As a child, the mall is a wondrous, mysterious place. All of life’s finer, and fattening, things under one roof with impressive ceilings and water features that collect pennies with whispered secrets living inside. Toys, treats and carousels make for a childhood fantasy home.
Shopping centers across the country have taken steps to bring that fantasy back to life while redefining what a mall offers the community — including luxurious living accommodations. And those efforts now include malls in the Glens Falls area.
The past: Getting out of the rain
Debuting in 1956, malls were built to get the shopper out of the harsh weather, and they introduced consumers to shopping complexes as complete worlds of their own.
According to research in the 1990s, by 1960 there were 4,500 malls nationwide, accounting for 14% of retail sales. By 1975, there were 16,400 shopping centers accounting for 33% of retail sales. In 1987, there were 30,000 malls accounting for over 50% of all retail dollars spent, which was about $676 billion, 8% of the labor force and 13% of our gross national product.
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Somewhere along the way since the turn of the new millennium, malls started to fall out of favor, as online shopping ravaged traditional brick and mortar stores’ annual sales.
As more and more national department store chains were forced to close select locations, downsize or file bankruptcy, the small shops surrounding them stopped bringing in the traffic.
On Feb. 28, 2013, Latham Circle Mall in Albany County was demolished after years of stores closing and numerous reinvention attempts, such as hosting pet adoption clinics and housing Mildred Elley College for a time. But when Burlington Coat Factory closed in 2012, retail at the mall was down to JCPenney, the movie theater and Lowe’s, which later became a part of the new shopping plaza.
The future: Shopping, sipping and sleeping
Recently, Wilton Mall in Saratoga County has taken steps in the same direction as Latham Circle, hosting indoor RV and boat shows to drive traffic, as well as the grocery store and gym also offered at the shopping center, but the mall manager and property owners hope to change their fate before it’s too late.
Plans are in motion to redevelop the old Bon-Ton store on the mall property by creating 386 luxury apartments that would connect to the existing shopping center and create “a community for residents to live, work and play.”
Developers, who held a media event last month to discuss the plans, are asking those familiar with the mall, which opened in 1990, to “reimagine” what it could be like with a residential element.
The project is currently under review by the Wilton Town Board and the town’s Planning Board.
Plans for apartments at Wilton Mall go before the Wilton Town Board again on March 2.
While its neighbor to south is moving ahead with redevelopment, the Aviation Mall in Queensbury is somewhat at a standstill. While the town supervisor is confident plans are progressing for 200 new apartments there, the mall manager and owners remain tight-lipped. Project plans first surfaced in early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“Well, they’re still working on it and I think they are closer to getting the residential component of the mall in place,” Supervisor John Strough said over the phone on Tuesday. “I think this is the strategy of the future and it’s a very workable strategy that we came up with some time ago and we’re not alone. The old practice of having retail the total, 100% experience of the mall worked for decades, but for a variety of reasons, it isn’t working now.”
Mall manager James Griffith indicated on Thursday that no new developments were underway currently at Aviation Mall, which is owned by the Syracuse-based Pyramid Management Group, the same company that owns the massive Crossgates Mall in Guilderland.
The present: Quiet at Aviation Mall
A walk through Aviation now is a little eerie, almost haunted, as the shells of once populated storefronts sit empty and dimly lit behind metal curtains. For every one store that is still open or just moved in, there are two more vacant beside it. JCPenney, Target and Dick’s Sporting Goods are the only remaining anchor stores, since Bon-Ton has since been turned into Ollie’s Bargain Outlet and the former Sears location remains vacant since it was last used as a COVID-19 testing site.
Options for food have become slim, too, as a Chinese food restaurant and Auntie Annie’s pretzels are the only fast food, if you don’t have time to dine at the 99 Restaurant.
Planet Fitness and JCPenney sandwich the restaurant, with Dick’s and Target not far away, making that section of the mall more lively, but the now vacant former Victoria’s Secret, PINK, AT&T and Verizon stores just around the corner are a reminder of the slow decline of a once popular destination.
An elderly couple walking laps around the mall on Thursday afternoon were discussing the old tenants and their spaces that were never refilled, like the former home of TJ Maxx and Claire’s or American Eagle, which now has signs for an American Red Cross blood drive.
Just like the developers and owners of Wilton Mall, Strough cited the trend of adding living space to shopping centers across the nation.
“In other parts of the country they have adopted this formula or reinvention of themselves. We have to develop new strategies. I call this the ‘Main Street Strategy’ because now you have a residential component, a strong one. The project here would be 200 apartments which would translate to 300 to 400, maybe even 500 people that will be injected into a living experience.”
Aviation Mall has formally applied for permission to build an apartment complex near the former Sears Auto Center.
Strough said the millennial generation especially likes the idea of “walkable amenities.”
“It would help bring in some new energy to the restaurants and coffee shops. Those businesses and open mics and the movie theater are all walkable from this living experience so once you get the snowball going down the hill, it will catalyze other symbiotic relationships, and I think we have to move away from strictly retail to something more mixed,” he said.
The supervisor thinks adding housing to the property would help “energize the mall” and encourage the entire community to make better use of it. He also noted the additional tax dollars that would flow to the town, which as a result would reduce the tax burden on local residents.
Aviation opened in 1975 with JCPenney and Denby’s, a regional chain at the time, as the anchor stores. The mall was later expanded with Sears and then Caldor.
It was rezoned by the town in 2020 to allow for residential development, however plans have since been stalled, for reasons that have not been shared with the public by the mall or its owners.
“It just takes some creative thinking. I do know the Pyramid Company is in negotiation with a developer who is interested in building these apartments,” Strough shared without naming the developer. “But I was assured by the mall, progress is being made.”
Jana DeCamilla is a staff writer who covers cops/courts, Queensbury, Warren County and Lake George. She can be reached at 518-903-9937 or jdecamilla@poststar.com.