Retail Watchers

veteran+ wrote: ↑January 3rd, 2022, 12:28 pm Yet some malls are thriving like, Dadeland in Miami, Beverly Center in Los Angeles as well as The Grove, to mention a few.

Anyone have an hypothesis as to what characteristics within their demographics are keeping these centers healthy?

I think without going into ethnic groups that population density has something to do with it. Also getting that "A" mix of stores. If you get stores with luxury goods, and enough population of certain demographics are in the area who will buy those luxury goods, you have a successful mall. That is a big part of why there are still many successful malls in CA. Also those luxury brands continue to be well represented in San Francisco in Union Square. Despite recent issues those are productive locations.

Dadeland sells to the Latin American clientele who shops and takes the items with them flying home to their home country.. Tough to do US mail order shopping/shipping on a short trip to the US.

Romr123 wrote: ↑January 3rd, 2022, 7:57 pm Dadeland sells to the Latin American clientele who shops and takes the items with them flying home to their home country.. Tough to do US mail order shopping/shipping on a short trip to the US.

Of course they sell to the Hispanic residents and Hispanic tourists but........................any well heeled resident still shops there from areas that are not predominantly Hispanic.

storewanderer wrote: ↑January 3rd, 2022, 7:21 pm

veteran+ wrote: ↑January 3rd, 2022, 12:28 pm Yet some malls are thriving like, Dadeland in Miami, Beverly Center in Los Angeles as well as The Grove, to mention a few.

Anyone have an hypothesis as to what characteristics within their demographics are keeping these centers healthy?

I think without going into ethnic groups that population density has something to do with it. Also getting that "A" mix of stores. If you get stores with luxury goods, and enough population of certain demographics are in the area who will buy those luxury goods, you have a successful mall. That is a big part of why there are still many successful malls in CA. Also those luxury brands continue to be well represented in San Francisco in Union Square. Despite recent issues those are productive locations.

Moving back to the topic in Aberdeen, WA...

Aberdeen has been heavily reliant on timber, fishing, and to a lesser extent tourism for years. The population (including nearby Hoquiam, WA) has for the most part been stagnant since about the early 1990s, while Washington has seen a lot of growth in other areas. The mall might have relied on some of the the tourists passing through, but unless you came in to town from the south, you might not even know that the mall existed. The arrival of Walmart did not help, people with limited incomes tend to pay close attention to prices.

What I was talking about referring to GGP and their lack of understanding in small markets...A lot of the vacancies probably had to do with GGP and their leasing rates. I do know that part of the reason Kelso's Three Rivers Mall struggled was because they were charging rates similar to the more successful Clackamas Town Center in the Portland area, which is not even close to the same demographic or population density. If GGP was doing the same in Aberdeen, this likely had a lot to do with why the mall emptied out. Both malls were struggling when GGP (or their spin-off Rouse, in the case of Kelso) unloaded them. It's hard to justify high leasing rates when sales are low.