Mall Master Plan II: Junior Anchors and Shrinking Department Stores

These days Malls are a dying and the strongest shall survive. Most will say that online Retailing is the soul reason for the death of Malls. That's only half true. The other piece of the puzzle is the fact that there are simply too many Malls and too many stores. In order to be a successful Mall, you have to have a perfect balance of Retail, Restaurants, and Recreation. That being said, even a successful Mall will have vacant space due to the fact that Retailers are going bankrupt at an alarming speed. The test of success is whether or not those spaces remain vacant or can be leased out again.

So this brings us to Columbia Mall. As you are all aware, Columbia Mall is doing great. Especially when compared to other Malls in the area. However, there are stores in the Mall that have left will leave because the store's parent company is going bankrupt. Usually, the Columbia Mall's branches of these stores are among the last of the ones to close as they tend to be among the more profitable locations. A big victim of this Retail crisis is the Department Store. This is an outdated concept and many are struggling to stay current. Despite their shaky statuses, they're still expected to anchor a Mall. If a Mall loses a Department Store anchor, the inline stores near will leave pretty quickly.

As the Columbia Mall grapples with these truths, this can be an opportunity to look at the size of Department Stores and see whether or not they can be downsized to a level of efficiency. This is being done already with the Sears space, it went from two floors to one last year and is in the process of having its second floor split up between Main Event Entertainment a Dave & Busters type of venue with Laser Tag, Bowling Alley etc. and Barnes Noble. This Barnes & Noble will be smaller and will feature a Wine Bar. This store will be a prototype for this new concept. The old Sears Auto Center will be turned into "Uncle Julio's" a Mexican Restaurant expanding from Bethesda.

In short, the second floor of the Sears space is becoming "Junior Anchors." They serve the same purpose as a traditional full sized Anchor but are smaller in size and shy away from a traditional Department Store Anchor. They also tend to face more outwards towards the parking lot in order to draw more people into the Mall from the outside. This outward facing appearance will allow these venues to stay open later than the interior Mall. This has worked well for the shrinking Sears, but where else could it work?

Sears isn't the only Department Store facing financial problems. Luckily, the owners of those Department Stores actually want to see them succeed and are trying their best to make them do so. At the Columbia Mall, a good Department Store to also downsize would be J.C. Penney. This store took the former Woodie's space in 1996 and sports a dated exterior facade and a dated first floor. The second floor has been renovated recently and looks great. One thing of note in this J.C. Penney is the fact the two floor portion of the store is smaller. The first floor bumps out towards the food court.

 This is where and how the J.C. Penney can shrink. By consolidating it to just the two floor portion, a Junior Anchor can take over the one floor portion. My preference for this Junior Anchor would be a Furniture Store like Crate & Barell or Pottery Barn. Like the stores taking the second floor of Sears, they will face out wards and draw shoppers into this portion of the Mall. This entire space will receive an exterior facade renovation as will the first floor of J.C. Penney to match the modernized second floor. If it turns out J.C. Penney doesn't need to shrink and they need every last square foot, I would still make this portion of the store a Junior Anchor and add a third floor to Penneys.

Next we come to Lord & Taylor. Lord & Taylor is another brand on the brink of extinction. The only other one in the area is in Annapolis Mall and that one will be closing leaving Columbia to be the soul location in the Baltimore Area. The way I'd shrink this store would be to carve out a section of the first floor between the interior Mall Entrance and exterior Mall Entrance facing Wincopin Circle along Little Patuxent Parkway. This will free up space for the second exterior promenade described in part I of this plan which will connect the Mall to the lakefront. This will include other stores and restaurants that are too large to fit in any vacant spaces the Mall currently has. The second floor of Lord & Taylor will remain untouched.

The last two Department Store Anchors, Macy's and Nordstrom will not shrink. Although it may troubling to talk about the upcoming death of the traditional Department Store, it would be much more troubling to talk about the death of the entire Mall, something that's happening to many Malls across the Country. Columbia Mall is in the unique position in which tenants still want to lease space there and shrinking traditional Department Stores in favor of Junior Anchors, the Mall will continue to thrive for years to come.         

Misson Road: The Wrong Site Now

Perhaps the largest issue the County is facing at the current moment is where to build the next High School (HS#13) there's the more sensible location; Elkridge and the not so sensible one; Jessup. Currently there are two locations in Elkridge. The first and most walker friendly is on Montgomery Road at the intersection of Landing Road and the other is in Troy Hill Park surrounded almost entirely by highways. The Jessup site is located between Route 1 and Mission Road just below the Railroad Tracks.

The reason I got involved in the HS#13 debate is because I read an article that gives reasons as to why the Mission Road Site should be the site selected. They point to the fact that the southeast has had less School construction and that locating the School there would lead fewer Schools with high FARM percentages. Sadly the southeast isn't where the growth is at the moment. The growth is in the northeast and the two High Schools that need it the most are Howard and Long Reach. The article sites a grandiose redistricting plan that "back fills" Howard and Long Reach after HS#13 opens. I don't  that's gong to happen since HS#13 can fill itself simply by taking Students out of Howard and Long Reach and without further redistricting, all three Schools will be at capacity in a very short time.





I agree that additional redistricting need to happen in 2022 when HS#13 is slated to open. I also understand why the southeast believes they're owed a High School. In 2002 they were cheated out of one. Reservoir should have been built there instead of what would become Maple Lawn. The Site that became the North Laurel Park and Community Center was reserved for a High School at one point. Had that occurred, the entire North Laurel Community would have been able to walk to School and Atholton, River Hill, and Reservoir wouldn't have been next door neighbors.

Not only was the southeast cheated out of a High School in 2002 but Elkridge was in 1996. The County chose Long Reach to relieve crowding at Howard despite both Schools being less than two miles from each other. Like the southeast, Elkridge has to travel far to either Howard or Long Reach. Yes both parts of the County were cheated out of a High School in the past but Elkridge needs one now. As I stated earlier, HS#13 can fill itself with excess students from Howard and Long Reach alone and no in bound redistricting will be needed to either existing School. I also stated that more redistricting will have to take place in 2022 and I believe I can map out the Countywide redistricting for other Schools. First, here's my plan for the HS#13 District. This will be the District regardless of which site in Elkridge is used.  

As you can see this District follows a feeder system with Thomas Viaduct and Elkridge Lading Middles attending HS#13 and Mayfield Woods and part of Bonnie Branch attending Long Reach while Ellicott Mills and the rest of Bonnie Branch attending Howard. The remaining redistricting for 2022 will follow the same goal of a balanced feeder system.

As you can see in the western part of the County, I have flip flopped parts of River Hill and Glenelg. This allow a better split of the Folly Quarter Middle School District between Glenelg and River Hill. Under this plan, if you attend Dayton Oaks you attend River Hill and if you attend Tridelphia Ridge, you attend Glenelg.

The above plan creates a better feeder system for the west but River Hill will remain under enrolled. That is why I have sent the northern section of the Pointers Run Neighborhood to River Hill from Atholton. To refill Atholton, I have redistricted a part of Reservoir to Atholton. This area was chosen as a future feeder fix that will occur when ES#43 opens. And yes, I have carved out a district for ES#43.

 

 

Next we come to Hammond which serves most of the southeast and will serve more of it under my plan. Reservoir will continue to be crowded as Maple Lawn grows and will need more redistricting than just area I'm sending to Atholton. That's why I'm eliminating the feed from Patuxent Valley to Reservoir by sending it to Hammond. All of Patuxent Valley will then attend Hammond. The Guilford and Macgills Common Communities currently attending Hammond will be redistricted to Oakland Mills. I'd like to point out that Hammond is going to undergo a massive renovation/modernization that will include a 200 seat addition scheduled to be completed in 2022 when HS#13 opens.

Now I'm not trashing the Mission Road site completely. In fact, I think it should be the Site for the aforementioned ES#43 scheduled to open in 2023. In the future it should also be used for MS#21 as Middle Schools in the northeast and southeast become crowded again (yes I have carved out a district for MS#21 as well.) Since the Mission Road Site totals 100 acres, there will be land left over from ES#43 and MS#21 to build HS#15 or 16 one day in the future. What about HS#14 you ask? Notice Centennial and Mount Hebron are absent from this redistricting scheme. Stay Tuned.