Edited by author 07-07-2003 04:10 PM

"In the world I see -- you're stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You will wear leather clothes that last you the rest of your life. You will climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. You will see tiny figures pounding corn and laying strips of venison to dry on the empty car pool lane of the ruins of a superhighway."

-- Tyler Durden in Fight Club

I'm just not buying this "down with shopping malls" battle cry. It seems short sighted and reactionary.
It seems to me that the shopping mall uses the least amount of space for the stores provided. The alternatives - strip malls and big block stores- cover MUCH more land for parking lots and usually rob communities of any aesthetic(especially the big block stores like WalMart and Home Depot).
Perhaps the cookie cutter franchise factor has spoiled the shopping mall(Pacific Sun, Sunglasses Hut, Sharper Image, etc). Besides, shopping malls provide one delivery address(less traffic) and shield the shopper from rain and cold, which is one reason why a mall in Orlando may not have the advantages of one somewhere else.

AND ABOVE ALL- have we all forgotten the cornerstone american youth culture that the shopping mall has provided???
I demand you all sit down and watch Fast Time At Ridgemont High immediately!

I will expect your four page reports on Monday.

Ernie, you should've seen the Forum 303 before they changed it to the Fiesta. Many of the individual store walls were torn out in the renovation, but they when they were there, there was a space on the northwest corner of the food court. It used to have this castle facade, with battlements and everything, because of a comics store during the collector's market peak called Comics Castle (from which they moved from a smaller storefront in the mall when the market was climbing), of which I spent my formative years and disposible income there. After the owner mysteriously closed the store (I think he left the country to avoid tax evasion rap), the castle facade remained barren for the next few years, eventually getting bought by a diamond store.

Just across from that store, I was photographed with Darth Vader and Obi Wan clone in a cheezy photo presentation when I was three or so, during the Star Wars boom, of course.

I think I saw most of the movies in my life at it's theatre. I think I saw the first Batman something like four times, just because I had the money and there was nothing else to do. That theatre was also the first and last theatre I tried to sneak into.

I was always sad to see the Forum go, as I spent an awful amount of time in it.

Anyway, Howard, have you seen the Tandy Center, now something like the Fort Worth Outlet Mall? Tandy's been trying to do something with that space for years. They renovated it a few years back, killing the underground entrance to the FW library and it's only arcade, and it looked like it would do well, until the anchors left because they weren't pulling in enough cash. I think even Radio Shack abandoned it and the skating rink has been covered with felt and tables to act as a on-going job fair.

My friend works as a parking manager, but even he admits that most of his customers are parking the courthouse, the jail, the Federal Building, or the Outlet Mall's rival, the Bass brothers-run Sundance Square.

Raleigh-Durham recently completed a new mall (http://www.thestreetsatsouthpoint.com/) which is very cool. In keeping with the tobacco warehouse theme it's all built in bricks, has fake smokestacks, is "streetscaped", evan has fake manhole covers in the floors. The mall has a traditional indoor area with shops and food court but also an outdoor area with more shops (including the Apple store), creamery, candy store, and movie theatre. Sounds cheesy I know, but somehow the place just works. It's been packed all the time since opening. Impossible to find parking on the weekend so luckily they have valet parking. It is kid/parent focused too. A great kids play room to take a break in off the food court. You can spend a whole afternoon there, and I have a few times with my family. They're building apartments/townhouses all around it too. It's like a new downtown. It bustles with energy. I hated malls too until I saw this one. Now I want to live here.

Downside: All the stores an existing mall moved to this one and the old mall died. They're tearing it down now and redesigning the lot with, you guessed it, big boxes. Big boxes are um... ok... but a well designed mall is better.

Someone commented about not having hardware stores at the mall. This mall has upscale hardware stores. One is called Restoration Hardware. Not exactly home depot, but you can get some upscale furnishings, door pulls, towel racks and the like.

Prestonwood isn't a cool dead mall to explore, I agree, since it closed only 2 or so years ago. And they maintained the mall well up to the end. Plus, its design was timeless, for the most part. Forum 303 definitely was the quintissential dying '70s mall, until it was revamped into a boring outlet mall and re-christened "Fiesta-something-whatever".

One thing I've noticed throughout my travels and time spent in other parts of the country: There seems to be a better and more unique variety of architectural designs with malls in the Dallas/Ft. Worth/north Texas region. In other parts of the country, most old malls are nothing more than single-story, L- or T-shaped layouts that look like parallel shopping strips facing each other, enclosed under one roof. Not so with the typical North Texas mall built in the '70s -- white "modern" was the usual style, accented with colors consisting of brown, tan, orange and yellow. Huge gigantic walkway ramps running from the second level down to the first was also a neat, though whacked out feature, along with a sunken pit/trench/cratered area where small shops were situated.

Town East Mall in Mesquite (home of id Software, creators of DOOM and Quake) looked like this exactly to a tee, before it was totally renovated in the late '80s. It was like being inside an enormous circus tent -- a tan and white colored circus tent swathed with ramps and walkways encircling a completely open space that you could probably hang glide in. In the center of this was what looked like an air traffic control tower that was set on top of a stage platform the size of a helipad. This platform was the top level of a series of big-ass steps which shoppers were invited to climb upon and sit on to rest. And a moat of smaller stores ran around the circumference of this platform-tower structure, one floor below the first step. Oh, yeah, and everything was connected, and interconnected with two giant ramps, and various walkways.

When I describe what this mall used to look like, most people have a hard time believing it, because it sounds like some crazy set from Logan's Run, but that's exactly what it was like! It was The Carousel -- but far more huge.

Luckily, they captured the old Town East Mall on film years before the remodeling. Ron Howard wrote and directed a CBS telefilm, called "Cotton Candy", back in 1978. It was a cheeseball high school coming-of-age drama about these outcasts who formed a band. The "battle of the bands" sequence took place at Town East Mall. It's worth TiVoing, if it happens to be airing some late night on a local station, just to see this mall in its original glory. Sadly, this movie is no longer available on VHS. :-(

Edited by author 07-05-2003 03:36 AM
I can NOT believe I'm chiming in about malls, haven't set foot in one in years, but growing up in the 80's was all about the mall whether you were cool or not . In Texas it's so hot during the summer it's the only place to group socialize outside of school. Even the loner & punk kids would be there in droves, so It didn't seem as cheesy as it does today.

The best DFW dead mall was DEFINITELY the old Forum 303! It kept the 70's decor way too long and even though we never made it there often I always looked forward to going. It had the smell that I now recognize as "dying mall smell", a melange of musty pizza crumb buildup, naugahyde and a million poorly cleaned up Orange Julius spills. Young Frueud's dead mall, North Hills was built before our very eyes across the street from our elementary school. It was so much cooler than the aging Northest mall (now revamped with hi-end retail stores) and we thought it would last a 1000 years.

Edited by author 07-05-2003 01:50 AM
Howard -
Prestonwood Mall in Addison sounds fairly close. Except it didn't close until just a few years ago.

Dude, Howard, you're right. I grew up in that suburb of Dallas, Grand Prairie, and it's two closest malls where in Arlington, the Forum (the most accessible to my family as it was right off 303, which our house was too) and Six Flags Mall. The Forum went first, sometime in the early '90s, when it's two anchors collapsed and it's third turned into a outlet store then fled altogether. It's become an indoor flea market only open on weekends, although I think the movie theatre and the bars continue to operate.

Six Flags went into a slow demise from what I've seen. I worked there in '96 to '98 and I think it started with the Montgomery Wards closing (as it seems is always the case). At last count, three of the four anchors of Six Flags have closed, with the Neiman's and the theatre are still hanging on, but I think it might come back. Heh, I remember the two revisions of the food court before they completely got rid of it and turned it into the movie theatre.

I currently live in Hurst, and North Hills Mall is definitely a dead mall, as all the anchors are gone, the theatre's gone and I think the only activity is a tea club and a skateboarding course (although drugdealing is heavy in the area, according to one of my friends). It just couldn't compete with the North East Mall just a across the highway, which got bought by Simon and has expanded into the big box strip malls, forming a weird fusion of mall and open shopping center.

except for not being two stories, the dead mall holy grail which you seek is in sherman, texas, about 60 miles north of dallas. it is a long one story mall with 70's styling that was anchored by a montgomery ward and a sears. it has the montgomery ward auto repair shop in the parking lot along with a grandy's and the movie theater still operates as the town's $1 theater. i think an insurance company offices there from an outside entrance and the sears was a burlington coat factory for a while but may have closed too.

it rapidly shut down in the mid-80's when a new mall was built less than a mile down the street. that "new" mall is now half-empty due to the super wal-mart and k-marts that opened less than a mile away across the street from each other. in fact, half the retail space in the "new" mall never even opened. then the super k-mart closed. so now there is an empty mall, a half-empty mall and a thriving wal-mart superstore across the street from a sam's club.

hey howard, i'm sixdw's wife. we're moving to the addison circle complex. there's a dart station there too that's about to open and the best is that we're getting basically the same loft except that the new one has a fireplace and balcony, a bigger pool and is $600 less/mo. than what we're paying now. it's a half mile from our offices and right off of beltline. we can get everything we need withing a mile radius of the place. it opens out to the access road for the beltline entrance/exit to the tollway too. the site is still being developed. it looks about half finished and is still pretty empty, though some of the restaurants and businesses are open. i would suppose that's why the rent is so cheap right now. it was developed by roger staubach.

i like your description of downtown as an apocalyptic location from a bad sci-fi flick. i've often thought that myself.

i've always wanted to live in a mall. when i was in the 2nd grade, for some reason they took our class to a mall and put us in an empty store. we painted and read and did a normal school day while people walked by and looked at us like we were in a zoo or something. anyway, i've always thought it would be cool to live in a self-contained, entirely indoors, independent community. maybe that's from living through 24 texas summers. i would love to work, live and shop without ever leaving the building.

6 Diff Ways: I live in Dallas, too! I live in Deep Ellum.

Everything you say about Dallas is DEAD ON.

For those not living here: The monied business interests of Dallas keep talking about revitalizing downtown -- and while there are a good number of lofts, there's still not much to do in the core of it. Virtually all the retail shuts down after 7 PM. I describe downtown on the weekends, especially in the summertime, to others like one of those apocalyptic locations you see in bad sci-fi flicks: Empty, desolate, blistering heat. There's a giant hotel, multiple stories, which takes up an entire city block, which has sat empty since the mid '80s when the Texas oil industry collapsed. There are lots of empty office buildings as well.

Oh, and trying to buy groceries is a bitch. You gotta get into the car and drive away from downtown in order to get food.

There's just nothing to do in downtown. Sure, you can live there in an over-priced loft, but the only way you'll be able to feed yourself is if you eat in the tourist trap restaurants at the Asassination site.

Frankly, I can now see the appeal of moving out to the suburbs and living in a mixed-use, redeveloped area -- especially if it's a townhouse or condo which you can buy. You can't buy crap within the downtown area -- virtually everything is for rent only, or way over-priced for the square footage you get. East side of downtown is the ass, unless you're rich enough to buy a historic house and can restore it.

6 Diff Ways: Where are you moving to? The Legacy Park community? Or Austin Ranch? I've been considering checking out those areas; what do you think of them?

For some reason, I've always found the dying mall a fascinating thing. Maybe because it's sort of science-fictiony -- that post-apocalyptic scenario I described above, except it's not a nuclear bomb or pandemic that went off, but a slowly detonating economic "bomb".

We have about 4 or 5 dead or dying malls in the Dallas area, which I think are of better architectural interest than most of the ones documented on the dead malls Web site. (I hear there are a few others in the neighboring Ft. Worth area, as well.) If I get a moment, I think I might take some digital pix and do some of my own documenting. This is truly a remarkable era of the history of American suburbia which is fading away and I believe should be recorded.

A friend and I were discussing this just now, and we came up with what would be our "ideal" dead mall to find: 1) It must be 2 stories throughout. 2) It must have at least 2 anchor department stores. 3) It must have been shut down in the late '80s at the latest. 4) It must have '70s "modern" architectural features. 5) Bonus points if it has buildings on its premises which were once bowling alleys, theaters, auto garages, etc.. 6) Even more bonus points if the surrounding area is also economically depressed.

This is the dead mall Holy Grail which I seek -- the "Mecca" of post-suburbia.

I just returned from a short trip to Guanzhou China and the downtown "night market" streets there are wonderful. Of course the weather lends itself to folks walking around outdoors, and nearly everyone either walks or uses public transportation so parking lots are not necessary. Every evening the authorities block off certain streets: Beijing Street has the more upscale familiar shops and goods, while Up & Down 9 Street has smaller shops and a couple of indoor malls. Families with small children, couples young and old, groups of kids, all filled the street and the stores.

I tend to avoid American malls and shopping whenever possible because the experience is so unpleasant, and our downtown streets seem to empty at night. This was a wonderful change of pace and a fun way to spend a couple of evenings.

I propose that the place I live, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, could likely claim the crown as the king of both malls and strip-centres/big box stores. The malls that survive here seem to have done so by adapting. They are almost all geared toward families with small children - becoming destination points with shopping, restaurants, movie theatres, and such - so parents only have to unload their kids one time. One mall here advertises that it has the widest lanes of any in town - ample for a double-stroller, they say.
Malls here are almost totally clothes on the retail end. Even the "Department stores" are nothing but departments of clothes. I imagine this is because there's not many big box clothing stores. Even people who shop at Wal-Mart for some things usually don't get their clothes there. You will not find any computer stores, electronic stores, furnishings or housewares stores - these have all been put out of business by the big boxes. It's all clothes and shoes - with a few gift shops and other stores catering especially to teenagers.
It seems that malls appeal to the families with small kids, and teenagers not yet old enough to drive, who can be dropped off and shop, eat, and be entertained at one place.
An interesting development here is the rise of planned mixed-use areas - not in downtown - but in various neighbourhoods and suburbs. I currently live smack dab in the middle of downtown, but there is nowhere to shop or go to eat (except some restaurants catering to office workers between 10 AM and 2 PM on weekdays.) If I need groceries or clothes or something to eat, I must go down and get in my car, and drive 5-10 miles. But we are moving next week to a suburb. While the thought would have once made me shudder, I am very excited about our new community (which is about 15 minutes from downtown.) There is a whole complex built around a series of thoroughfares and roundabouts, with pedestrian walkways all around. The residences are a mix of urban-style lofts, two-story townhouses, and more traditional high-rise flats. They are all part of the same company's complex, but each building was designed in a different style - so things do not look too generic. There is a bevy of restaurants, boutiques, "mall-ish" shops (Banana Republic, Crate & Barrel, Virgin Records), movie theatres, performance spaces, and independent retailers - along with businesses such as production companies, ad firms, architects, tech companies, etc. Most of the retail is open until 10 or 11 PM - to best serve the residents. There are greenbelts and park squares, outdoor art, fountains, and gathering courtyards with swimming pools and fireplaces.
It's a nice idea. There is no way to "revive" downtown Dallas. Most buildings are office buildings with acres of parking garages and surface parking between them. There is no space for mixed-use retail, even if people wanted it. The city is built around the car, and whole blocks of buildings would have to be torn down and rebuilt to approximate anything like most "walking cities" have.
So these planned communities offer the best of both worlds in a city like this. You escape the traditional generic strip-centres, subdivisions, fast-food eyesores, and parking lots of the suburbs, and you don't have to be trapped in the deadzone that passes for urban downtown. While it is "fake" and brand-new - it's a sensible solution for a city like this.
Dallas residents may be most familiar with the West Village development in Uptown. That is the same developer as the place we're moving.

There are some big box stores in Toronto and surrounding areas. Highway 7 in Markham is full of them so is Leaside.

The same of type of development is being done to a small mall in Thonrhill. Half of Thornhill Square is being ripped down to make way for townhouses and apartment buildings.

If you're fascinated by fading mall glories, bookmark this site (mentioned in the CNN.com article): www.deadmalls.com

The most interesting entry on that site is for Dixie Square (located in Illinois). Dixie Square was the mall used in The Blues Brothers. It's been abandoned for over 20 years. The writer encountered stray dobermanns and toxic mold as he explored it!

I think there is a difference between Urban Strip Malls and an Urban landscape that integrates nicely.

Knowing that Cory is from Toronto I guess what he had in mind was more along the lines of Queen Street West or the Beaches where shops and apartments coexist besides each other.