Rating Retail in Southeastern Cities : Part 2

     Way back in the day (or 2 and a half months) I made a post on the ratings of retail in cities of the Southeast. Today this is my most popular post, and I would obviously make a sequel, and possibly make four parts to each region. So we create part 2 of the Southeast. This post covers the smaller cities of the area and their retail situation. And if you missed the methodology of my ratings, here you go:

- Number of dying/live shopping centers

- Hometown stores

- Future of retail

MEMPHIS, TN : B

Memphis is generally an underperformer in mostly everything. This carries over to the retail and business sector. Interesting, one mall has been demolished, Hickory Ridge is a little farther up the spectrum, then Southland, Oak Court, and finally Wolfchase. While odd, it's not preferred given that Hickory Ridge is soon to be demolished, leaving the fairly-large city with three malls plus Saddle Creek. One will be pretty much afterthought, so technically two malls. This sadly may not resolve itself, given that Memphis has pretty much underperformed on the growth part too. But, Fred's and AutoZone are based in Memphis and you can ship that with FedEx.

MONTGOMERY, AL : C

Montgomery has both vintage, but depressing retail. Montgomery Mall is the definition of dead. Normandale has no love or fun, and any redevelopment would be tough, given the neighborhood and decay. Eastdale is pretty average and small. And what rules king? Two lifestyle centers, by the names High Point Town Center, and the Shoppes at Eastchase. To add insult to injury, there isn't very much growth or any stores that a Montgomerian can proudly shop at. As in, hometown stores.

MACON, GA : C+

Macon is filled with mainly retail tragedy. Westgate was never exciting, and Burlington's, the dead mall auto fill-in anchor, has since. Macon Mall was once something of size and upscale, but was partially demolished a few years back and has had its power receded recently. Most retail excitement comes from the truly unexciting "power center" or a lifestyle coming by the name of the Shop-pes of River Crossing. This took the hype of Macon Mall, and is why the enclosed center is only a shell of itself. As for the rest, Macon also doesn't have a whole lot of growth or stores to be proud of.

GREENVILLE-SPARTANBURG, SC : B

Like the tune of this list, GSP does well but doesn't. Haywood acts as the best mall in the state, and WestGate isn't far behind. But not all is well in the Three Cities. Greenville Mall, McAlister Square, and Hillcrest were badly conceived, and have since passed. Hillcrest has been and is still successful as a strip center, and McAlister Square is now an educational complex. Greenville Mall was demolished and replaced with - you guessed it - a power center. As for hometown headquarters, Denny's, sorta retail, is based in the area. As for the future, two malls is probably all the area needs, and expect them to prosper.

NASHVILLE, TN : B+

Nashville is a city of retail extremes. While Green Hills, Opry Mills, and CoolSprings Galleria are nice and all, you can't shake off Bellevue Center, Harding, Hickory Hollow, and 100 Oaks (in a way). Filling in the gaps are Rivergate and Stones River, which are pretty much mid-market "meh" malls. What really pulls down Nashville is that aside from restaurants, not much business-wise locates there. Hobby Lobby is the only notable. Nashville, like pretty much every other Southeastern city, has steady growth, and the retail will improve from it. Not bad, not great, but not much to be ashamed over.

Lord and Taylor in Georgia

Photo from Department Store Museum

     Back in the day, before bankruptcies and the years of consolidations, there was a certain New York retailer in the state of Georgia. This retailer was the upscale Lord and Taylor, which would place three locations in three malls. These trendy, upscale malls where L&T was located were Phipps Plaza, Mall of Georgia, and North Point Mall. The stores would be very successful for the chain, with the Phipps store lasting 35 years until the May Co. bankruptcy. This death came in 2004, along with the other Georgia stores.

     Even though, there is barely any presence of L&T still remaining in the Southeast, it is possible that it is coming back. In 2013, L&T opened a store in the Mizner Park lifestyle center in Boca Raton. Under new ownership, L&T has been opening new stores and expects to head to our northern neighbors. Canada, home to the parent company's Hudson's Bay stores. It would be interesting to see wherever L&T goes to, with many states remembering but not feeling the stores. These chain mysteries are seriously something that I will look into more down the road. 

Department Store Museum

The Mallmanac

Mall of Georgia L&T Sky City

North Point entrance Sky City

Santa Fe Mall, Duluth (Atlanta), Georgia

     What's becoming more and more popular are repurposed malls that were once dying, but adjusted to the community, and reborn. Santa Fe Mall is similar to this scenario, but was far from the dead mall nickname prior to conversion. Santa Fe Mall wasn't a mall at all previous to the renovation. This hasn't done a whole lot to hurt though, with Santa Fe a major community place. The mall has always interested me, and today we visit to the Hispanic community center the mall is.

Here we are entering the mall. On closer inspection, the cinema looks very swanky. 

     From all that I can tell, Santa Fe Mall was converted/constructed/renovated to its current state in 2005. The website says that they are celebrating their 12th anniversary soon, so that's probably the opening date. I presume the mall was once a storage facility, being that the layout has a lot of small hallways and garage doors. Of course, there is a lack of information on the mall online, so who knows. I do know that Santa Fe wasn't built as Santa Fe, so it had to be something. I can't confirm really anything aside from the opening date.

Here's the central mallway and one of two anchors. D&K Suit City acts as sort of a lower-income JCPenney.

     Santa Fe Mall has to be the weirdest mall I've been in yet. The layout seems simple at first, but once you pass center court, all bets are off. A labyrinth of hallways exposes itself in a hashtag shape on each side. Down these small corridors, mainly services are located, including attorneys, salons, and offices. Also in the small mall is a food court, with three bays and an odd location. Through the main entrance facing PetSmart on Venture Blvd, all the way to center court then past, then left on a small hallway takes you to the eateries. It would not be hard to get lost, and while I say it is a small mall, it may not be one. I'm a little disappointed I didn't go through the maze of hallways on my visit. 

First two shots show the center court and its stage/fountain and the last shows the right off the court, to the cinema. Venture Cinema is a cheap first-run theatre with a few Latin movies.

     The one thing that popped out here was the vibes. The architecture gives the feel of a Mexican market, with detailed yellow storefronts giving way to businesses. Many kiosks were similar to convenience stores, with Mexican candies and foods. It's pretty cool to see how a different culture goes like normal on their shopping trips, just as we go shopping. The families in the area treat a trip here like we treat our mall trips. We can't wait for birthdays and money to purchase clothes we've always wanted. The same happens here. Shopping across the world is so different, but the same.

Lone food court photo. I visited around lunchtime and it was tough to take any other pictures.

These hallways are filled with merchandise. 

     Santa Fe Mall is safe for years to come. It's been a big enough force to partially hinder good ol' Moonbeam's plan to change Gwinnett Place to the ethnic type. Combined with Global Mall, Plaza Fiesta, Northeast Plaza, and the Buford Highway corridor, Atlanta has a pretty solid international retail scene. The people it attracts almost grant it immunity, given that the area Hispanics probably use Amazon much less and with larger families, brick and mortar is the way to go. The mix of services and stores mean you could nearly go everyday and do something different. It's the perfect mall of the future in my opinion.

And this what I mean when I talk about small hallways with garage doors.

Down this unsuspecting hallway is the food court.

While it doesn't show it in detail, there is a fountain in the mall.

This is a view of leaving the mall the same entrance I entered through.

Columbiana Centre, Irmo (Columbia), SC

     Columbia, SC is a bustling college town and the state capitol of South Carolina. Population figures include a city of 135,000 and a metro area of 825,000. Columbia formed at the convergence of two rivers, and is a recreation center for the state. Today's Columbia is a quickly growing metropolis sandwiched between Atlanta and Charlotte. Interestingly though, the retail is pretty lackluster and leaves much to be desired.

Here are a few opening exterior shots. The outside storefronts form some weird harmony that is pleasing to the eye. F21 joined in 2011, and was once I believe a restaurant looking at the older Sky City post.

      To elaborate on this comment about the dark history of Columbia retail, I should probably first note that a little stupidity was involved. Richland probably needed to enclose itself but not completely upscale. Dutch Square was right to redevelop, but Burlington and Planet Fitness isn't attracting a whole lot of retail money. Columbia Place was late to react to the original problems, and currently has an infamously bad owner. Village at Sandhill was big enough to do damage, but small enough to steamroll for decades, and has been having some vacancy pains as of late. Columbia could probably live with three malls given the solid economic base, growing population, and lack of demographical problems (generally low crime, not very many "bad" neighborhoods). Instead, Columbia has no lack of dead retail and one mall, which one could say doesn't capture the full audience, rules king. That mall is Columbiana Centre, located at the corner of Harbison Blvd. and I-26 in the northwestern 'burb of Irmo. 

Directory shots of an originally plain mall. No Apple stores, H&Ms, William-Sonoma's, Banana Republics (prev. two were once at Columbiana), or Cheesecake Factories. Expansion? This makes me wonder how well Columbiana serves the market.

     The 1990 opening revealed two things: Dutch Square was screwed, and the future of Columbia retail was a plain two-anchor mall. Those anchors were Belk and Sears, two stores not near unique to the market. Further increasing silliness of retail king was the rural area Columbiana was located in and lack of draw. Nothing truly hometown or valued heavily in Columbia had a spot there, nearly making the mall's rise completely unexpected. Seems as if Lake Murray money does wonders.

I love these entrances. Of course JB White and Mercantile Stores should be thanked, but the elegance and simplicity shine through here. Belk basically blends in as an inline tenant, and synchronizes with the arches at the same time. 10/10.

While original Belk/Parisian/JCP looks different and unique, Dillard's is as usual. The latter entrance at least sorta accents the mall.

     For being such a young mall, it wasn't long before changes came to the newcomer. Dillard's joined on a northeastern wing in 1993, giving the layout much more flavor and a tad more upscale mall. There were two anchor pads built at construction, but Dillard's added on for an interesting reason. The mall is in both Richland (Columbia) and Lexington (Lexington) Counties, which comes different rules. Lexington County was rural at the time, and had vastly different Sunday laws at the time. Dillard's location meant it could open an hour-and-a-half before Lexington County section opened. I believe that these laws have since been signed out of favor, given Lex. County's recent growth spurt, but I live 210 miles away, so I can't confirm this.

Dillard's exterior shots. Believe or not......Dillard's looks the same. Are there any non-traditional Dillard's stores in the Southeast? I would love to know.

     These changes kept continuing into the better part of the decade, and past. JB White joined the scene in 1995 with a stunning store that I have no photos of. This would fill in an anchor pad with a familiar store that still had enough love to do well, but wasn't terribly small and had no idea how to run a store. Problem was, three years later, JB White reached its fate in a merger with Dillard's. With the latter in existence at the mall, the White's was given to Belk, which closed its original spot to be handed over to Parisian. This would be the last SC Parisian constructed (or well, opened), ending a short era of kicked off with LJH. 2005 called for the end of Columbiana Parisian, to be replaced with JCPenney. Things gradually slowed down to the end with Sears departing in 2014. This was swiftly replaced with an expanded Belk Men's and Dave and Buster's.

Here's Express Men, BB&W, and Pro Im....Dead Sports!? If you're a kiosk and you close, wouldn't you remove the sign? These full signs are usually in dead malls which is understandable.

Food Court with dead Burger King? Definitely a dead mall...

And, yes, that was sarcasm. BK is temporarily closed, FYI. There's the carousel in this photo.

     While Columbiana is a nice mall, and doesn't make me fully question what is happening in SC, it has room for improvement. Whenever JCPenney says goodbye, that should be replaced by the state's first Nordstrom. An expansion could be possible between the food court and Dillard's wing. With the parking cut off and lost there, a parking garage would be completed in the middle, between the new wing and the original wing. In the expansion, the aforementioned stores would be located there, turning Columbiana into a superregional powerhouse and effectively killing off the Columbia competitors. Again, while I believe Columbia could support 2-3 malls of different sizes, the others aren't doing a whole lot to help.

While I apologize for the semi-tilted photos, I had one free hand - one for camera and one for an aptly-named Eclipse Frappuccino. [Photos taken Aug. 21, 2017]

Looking down to the shady food court.

Nice, bright, and inviting. Explains the modern-renovated mall.

     Even where it is, Columbiana's place as Columbia's best is cemented. The other players will probably die out in not too long, and with only one true choice, Columbians will probably flock there. What is probably going to hold back the mall is the distance from downtown and the university. Of course, if it was closer the incomes wouldn't be as high, though nothing in Columbia is truly far. Irmo residents wouldn't hurt to head just a little farther south. But in this case, the UoSC Bookstore, like many others, is the only place for the non-car inclined students to shop. If the mall was closer, a whole new world of shopping awaits. Instead that "closer" mall is Richland Mall, or more to fit, Belk, given the four remaining stores. So, in a way, it isn't a question of survival, it's a question of audience and who is being reached.

Here's three views of the Dillard's wing. Everything pretty much molds together architecturally. 

Here's where the proposed expansion begins.

Here's looking back from Dillard's.

Our last photo is actually one of the first, with a view from the main entrance, then turn left at the central corridor.