On the death of a mall

In most of the larger cities that dot the American landscape, the idea of a shopping mall has been implemented. For those readers in areas where these are not as common, these are huge bugger of affairs where three or four "anchor" stores are held loosely together by smaller stores trying to sell various clothing items, odd trinkets (often with several stores specializing in specific religious or ethnic trinkets), CDs, movies, books, electronics, and various other items that Americans have grown to love as their lifestyle moves from the frontier to the sofa. Also, there are often several eating establishments offering any cuisine from greasy chicken to greasy hamburgers to greasy chinese food.

While not unique to the shores of America, it is a concept that blossomed in the States. This is likely due to the large amount of land required to place a mall on, something many cities in America found they had on the outskirts of their urban sprawl. Other countries that have found themselves with large amounts of sprawl into mostly open land, such as Canada and Australia, have also taken up mall building. It has also spread to Asia, as a wonderful way to condense stores. In Japan the mall can grow to twice the number of floors of a traditional American mall, in order to fit more stores in less space. The concept is a wonderful one that can be both spread out and compacted. I digress, though.

The mall is espeically popular among families, as toys for children are located just a short walk away from toys for their parents. The I-95 corridor leading south from the District of Columbia has three shopping malls located within the Beltway. Pentagon City Mall is near the district, and across 95 from the military office building of the same name, and Springfield mall located in the vicinity of the Mixing Bowl, a rather unpleasant affair where the Capital Beltway and I-95 meet (but that's another article). Then there is poor Landmark Mall, a three story affair located about an equal distance between the two.

A mall is not something that many people think of as a living entity that is born and can die, but Landmark mall has certainly shown that this is the case.

On the situation at hand

The difficulty of three malls in a very limited geographic area is that each must find a nitch, that each must have something about it that makes it unique. For awhile, this was not a problem, as the three malls coexisted for several years after the most recent edition to the trio, Pentagon City, was built. The expansion of the metro area southbound beyond Springfield, and vertical in the Pentagon City and Crystal City areas has cause Landmark Mall to be squeezed out in the affair.

The first blow, three empty floors

For as long as anyone could remember, Landmark Mall did provide two anchor stores that were not duplicated at either of the other area malls. One of these was Sears, which still continues to offer automotive services that aren't duplicated anywhere, and a good selection of power tools, and vrious other toys for the grown man. The other store was Woodrow and Lawthrops, a large department chain that had warehouse in the area, causing the selection and product turnover at the mall location to be better than most department stores in the area. Within the Washington DC area, Woodrow and Lawthrops (affectionately known as Woody's) was the bastion of department store shopping, with the large Landmark warehouse, and their flagship store in the heart of the District. The Woody's store took up three floors, extended all the way up to the small food court level.

The chain, unfortunately, was a victim of American consumerism. It floundered for a few years before finally being forced into bankruptcy. Finally, it came out saying that all its store locations, including the large Landmark store, would close down. It held on for awhile. The store was close to a Woody's warehouse, so they kept it open longer as the central location for the local liquidation of the chain, but soon the inevitable took it's toll, and large barriers were erected in front of what had been one of the nicest department stores in the area. Another store took over, but it failed within two years.

Decomposition of a corpse

A corpse does not simply disappear, no, there are parts of it that hold on, clinging desperately to the skeleton as it is slowly being pulled away. Thus it was with Landmark Mall. Three music stores soon became two, then one, then the one merged with the last remaining video store in the mall. The result is one of the better movie stores and music stores in the area, but even as such, it has slowly started falling into disrepear, not getting as large of shipments, and not restocking as quickly as it once did.

Three books stores soon became two as the upscale Brentano's shut down. Then, as book store chains began to consolidate, the two remaining stores found themselves under the same blanket ownership of Barnes and Nobles. As soon as this happened, those higher up in the company decided two stores in a failing mall was one too many. Now there is but one Waldenbooks, located on the third floor food court level. Also on that level is the last software store, where once there were two.

No store has flourished, they have either failed, or just held on. Some stores have managed to keep their own identities, but others found that they only reason that they had held on so long is that the rent at Landmark has fallen a bit in order to keep stores on.

Is it too late?

And now, Landmark Mall sits about 1/3 empty. There are, however, two efforts trying to rejuvinate the mall. Two new stores are moving into larger locations within the mall. One of them is a Lord and Taylors, moving into the three floor ex-Woody's, the first of the chain to open in the I-95 DC corridor. The hope is that this will be enough of a unique draw that it will succeed where two other stores were unable to do so. Unfortunately, Lord and Taylors has pushed back its opening date back twice by a total of six months. There was some concern that it might instead decide to move to Springfield Mall, a higher scale shopping center that had a department store space come open due to another chain going bankrupt. Some of the buzz around the mall is that Lord and Taylor is just taking advantage of the lower rent that Landmark has promised it, but that if it really and truely wanted a location in the mall, it would be open already.

The other store moving into the mall is an Old Navy store, which isn't moving into an area that was designed to be an anchor store. Instead it has taken over a rather large section of hallway at one end of the mall, taking up about 10 store fronts in the process. This is a huge commitment for Landmark Mall, as they are redesigning a large section, though most likely with Old Navy money. The problem comes back to uniqueness, though. There are Old Navy stores in the Crystal City area beyond Pentagon City mall, and in a new strip mall opened across from Springfield Mall. The success or failure of the Old Navy could determine the success or failure of the mall in microcosm.