Slow death of a shopping center.

[no_hypocrisy]

Twenty years ago, a shopping center in Wayne, NJ was humming with commerce. It was hard to find a parking place.

These stores have closed:

1. Meyer Brothers (replaced by Burlington)
2. McDonalds
3. Pathmark Supermarket
4. Sam Goody's
5. GNC
6. Foot Locker
7. Quiznos
8. Payless Shoes
9. Waldenbooks
10. Toys R. Us
11. K Mart is closing next month.

[virgogal]

1. Curious..is it an enclosed mall?

[no_hypocrisy]

2. About one half was, yes.

[virgogal]

6. Thanks. I know the enclosed malls in my area seem to be the ones that are

hit the hardest. One problem was kids hanging out.

[doc03]

3. The last time I walked through our local mall

there were 30 vacant storefronts.

[Archae]

4. Here in Sheboygan, the Memorial Mall was torn down.

It's now a Meijer "Wal-Mart lite" store.

[bobbieinok]

5. 10plus yrs ago Tulsa had 2 malls across street from ea other. 1 was rebuilt into box store complex

When the shopping center was totally torn down , it was weird. You just don't see malls torn down.

[Sherman A1]

7. The entire Retail Sector is having troubles that have been brewing for decades

A great many Retailers large, small, old and new are suffering from a variety of headwinds including the Overbuilding of Space in the 1980s & 90s, Leveraged Buyouts, Technology changes to the market place (how many CD's does anyone buy anymore?), Technology changes to the work place, Consolidations, The Walmartizatin of the Work Force in the 1980s (leading to a more part time and fewer career jobs deteriorating both service and institutional knowledge), increases in sales taxes making online shopping more appealing, changing demographics as the baby boom generation ages, student loan debt loads carried by many younger folks and last online shopping as exemplified by Amazon. The sand is shifting under the entire sector from a variety of pressures from a variety of directions.

[Hortensis]

13. Good post. The mall era was blown in by galloping change

and is going out the same way.

[htuttle]

8. Is the Scotch Boutique still open?

I'm looking for some tape. The sticky kind.

[kas125]

10. Ha, I just told my son about that sketch yesterday.

We drove by two stores that made me think of it, one called Batteries and Bulbs and one called Flashlight Outlet. A whole store just for flashlights??

[Maru Kitteh]

12. Holy crap. My husband and my oldest daughter could spend hours in a flashlight store.

I'm sure of it.

[question everything]

9. The irony is that in the 90s we blamed Walmart for the death of main street

Now Amazon is killing the big ones: Sears, K-Mart even Walmart

From the StarTribune:

As fourth St. Paul retailer closes, some ask: Where will we shop?

Back-to-back closings of two discount stores in St. Paul months after Sears shut its doors are taking a big bite out of the city's retail offerings and leaving customers wondering where they can shop.

St. Paul's lone Kmart store, on Maryland Avenue East, will close in mid-December, officials said Sunday, just days after Walmart said it will shutter its University Avenue store this month.

Sears near the Capitol closed in January, and Herberger's on University Avenue closed a year ago.

(snip)

The closures come amid a massive shake-up in the way Americans shop. As more people buy items online from retailers like Amazon and have them delivered to their doorsteps, both discount and department stores have lost their market shares.

More..

http://www.startribune.com/as-fourth-st-paul-retailer-closes-some-ask-where-will-we-shop/559104112/

[Timewas]

11. 30 mile drive

From the nearest store so if I don;t need it right away I will order from Amazon and get it in a couple days..Walmart started trying to check all bags and receipts so strike against them

[Hortensis]

14. What our vast suburban sprawls really need, of course, isn't malls

but to somehow evolve into sustainable communities residents can identify with that meet their needs beyond housing. Most car-dependent residential sprawl developed as effectively "amenity deserts," with life enriching amenities clustered in distant, increasingly expensive city centers. Closer regional malls were always very poor default substitutes for those anyway.

This is once again creating existential crises as retail-oriented centers die, residents increasingly don't even have a mall to drive to, moving to the city is priced out of consideration, and more people aren't exposed to the life of cities by need to commute at least toward them for work. But change creates change and need helps form it. Communal centers that develop in those neighborhoods that evolve, places most residents can walk to, to be and enjoy each other and community events, will be different from the retail shopping clusters that anchored centers of local life in the past.

[Brainfodder]

15. Out of hand inflation is a major factor in my mind.

Less to spend since raises aint ever kept up.

A real minimum wage accounting for inflation, would be around $25 an hour!?!

....and fools are fighting for 40% less, so being left behind will continue...

[elocs]

16. The large mall in my city started with 4 anchor stores, 3 are closed.

Two big strip malls on opposite ends of the city have taken a big hit when their anchor store, Shopko, went out of business.
The times they are a'changing.