Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Locally, they are still building malls, but those malls are changing. Probably the most successful of the more recent malls is a mixed use development that is a combination of condos, restaurants, upscale shops, Whole Food, a hotel, some office buildings and a high class movie house. No bookstore though. It's all focused on higher end experience. There is no food court or fast food. All the fast food is outside the mall itself on the edges of the development. The older mall, perhaps a mile away is quickly falling apart as the better shops are shifting to the new mall. I haven't actually been in the old mall in about a year, though I regularly go to the new mall.
The parking lot is usually crowded at the new mall. It's an interesting place. It's not an enclosed mall in that it doesn't have a roof, however, it's also not a strip mall. The mixed use gives the shops and restaurants plenty of customers since perhaps a third of the customer mix either lives there or works there.
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The Friendly Center in Greensboro< NC is an open air mall that has been around since the 1957. Even in the late '80s and early '90s it was busier than the other malls in Greensboro. I haven't been back since then, but I think it is still going strong. In the late '80s Jacksonville FL started constructing St Johns Center and it has been going strong since it opened. It has badly hurt the other malls in the Jacksonville area. These areas offer more options than malls including more full size restaurants a better variety of shopping options. If you look around these type of centers are slowly replacing traditional malls.
Apache