Most likely to become notorious ghost malls?

February 4, 2009 11:13 PM

With grim predictions out there of U.S. malls being hit hard by the economy in 2009 and turning into "ghost malls," what large malls in the country stand out as especially doomed?

For example, I imagine that somewhere out there, there must be an overbuilt, unloved big-box retail complex or two that has already been rendered unnecessary by the nearly effects of the housing slowdown. Or is this wrong? Not a city planner, just curious...

posted by Kirklander to work & money (26 comments total)

I dunno too much about all that stuff, but I would think it's likely that retail institutions analyze where they are making money and decides whether it's worthwhile to pull out. Malls are more like landlords... as long as the stores inside can "pay the rent" the mall isn't going anywhere. If a mall is as big as you imply, then it is likey when the economy turns around the stores will pull closer to normal figures. Also, a busy mall in a small town may still not see as many consumers in a empty mall in a big town as well.

my $0.02
posted by FireStyle at 11:27 PM on February 4

These are about China, but you might find them interesting.
posted by alexei at 11:37 PM on February 4

GGP, #2 mall owner in the US, is generally screwed.
posted by troy at 12:19 AM on February 5 [1 favorite has favorites]

@FireStyle: I think this is the point that the OP is making though. What malls are getting to the point where a vast amount of retailers are (or are potentially) pulling out? You'd have you imagine the *big* ones. I'm not in the US, so I can't really give much of an idea, but any mall that was struggling during the good times, would certainly be on it's last legs now. Niche malls in particular would have to be pretty wary. I know one shopping centre in my city that would certainly be very worried about it's future.

P.S The China articles are fascinating. I went to a similar mall in Malaysia (Berjaya Times Square), which wasn't nearly as bad, but was huge, and the upper levels of it's 10(?) or so stories were relatively empty. This was some time ago though, so it may have changed since then.
posted by ryanbryan at 1:07 AM on February 5

There are 7 malls in my city and all are struggling, but one in particular is a ghost town. My company had 2 stores in that mall (we also have 2 stores in the mall I work in) and one closed last Saturday. The lease was up and it wasn't renewed and the store was closed. The Dillards that was one of the anchors has been turned into Dillards Clearance and every other storefront is dark. This was *the* mall in town in the 70s and 80s and it's falling into disrepair and tenants are pulling out.

The newest mall, a "lifestyle center" type is struggling to even fill all it's storefronts and the stores there are seeing drastically diminished traffic. My company doesn't even have locations at the two newest malls-both new concept lifestyle centers.

My mall, which 10 years ago was the mall with the highest end retailers in town, has been eclipsed a lifestyle center which by all appearances is still busy. My mall, however is very quiet and I can go sometimes 45 minutes to an hour without any traffic in my store at all. The customers I do have are really looking for sales and asking for coupons and passing up small impulse add-ons.
posted by hollygoheavy at 4:27 AM on February 5

Mall and big-box abandonment is already happening and has been for some time. Slate has an interesting slide show about re-purposing large empty spaces. Here's a current list of Wal-Mart buildings for sale. Googling "abandoned Wal-Mart stores" will get you more results. I also just now came across a site devoted to dead malls.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:49 AM on February 5

They're not a victim of the current recession, but I ended up at Washington Mall in western Pennsylvania a couple years ago, it was amazing. It was so empty and poorly taken care of that kids were skateboarding up and down the main drag. The only open stores I could see were a fabric store and a daycare center.
posted by soma lkzx at 4:50 AM on February 5

The links page at deadmalls.com lists some good sites for reading about sprawl and retail real estate, both of which are obviously affected by the current economic climate. Labelscar, which is listed there, is very likely to be worth your time. Related and not listed: TrafficCourt.
posted by gnomeloaf at 5:45 AM on February 5 [1 favorite has favorites]

The ones where Macy's is closing are definitely on that list. You don't close a mall anchor store unless the mall is on life-support.

Conversely, I'd say that an unlucky big-box strip-mall could be in serious trouble right now if they were unlucky and had Linens and Things and Circuit City as their main tenants.
posted by smackfu at 6:09 AM on February 5

Re: soma lkzx - that was the mall I went to the most growing up, and there's a little history there. Less than 10 years ago, the mall management jacked up the rent per sq/ft to rates very few locally owned stores could afford - the goal was to empty out as much space as possible and put in a business school. (Much like the Station Square mall has done in downtown Pittsburgh now.) The plans with the business school fell through, but rents didn't go back down and the only stores left were major chains. (Which is a shame, the baker who did our wedding cake was forced out, and I still crave his brownies.)

Development started across the interstate with larger big box stand alones (Target, Super Wal-Mart, Lowes), and the chains left in the mall, if at all invested in the area, moved over the highway. Which has left the mall a ghost town. That was all prior to the current economic situations, so I can only imagine what it's like down there now.

Something else that I've found very curious around these parts is the combining of what would traditionally be anchor stores. The majority of our malls would have a Kaufmann's, which was recently bought out by Macy's. Macy's already owned at least one other anchor in many of our malls, so there's interesting speculation as to what they'd do - could the mall find another anchor (Boscov's tried and failed here)? Would Macy's run both stores? Or would an anchor just be boarded up space? As mentioned above - it's bad news for a mall when an anchor store closes, so by becoming a monopoly and closing local department chains, it seems like Macy's is causing more harm than good.
posted by librarianamy at 6:23 AM on February 5

FWIW, St. Louis Centre is already dead, & going there is incredibly neat/creepy because pigeons have taken over the inside.
posted by oh really at 6:29 AM on February 5

Macy's already owned at least one other anchor in many of our malls, so there's interesting speculation as to what they'd do - could the mall find another anchor (Boscov's tried and failed here)? Would Macy's run both stores?

It's possible...Macy's bought out another of the anchor stores at my hometown's mall about a decade ago, and converted the new space into a "men's and homewares" store, while devoting its original space entirely to womenswear.
posted by kittyprecious at 6:36 AM on February 5

I think retail habits are changing as well. The malls where I live, with one exception, have all turned into giant clothing stores. Every store filled with the uniforms of the various subcultures.
posted by gjc at 6:42 AM on February 5 [2 favorites has favorites]

For a while, it seemed as if the malls around Buffalo-Niagara were filled almost exclusively with Canadians taking advantage of a strong loonie. Don't know how many are still shopping having lost 20% of their purchasing power.
posted by Chuckles McLaughy du Haha, the depressed clown at 6:55 AM on February 5

City Center Mall here in downtown Columbus, OH has been a ghost mall for a while now. Sad really. It was quite the destination when it opened. Yesterday, the mayor announced it is going to be demolished.
posted by Otis at 7:08 AM on February 5

Conversely, I'd say that an unlucky big-box strip-mall could be in serious trouble right now if they were unlucky and had Linens and Things and Circuit City as their main tenants.

I know a four-store strip mall in Taylor, Michigan that has exactly that problem -- Circuit City at one end, Linens and Things at the other.

And one of the two stores in between is a vacant Media Play. The good news is that customers of Dick's Sporting Goods will have lots of parking available.

Back on point: I'm thinking the older a mall is, the closer it is to dead. They seem to be the ones that lose their anchor stores first.
posted by faster than a speeding bulette at 7:08 AM on February 5

Speaking of Pittsburgh Malls, there is a lot of speculation that the Pittsburgh Mills Mall is doomed. It's the newest mall in the area, but it's already lost a lot of tenants and people complain about the low quality stores. The latest downturn might finish it off.
posted by Alison at 7:45 AM on February 5

My poor hometown of Pittsburgh.... people have always said rumors about the demise of Century III Mall (which is on the closing list for Macy's, though the affected store is a Macy's Furniture Gallery.) It was once the third largest mall in the US. They just also lost Steve and Barry's, a chain which went under nationally and the Ruby Tuesday restaurant closed.

Though it may just be too close to the newer "lifestyle center" The Waterfront. (Build on the site of the Homestead Works steel mill, home to one of the most serious strikes in history.)
posted by ALongDecember at 8:44 AM on February 5

They just also lost Steve and Barry's, a chain which went under nationally

Interestingly, having a Steve and Barry's location in the first place was an indication that the mall was somewhat troubled. From the WSJ:

But some of the forces pushing Steve & Barry's growth were not tied to end-consumer demand, but the needs of mall owners in a softening commercial-real-estate market. Much of the company's earnings came in the form of one-time, up-front payments from mall owners. Those payments were designed to lure the retailer to take over vacated sites, say several people familiar with the company. Without these payments, the stores are barely profitable...

That was certainly the case in my local lower-end mall, which had an empty anchor spot for 5 years and just last year filled one floor of it with a Steve & Barry's.
posted by smackfu at 10:11 AM on February 5

Here in the Twin Cities, the Mall of America is still trying to expand, although they have decided to slow it down due to the economy (and some lack of government funding).

I hear Brookdale is close to being a ghost mall. We have several areas which are conglomerations of big boxes and strips (woodbury, arbor lakes, etc.) and those seem to be doing well. Arbor lakes is not that far from Brookdale...
posted by soelo at 11:38 AM on February 5 [1 favorite has favorites]

FWIW, St. Louis Centre is already dead, & going there is incredibly neat/creepy because pigeons have taken over the inside.

You can still go in there? I thought that it was closed by the public while it was (holding my breath) being converted to residential housing. I used to go there during my lunch breaks when I worked downtown for a few summers. Truly surreal, and year by year, it just got emptier and emptier.

For what it's worth, this mall is in a questionable position right now. There have been plans for the last several years to convert it into an open-air mall (which it had been previous to the late '80s), but as soon as the recession came along, you can guess how far those plans have gone.
posted by stleric at 12:43 PM on February 5

*to the public
posted by stleric at 12:44 PM on February 5

Sharpstown Mall in Houston opened in 1961. It's been troubled for several years; three anchor stores have left, and the last one is (ahem!) a Burlington Coat Factory. The owners filed for bankruptcy last year. Last month, two shooting victims were dumped in the parking lot.. "Gangsta mall?" "How in the ________ is this place still open?"
posted by Robert Angelo at 2:20 PM on February 5

One of the more famous ghost malls.
posted by gjc at 4:16 PM on February 5 [1 favorite has favorites]

Thanks for all the great answers.
posted by Kirklander at 5:56 PM on February 5

This is sort of interesting, and hopefully inline with the question: This American Life, 'Scenes from a Mall.' While it's easy just to look at this as raw data and statistics and billions of dollars mall are important socio-economic institutions.
posted by oxford blue at 5:27 AM on February 6