Dead Malls (original) (raw)
I can't believe there's a dead malls community, this is amazing. If you ever want to see a plethora of dead malls, Southern Ontario is the place to go.
Where I live though, real estate is in high demand. Here in Victoria BC, if there's retail space available, it gets snatched up. If things start to decay, prices drop, and eventually some entrepreneurer will move in. However, in the past few years, Canada lost a consumer institution: Eaton's. Eaton's anchored a four story megamall downtown. Well, first Sears moved in, but that didn't work. Then The Bay moved in, which seems to be alright for now (although there are rumours they're losing money and might move again). Anyways, this left the old Bay building vacant. It's not really a mall, but it's still a massive five story vacancy yet to be revitalized.
A few blocks away from me is the University Heights Mall. When I moved here 14 years ago, it was anchored by K-Mart and Safeway. There was also an incredibly popular sports card store inside, four restaurants, an arcade,and a fabric superstore upstairs. University Heights is very peculiar, as it is pretty much just the two anchors, with barely any retail space between them. The mall itself is 4 stories tall, with a movie theatre occupying most of the bottom two.
Of course, K-Mart disappeared from Canada. Zeller's moved in, but during the transition phase, many stores left as customers dwindled. The top floor was vacant for many years after the fabric store moved out. Orange Julius became the food court. The arcade left and to this day no one has moved into the empty 2nd floor. For a while, it looked as though the movie theatre would go too, as Famous Players opened a colossal Silvercity Theatre on the other side of town. But Alliance Atlantis bought the theatre, and started to play more obscure films, bringing in a lot of older customers, as well as the college crowd from nearby University of Victoria.
In the end, I think that's why the mall remains open: old people and UVic. Safeway is the closest grocery store to the university, and Zeller's is constantly having a "Senior's Day".
( K-Mart had an auto department. Zeller's... does notCollapse )