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 This is an outdated concept and many are struggling to stay current.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.
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