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With retailers closing stores en masse and some going bankrupt, experts debate whether malls may be the next to go.
Is it the end of shopping as we know it? Consumers are tightening their purse strings, retail chains are closing up shop, and developers are on the brink of going under.
This could be doomsday for the American mall.
Deathwatch
"It's an absolute disaster," said Howard Davidowitz, the chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a national retail consulting and investment banking firm. "What a mall represents is discretionary spending, and discretionary spending is in a depression."
Results at anchor stores, the nationally known retail names that draw shoppers to malls, have been rotten.
The sprawling mall, developed in the 60s, has been replaced by "shopping plazas" where shoppers walk outside from one store to the other - and sometimes drive to stores in another area of the plaza.
We have about 6 such "plazas" here in the Omaha area, and they're contributing to the closing of at least 3 major "60s style" malls.
Could that plazza actaully be a return of the shopping center?What i see instead of amaslls with magnet store that draw for those small shops is a congreation of businesees in a like 2-3 mile area that are indivdual store fronts with alot of support smaller stores in a separate area but not requiring you to get back on the roadway.Unlike shopping centers;strip malls or the olf down town type area they are completely separate buiding for teh main stores and smaller strip type buidng for muti trpe sammler businesses.
I've been in Garden State Plaza in NJ last week, and it was crowded. I only bought shoes and a poloshirt, but many people carried bags from Macys, Nordstrom, etc... the mall is not really dying, I think.
General Growth Properties, owner of 200 malls, is about to declare bankruptcy. Some of their malls have already been foreclosed on.
I've always hated malls and the one nearest to me has been taken over by street gangs....it's okay during the day, but you'd need your head examined if you went there at night.
There are some nicer malls in the area (Wash, DC 'burbs) and a couple of way upscale ones, but I still hate 'em. There has to be something I'm after that is unavailable elsewhere.
The sprawling mall, developed in the 60s, has been replaced by "shopping plazas" where shoppers walk outside from one store to the other - and sometimes drive to stores in another area of the plaza.
We have about 6 such "plazas" here in the Omaha area, and they're contributing to the closing of at least 3 major "60s style" malls.
But an outdoor shopping area is not a mall. I lived in the San Fernando Valley where it got 110 in the shade in the summer. There were outdoor shopping areas but nobody in their right mind stayed too long. Topanga Plaza opened when I was in my early teens and it was WONDERFUL. A lot of people went there because it was cool inside. Of course they spent money on small thiings even if they didn't "shop". I spent most of my life living in hot places and places where it got too damp or to cold to be hanging around the nicely manicured benches at these new plazas. Malls were welcomed and embrassed not because they were convient but because they provided a place to go when outside wasn't good.
My son was taken to the local mall frequently during the summer because it was that or McDees with the indoor playground. He was on a leash and harness, as he learned to unlatch the stroller thing when he was a year old. But we walked back and forth and he people watched and we got out of the house where you didn't melt in the weather.
I feel bad that malls are dying, because they did mean something. A plaza where you *drive* from store to store is hardly a gathering place. If you live where the weather is nice and strolling down past the stores is possible its great, but when people seek ac and comfort, its not where you go. Now you go and wander around Walmart. I'd much rather go to a mall, see a variety of people and have icecream at the food court after my sub than pretend to shop for a couple of hours.
Maybe malls weren't as "classy" as the new "plazas" but I liked them a whole lot better. Maybe what we need is to transform the mall from shopping to selling. Let people sell their own stuff. Leave open the food court and stores that wish to stay. Provide music and entertainment. They ARE a community gathering place and I would hate to see that dissapear and be replaced by classy looking plazas where the community drives between stores.
I love malls but they are simply not faring well in most locations although some posters see thriving malls but they should know they are in the minority... most of the malls that I had visited had mutliple stores closed down and I had never ever seen so many closed storefronts in previouisly thriving mall only months before... whenever that starts to happen, the malls eventually died out... I remember walking through malls that were completely filled with storefronts, a few months later the "brand-name" stores left and non-brands came in... a few months later, empty storefronts... a year later, half of the mall was vacant... I have seen it multiple times in malls.. and seeing what is happening to the current mall that was thriving 3 months ago with the empty storefronts and "weird" stores popping up... it doesn't bold well for the mall industry... one mall cannot support a hundred other failing malls... just cause yours is thriving "currently" doesn't cure the other 99 malls that are dying... and yes, malls are dying, maybe not in your location but wait when the brand-name stores go bankrupt, your mall will be affected too...
I have no hard information to suggest that malls are dying but I will say that more and more people are shopping online because it's cheaper, also the web carry's items that malls don't have at all.
For example, I'm making a homemade antenna to capture free HD TV over the air waves and I needed a special part; well I went into radio shack (inside the mall) and they wanted 9 bucks for a cheap version of what I needed it so I told them no thanks because on line I found a better made version for the price of 1.36 cents.
So for the most part, malls ARE NOT your friend! More or less they over build the place to overwhelm your senses to induce you to spend money.
The outside Mall is only nice on about 100 days of the year. The rest of the time it is to rainy or cold or hot. I love the the huge indoor malls for just getting out of the house and people watching but I have noticed that 90% of the stores are for people under 30.
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