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| Victor Gruen |
"Oh, right," I thought, "This feeling. This is why I avoid indoor malls like the plague."
My reaction was a bit sad, since Cherry Creek is a fairly nice mall. The anchors are Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, and Macy's. Ok, so Macy's has yet to recover from the mess that was their acquisition of Foley's and Meier & Frank etc., and subsequent flailing around, but I do love Nordies. I'm sure I'd love NM too if felt I could actually afford their shoes. Stores in the mall include Lacoste, Burberry, Kiehl's, Restoration Hardware, and Ralph Lauren. In other words, it ought to be yuppie (or yippie in my case) heaven.
Instead, I felt like I couldn't breathe and was getting a headache. Agoraphobia? Not so much, since I do enjoy Columbus Circle in Manhattan, or the Pearl Street Mall, or other indoor and outdoor shopping areas. So why the visceral negative reaction? I'll confess that the sight of people stacked like sardines on the escalator, all motionless and with Cinnabon or Orange Julius in hand, made a little part of my soul die. I love Cinnabon and Orange Julius as much as the next person, but have the decency to walk on the escalator. But my reaction was something more than that. I just really, truly, did not like the mall. It did not feel like a "good" place.
The data show that my response is common - over the past 10-20 years Americans have turned away from our previously most-favored shopping locale.
What has happened to the American love affair with the mall? When did my personal affection, so firm in adolescence, wane? Why are hundreds and thousands of malls across North America struggling to find tenants and, in many cases, being razed to the ground in favor of other developments?
There are a few key changes that come to mind:
1) In the wake of the Great Recession, consumers are less willing and interested in buying goods, both for financial and psychological reasons. Spending an afternoon at the mall loading up bags with merchandise no longer feels self-indulgent, it feels stupid and possibly dangerous. What if you're laid off and the next paycheck never comes? What if the stock market crashes, taking your portfolio with it? Will you feel happy with all this stuff then? There's no doubt that discretionary spending is down. Still, indoor malls are suffering disproportionately.
2) The internet. I, like many of my fellow shoppers, find that I have grown accustomed to the freedom of shopping online. I can order everything from electronics to home goods to clothing online, often at a serious discount under what I'd pay in a brick and mortar store, all while I'm in the comfort of my own home. No traffic, no parking, no mean salesperson, no wrong sizes, no surprises about price. And, if I don't like it, I can slap a free returns label on it and send it back.
3) Convenience. I don't know about you, but over the past ten years I have become much more protective of my time. I took a wonderful class on real estate development in grad school, and our professor, Dan Strammiello, talked about how busy parents (especially moms, women do a lot of the shopping) want to drive up to their destination store, walk in, buy what they need, and get out. Conventional enclosed malls are designed to entrap the consumer and lead them around in an artificial environment past many storefronts before ultimately reaching whatever stores or stores they wanted to go through in the first place. Again, what once felt indulgent now just feels silly and time-consuming. This past weekend, my friend and I walked the ENTIRE LENGTH of the mall to reach Athleta. Not once did I feel any desire to enter another store. It just felt tedious.
