The Retail Reader: Bigg's plans 3 new stores to anchor off-price malls

Bigg's plans 3 new stores to anchor off-price malls - hypermarkets

Discount Store News: June 5, 1989

(Excerpt) CINCINNATI -- Bigg's is set to anchor three off-price and mixed-use shopping centers due to open over the next three years, one in Denver that will mark the hypermarket's expansion outside of its home here and two in nearby Louisville, Ky.

Bigg's plans to open at least three other hypermarkets, including another in Denver and one in Tampa Bay, over the next few years.

The decision by Bigg's to anchor the three off-price malls denotes a growing trend in the shopping center field whereby hypermarkets are used as the full-line retail attraction for outlet and multi-use malls. Hypermarkets' marketing of foods and general merchandise and their avoidance of the term discounter in favor of such expressions as everyday low price makes them a favorite candidate to anchor such shopping centers.

The three Bigg's, one to open in each of the next three years, will double the chain's count to six units--five hypermarkets and one warehouse food store. Bigg's, which has two hypermarkets and one food-only store in Cincinnati, is owned by Hyper Shoppes, a venture headed by Euromarche, a French hypermarket chain, with participation by other French firms and Super Valu Stores, parent of ShopKo and Twin Value.

Construction is almost finished on the 250,000-square-foot Bigg's to open this fall as one of the anchors for the $100 million, 700,000-square-foot Thornton Town Center in the Denver suburb of Thornton.

The L.J. Hooker Co., the Atlanta-based shopping center developer arm of the $1.5 billion Hooker Corp. Ltd. of Australia, is building the multi-use Thornton mall, along with the two Louisville centers that will also house Bigg's hypermarkets. The two Louisville centers are in the planning stage, a Hooker representative said.

The Thornton mall will include three other as yet unnamed department stores, a manufacturers' outlet area with 60 stores, and such other facilities as a movie theatre and an entertainment center with a miniature golf course, carousel and midway rides.

Read the full article here.

Retail Addiction Blog: The Annex

Retail Addiction Blog is proud to announce The Annex, a real website with pages on my favorite malls. Right now, it's pretty rudimentary (with just blurbs on a few) but it's scheduled to be more comprehensive soon.

Check it out check it out check it out

Epicenter Dreams: Final Thoughts

Well, since I posted Epicenter Dreams, a Labelscar post mentions Epicenter Collection. It talks about future anchors of malls, and mentions supermarkets in malls possibly becoming the "next big thing" since department stores are becoming antiquated and might disappear soon. I'm not going to explain what pop-up stores are...that's up to you to read...but a few things to note:

- Omaha Steaks DOES have a retail store (in the Streets of Woodfield, adjacent to but not connected to Woodfield Mall). I knew L.L. Bean had a store in Colonie Center in New York as well. So there's a problem in EC right there...why have booths that have already been established as retail locations.

- Why have an entire store with little booths and the "SpreeGo" system? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just lease space directly to pop-up stores and avoid "middleman" fees and the SpreeGo? This would also make it suitable for smaller locations.

- This bare-bones "Epicenter Collection" would also be able to NOT be located in major, trendy cities and instead target smaller markets (Cincinnati, Temple-Killeen, Baton Rouge, etc.)

- The best place for reception in a mall is the kiosks. If Epicenter Collection did open in Christiana Mall, it would be a bit awkward to have the "best stuff" tucked away in an anchor, instead out in the concourse. Instead we give the kiosks to immigrants selling belt buckles, cell phone cases, cheap RC vehicles, and "Dead Sea" salts.

- But will that work? After all, the much-hyped Metreon was something to a similar effect (focusing on tech products) and it was pretty much a failure. Similar to it (though not by much) was Peabody Place Entertainment & Retail Center. It was inspired by more on The Mills.

- Speaking of which, we'll go over a "Mills" mall of sorts next time.

Epicenter Dreams: The Dream Ends...?

Christiana Mall was its name, and despite being in the Philadelphia Metro area, it was actually in Delaware. It was also considerably older than Polaris Fashion Place, as Christiana opened in 1978. The anchor store Epicenter planned to take was a bit younger, but not by much...a vacant Lord & Taylor that opened in 1990 as a John Wanamaker. The old Strawbridge's at the mall had been bought by Nordstrom. And so it was now Epicenter Collection decided to actually start on its project...now the BUYpod was renamed the SpreeGo, and an actual opening was revealed...summer 2008. Still, things looked rosy at this point. The 181,000 square foot store would be packed with 60 retailers, and discussions were with 100. "They're all the names you'd expect from the catalog world, the e-commerce world, and the world of brands." Awesome. If this list was anywhere near accurate, they'd probably pick something like ThinkGeek, which is possibly one of the coolest online-only stores ever. The world of brands, eh? Apple and Disney have stores, but what about other brands? The only Nintendo retail store I can think of is Nintendo World Store in New York City. And, well, in terms of other well-known brands, there's lots more where that came from.

Unfortunately, no news came. No updates came on the official Epicenter website but it was assumed Epicenter was gutting Lord & Taylor down except for the HVAC and other things (like restrooms). Summer turned to winter. Winter turned to spring. Summer 2008 passed with no news.

Then it surfaced in November that Target had bought Lord & Taylor's vacant space and was planning to open it another some years anyway. There was no more need to wait, and Epicenter Collection wouldn't resurface again. The website it had went down soon after.

I can honestly say I was disappointed. The fact that an "Internet-enabled" retailer could open...personally I was hoping for a variety of things all available (or would be delivered to my house): Omaha Steaks, Nintendo, ThinkGeek, and so on. But in all practicality, their business model was pretty solid, but was it profitable? By this time, catalog merchants had all but vanished. No one uses little notepads or tablets anymore (except for IKEA, but they can escape the odds somehow) and the SpreeGo would get awfully expensive...expensive for consumers (possibly persuading them not to shop) or expensive for the company (especially if they were stolen), or both. And furthermore, places like the late Service Merchandise and IKEA, you couldn't get it at the store unless it was a "hot-ticket item". So really, why bother ordering it through the Epicenter Collection when you could order it while sipping a mocha at the Starbucks in the food court?

Furthermore, the later concept picture of Epicenter Collection at Christiana Mall seemed showed a pretty open space...except most stores, even department stores, do not have high ceilings like that (except in the escalator area). This would become even more obvious in the planned Sears/Kmart merger. It would've been nice also to instead of having the Epicenter as an extension of the mall common (sort of Seoul Plaza in Security Square Mall) being like a department store, with fairly open areas and less walls. But even they didn't expand by leaps and bounds opening dozens by the year, they could've at least tried it. Then they could've expanded in other large, burgeoning markets: Chicago has vacant space, and Houston also has a few vacant Mervyn's. Northern Jersey also had space (it would've gone well in the old Boscov's space at Monmouth Mall except by that time, Epicenter was stillborn.

-----

A few months later, Sears Holdings Corporation decided to close a Kmart in Illinois: not to worry, it happens all the time. But it was undergoing a transformation into myGofer, which swapped the traditional 80% sales, 20% storage on its head to 20% sales, 80% storage. You could order anything of a large inventory despite only a few products displayed at front...which sounds suspiciously like Epicenter Collection. Except for the fact that myGofer stocks almost exclusively Sears and Kmart items, no products are "touchable", and you can drive through to pick up items. While this would work pretty well for urban areas, it is a sore disappointment compared to what Epicenter Collection could've been. No exclusive brands never seen on brick-and-mortar format. But myGofer is new. Maybe it will clean up its act. Or maybe it will crash-and-burn and close in six months. Or maybe another company will take the reigns in a real "Internet catalog showroom".

Epicenter Dreams: A Lucky Winner

(continued from Page One)

Many of these locations were snapped up by retailers who had little presence in the area. JCPenney snatched up a vacant Filene's while Boscov's grabbed a variety of local Pennsylvania malls. Nordstrom promised to build a store at Cherry Hill Mall replacing Strawbridge & Clothier. Still others would remain vacant until they were razed for lifestyle additions, which unfortunately didn't seem to really "match" with the mall.

Prior to the main buyout, a relatively new mall, Polaris Fashion Place had both Lazarus and Kaufmann's. It also had Lord & Taylor but was lucky enough to get it replaced with Von Maur. It would have had seven anchors: Lazarus-Macy's, Kaufmann's, Von Maur, Sears, JCPenney, Saks Fifth Avenue, and The Great Indoors (an interiors-oriented concept owned by Sears). Except Kaufmann's was closing.

So an innovative idea from the minds behind the Forum Shops at Caesars (Gordon Groups Holding) proposed a lofty idea: the EPICENTER COLLECTION, designed to be an "Internet catalog showroom". The space would be sub-leased to Internet retailers that could display items including sporting goods, fashion, cosmetics, electronics, and gourmet foods. Very similar to a department store, in fact. Consumers would receive a BUYpod (hmm...that sounds like something else) and register their credit card number. Then it would be a simple job of scanning items to be delivered. Some were even on-site. Columbus shoppers would get to try this innovative process before Epicenter Collection rolled it out nationally. Epicenter predicted various vacancies from the Federated/May merger and the Sears/Kmart merger, leaving positions nationwide to expand.

Epicenter pursued companies that had a good web base but little to no bricks-and-mortar presence: Omaha Steaks, Kiehl's, Bose, Levenger, American Girl, Home Shopping Network, Babystyle and L.L. Bean.

What a plan! But the deal fell through and Kaufmann's would become a lifestyle center instead. Too bad: it now wasn't possible to find slacks at Macy's and pick up a New York strip steak in the same building. At least in Columbus it wasn't. The story wasn't over, however...for Epicenter Collection would bring their dog-and-pony show to the Philadelphia area next.

Part III: The Dream Ends

Epicenter Dreams: The End of an Era, Beginning of a New?

I remember like it was yesterday: Federated Stores was to buy May Company, leading to a huge collection of department stores. Macy's and Lord & Taylor? Why, both of those stores were at the Galleria. But I didn't know the consequences...for nearly every department store I knew was disappearing. Mervyn's was never in my city, and Montgomery Ward had pulled out in 1997, the mall it was in (Manor East) was being knocked out in favor of a strip center anchored by a shiny new H-E-B. Soon I became aware that Florida-based Burdines had become "Burdines-Macy's", ending my vision of Macy's being a nice, upscale store. With the large department stores it absorbed, it soon became obvious there would be a glut of Macy's in America. No store was unscathed. Lord & Taylor was saved, but it pulled out of the Texas market. Foley's of Houston, Famous-Barr of St. Louis, Marshall Field's of Chicago, Kaufmann's of Pittsburgh...it was all too much. There was overlap. Foley's and Macy's both had store space in The Galleria. Many malls in Arizona and California had both Macy's (often converted from a The Broadway, Emporium-Capwell, or Bullock's). Malls in New England had both Filene's and Macy's (always from a Jordan Marsh). And malls in the Pennsylvania-Ohio area had both Lazarus (which became Macy's in 2005) and Kaufmann's. And Philadelphia had a few that had both Strawbridge & Clothier and Macy's (often Bamberger's). What do with all that? Malls like The Galleria in Houston got to keep both open as full-line stores, but that was a rarity and few malls did so. Others closed a store...either closing the original Macy's or the second nameplate that would be converted.

Sadly, in most cases, this would leave a lot of vacant space open, and the sale of Lord & Taylor left lots of closed stores. What would happen to those stores? Montgomery Ward had left six years earlier and most malls had recovered from it, often replacing it with a modern department store or perhaps a Target. Of course, the economy was pretty good: they would be easy to fill...right?

Tomorrow: Part 2: A Lucky Winner

Kmart Post at TWR

This probably should go on this blog, but it isn't.

Click here instead.

West Edmonton Mall directory, 1998: Part Two!

West Edmonton Mall directory, 1998

In association with Labelscar we proudly present: the West Edmonton mall directory!

Unfortunately, the first page got kind of tilted, and a lot of the directory featuring the "merchandise" of the stores, has been cut. Still, you can see an example of that on the first page with the store lists.












Onto Part Two!

All the Malls of Texas

Recently I was...inspired by a post on Labelscar inspired me to write a full list of Texas malls.

Linked are Labelscar malls
"*" means there is a Mall Hall of Fame article.
"†" means there is a Deadmalls article.

We don't do outdoor malls either.

BRAZOS VALLEY
• Manor East Mall, Bryan*
• Post Oak Mall, College Station

HOUSTON METRO
• Almeda Mall, Houston
• Baybrook Mall, Friendswood
• Brazos Mall, Lake Jackson
• Deerbrook Mall, Humble
• First Colony Mall, Sugar Land
• Greenspoint Mall, Houston†
• Gulfgate Center (Gulfgate Shopping City), Houston*
• Katy Mills, Katy
• Mall of the Mainland, Texas City†
• Memorial City Mall, Houston
• Northline Mall, Houston
• Northwest Mall, Houston*
• Pasadena Town Square, Pasadena†
• San Jacinto Mall, Houston†
• Sharpstown Center (Sharpstown Mall), Houston
• The Galleria, Houston*
• The Woodlands Mall, The Woodlands
• Town & Country Mall, Houston†
• West Oaks Mall, Houston
• Westwood Mall, Houston
• Willowbrook Mall, Houston

DALLAS-FORT WORTH METRO AREA
• Big Town Mall, Mesquite*†
• Collin Creek Mall, Plano
• Festival International Bazaar (Festival Marketplace Mall, Forum 303 Mall), Arlington†
• Galleria Dallas (Dallas Galleria), Dallas
• Golden Triangle Mall, Denton
• Grapevine Mills, Grapevine
• Hulen Mall, Hulen
• Irving Mall, Irving
• La Gran Plaza (Seminary South Center), Fort Worth*
• North East Mall, Hurst
• North Hills Mall, North Richland Hills†
• NorthPark Center, Dallas*
• Prestonwood Town Center, Dallas†
• Richardson Square Mall, Richardson†
• Ridgmar Mall, Fort Worth
• Six Flags Mall, Arlington
• Stonebriar Centre, Frisco
• Southwest Center Mall (Red Bird Mall), Dallas
• The Parks at Arlington, Arlington
• The Shops at Willow Bend, Plano†
• Town East Mall, Mesquite
• Valley View Center, Dallas
• Vista Ridge Mall, Lewisville

CORPUS CHRISTI
• La Palmera (Padre Staples Mall), Corpus Christi
• Sunrise Mall, Corpus Christi

San Antonio soon...ish?

Send me anything I missed!

...and it's back.

MallsofAmerica has surfaced back online, having gone down for a number of weeks. That means that because it exists, we will have to disable all the MallsofAmerica Mirror posts...but fear not, this site will continue, at least, not shut down. Keep us in your RSS feeds!

HELP WANTED

Obviously, for the last few days, I have been working pretty hard to copy MallsofAmerica. It's pretty much gone now. However, the actual text is here, but it will take hard work to actually match a picture and completely restore it. Looking for team members...you can even scan mall directories! Leave a comment if interested!

Labelscar: The Village of Hammond Square

Hammond Square Mall (1976-early 2000s)/The Village of Hammond Square (Early 2000s-2007)
Hammond, LA

Jamie from Louisiana alerted us to some news with the Louisiana’s Hammond Square Mall, which closed for good yesterday, March 31st. The 430,000 square foot mall, which opened in 1976 in Hammond, a college town about 45 minutes northwest of New Orleans, is being shut to make way for a 800,000 square foot lifestyle-power center combo to be built in its place.

Continue reading!

Google Maps

Labelscar: Randall Park Mall

Randall Park Mall (North Randall, Ohio)/1976-2009

The year was 1976 and the retail boom of building enclosed malls was near its peak. Cleveland was no exception; even during a period of economic despair they joined the rest of America’s retail building boom, and embarked upon building behemoth retail centers across the metropolitan area. The largest of these ever to be built, even as of 2007, was the Randall Park Mall in the tiny southeast suburban village of North Randall.

Continue reading!

Wikipedia

Google Maps

Mall Hall of Fame

Deadmalls.com

Foley's Store Locator

Here are the list of Foley's locations in Texas. Foley's was a department store based in Houston, Texas, and had 84 locations at its peak. This is an "organic" blog post...soon more pictures will be added, and more states will be added. Of course, they all became Macy's in September 2006. Since then, a few have closed.

5/23/09: There have been more Texas locations added on. Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma to come.

===TEXAS===
Arlington (Six Flags Mall)
Opened 1970 as Sanger-Harris
Rebranded as Foley's in 1987
Closed 2005

Arlington (The Parks at Arlington)
Opened 1990

Austin (Barton Creek Square)
Opened 1982

Austin (Highland Mall)
Opened 1979

Baytown (San Jacinto Mall)
Opened 1981

Beaumont (Parkdale Mall
Opened 2002 in former Montgomery Ward

Cedar Park (Lakeline Mall
Opened 1995

College Station (Post Oak Mall)
Opened 1982

Corpus Christi (Padre Staples Mall/La Palmera)
Opened 1986

Dallas (Red Bird Mall/Southwest Center Mall)
Opened 1975 as Sanger-Harris
Rebranded as Foley's in 1987

Dallas
Opened 1965 as the Sanger-Harris flagship store
Rebranded as Foley's in 1987
Closed 1988

Dallas (Valley View Center)
Opened 1973 as Sanger-Harris
Rebranded as Foley's in 1987
Closed 2008

Dallas (NorthPark Center)
Opened 1997

Denton (Golden Triangle Mall)
Opened 2003 in former Montgomery Ward

Fort Worth (Hulen Mall)
Opened 1977 as Sanger-Harris
Rebranded as Foley's in 1987

Houston (Almeda Mall)
Opened 1966
Closed since Hurricane Ike (2008) but set to reopen

Houston (Memorial City Mall)
Opened 1974
Moved to new location in mall 2001, original location demolished for new mall space

Houston (Northwest Mall)
Opened 1967
Closed since Hurricane Ike (2008)

Houston (Sharpstown Center/Sharpstown Mall)
Opened 1961
Closed in 2008

Houston (West Oaks Mall)
Opened 1982

Houston (Deerbrook Mall)
Opened 1984
Closed since Hurricane Ike (2008) but set to reopen

Houston (Willowbrook Mall)
Opened 2003 in former Montgomery Ward as Foley's Home

Houston (Willowbrook Mall)
Opened 1981

Pasadena (Pasadena Town Square)
Opened 1962
Mall opened 1982

Sugar Land (First Colony Mall)
Opened 1996

Texas City (Mall of the Mainland)
Opened 1994?

The Woodlands (The Woodlands Mall)
Opened 1994


===LOUISIANA===
Baton Rouge (Mall at Cortana)
Opened 2003 in former Parisian

Baton Rouge (Mall of Louisiana)
Opened 2003 in former Parisian

Lafayette (Mall of Acadiana)
Opened 2003 in former Parisian

Lake Charles (Prien Lake Mall)
Opened 2003 in former Montgomery Ward
Closed 2008

===COLORADO===
Aurora (Aurora Mall/Town Center at Aurora)
Opened 1975 as Denver Dry Goods
Rebranded as May D&F Women's in 1987
Rebranded as Foley's Women's in 1993
Absorbed into other location in 2005
Foley's building is now a Dillard's

Aurora (Aurora Mall/Town Center at Aurora)
Opened 1975 as May D&F
Rebranded as May D&F Men's in 1987
Rebranded as Foley's Men's in 1993
Rebuilt in 2005 as Foley's

Broomfield (FlatIron Crossing)
Opened 2000

Boulder (Crossroads Mall/29th Street District)
Opened 1983 as May D&F
Rebranded as Foley's in 1993
Mall closed 2004
Store remained open

Centennial (Southglenn Mall)
Opened 1974
Mall closed 2006
Store remained open

Colorado Springs (Chapel Hills Mall)
Opened 1982 as Joslin's
Foley's opened in 1998 when Joslin's left

Colorado Springs (The Citadel Mall)
Opened in 1972 as May D&F
Rebranded as Foley's in 1993
Macy's will close the store in 2009

Denver (Cherry Creek Shopping Center)
Opened in 1990 as May D&F
Rebranded as Foley's in 1993

Denver (Southwest Plaza)
Opened in 1982 as May D&F
Rebranded as Foley's in 1993

Englewood (Cinderella City Mall)
Opened in 1985 as Broadway Southwest
Rebranded as May D&F in 1987
Rebranded as Foley's in 1993
Closed 1994
Mall closed 1997
Foley's building is now a library and other city offices

Lakewood (Villa Italia)
Opened 1983 as Broadway Southwest
Rebranded as May D&F in 1987
Rebranded as Foley's in 1993
Mall closed 2001
Closed 2003
Foley's building is now a Dick's Sporting Goods

Lone Tree (Park Meadows)
Opened 1997

Loveland (The Promenade Shops at Centerra)
Opened 2005

Westminster (Westminster Mall)
Opened 1986 as May D&F
Rebranded as Foley's in 1993

Fort Collins (Foothills Mall)
Opened 1974 as May D&F
Rebranded as Foley's in 1993

REFERENCES
1) Most were from Wikipedia
2) Denver Dry at Aurora was here: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-5048564.html. It handled women's after the conversion.

Circuit City Going Out of Business

A year ago I would've been floored that Circuit City would go completely dead. After all, the "distant third" CompUSA had gone dead, and they were clearly suffering. With Best Buy at the top, what will compete? Will anything?

I just can't help but compare it to Montgomery Ward.

1) Highly damaging to retail, many stores closed
2) Last ditch remodeling/rebranding ("The City" vs. "Wards")
3) A distant second place
4) "Reborn" as online only marketplace

Welcome to Retail Addiction!

What is Retail Addiction? It's a lot of things really. It's where you'll find an assortment of items found nowhere else. You'll find mirror posts of the late blog "Malls of America", run by Detroit resident Keith Milford, a bunch of older scanned mall directories, old newspaper articles, and much more. Contact me at earthboundman@NOSPAMgmail.com. Remove the NOSPAM when you send it, by the way!

Mandatory first post. This is my blog, mostly for capturing the essence of MallsofAmerica before it disappears forever. It was a blog run by Keith Milford, a resident of Detroit. But you'll see some other neat stuff, too. Original stuff.