagoland (damn Skokie!)
idkw to think about "LIFESTYLE CENTERS". I hate the Disneyfication of design (Reston Town Center, Mosaic District, Fairfax VA)<maybe they save malls.. see renos on Springfield VA, and what Centenial has done but I still feel it increases sprawl and is wasteful.
King of Prussia did a major renovation about 5 years ago, connecting both the Court and the Plaza, and it is lined with super lux retailers and premium food offerings. It is quite beautiful. It basically starts from Neiman Marcus to Bloomingdales. You no longer have to go through Macy's.
I agree before this connection was built, the notion you had to walk outside and into the Macy's entrance was odd, but that has been corrected. It was a $250 million dollar project completed in 2016. Here is a link to show some images of its completion. It is quite nice.
King of Prussia did a major renovation about 5 years ago, connecting both the Court and the Plaza, and it is lined with super lux retailers and premium food offerings. It is quite beautiful. It basically starts from Neiman Marcus to Bloomingdales. You no longer have to go through Macy's.
I agree before this connection was built, the notion you had to walk outside and into the Macy's entrance was odd, but that has been corrected. It was a $250 million dollar project completed in 2016. Here is a link to show some images of its completion. It is quite nice.
Thats MUCH better-very nice! I dont think it was a Simon when I lived on the Mainline in '08 Simon does excellent with their malls.
Thats MUCH better-very nice! I dont think it was a Simon when I lived on the Mainline in '08 Simon does excellent with their malls.
Yea... it is super lux and super nice. They did a fantastic job.
They have also renovated in other sections of the mall over the past year.
KOP is booming.
It is sad to see Lord & Taylor go...but they have gone bankrupt and closed all stores.
Simon intends to bring office/hotel/residential into that space in the near future similar to the Tysons operation.
But yes, the new section of the mall is extremely nice.... I call it 5th Avenue. It is lined with about 50 super lux retailers.
There is a Saks 5th Avenue in Philadelphia, but its an independent store on the city line between the start of the Main Line and Philadelphia border.
I was actually surprised Saks 5th Avenue did not relocate to the old Lord & Taylor space.. but I guess the Saks does a lot of business from Center City, so they decided to stay in their current location on the Main Line border.
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