The Shops at Ithaca Mall is a wasteland: that much is apparent after taking even a short stroll through the local shopping center. Online shopping has led to a decline in customers for brick-and-mortar stores nationwide. Core department stores at our local mall such as Sears, and more recently, The Bon-Ton, have closed due to bankruptcy. A plethora of local, specialized, and vintage businesses have also gone quietly into that good night, only to be replaced by seasonal businesses, such as Halloween and party supplies retailers, that eventually share the same fate. As a result, shuttered shops and gloomy storefronts riddle The Shops at Ithaca Mall. Although it still has visitors and consumers, there’s no doubt the mall is in decline.
Josh Sanburn, writer at TIME magazine, lists the causes for the “dying mall.” He blames the “blow of the Great Recession,” an increase in retail space that is largely being left unused, and an American cultural consumer shift from leisureliness to efficiency. Going to malls, argues Sanburn, takes time and planning that most Americans don’t have time for, especially when alternatives are so much easier to access online.
The result of this general trend is, of course, mall carnage. Credit Suisse, a Swiss financial services company, grimly estimates that a 20 percent to 25 percent of American malls will shut down by 2022. While many Ithacans don’t feel attachment to the chain-store businesses that frequently inhabit America’s malls, it’s important to note that malls also house boutique stores and local businesses. Unlike giants like Target, which can recoup some sales through price matching programs, these smaller retailers don’t have as streamlined a supply chain, and thus can’t take the heat. Sarah Schiffling, a researcher at Heriot-Watt University, noted that small shops were significantly threatened by online shopping. As a result of the leverage they already have, successful mass-retailers suffer limited losses while local businesses and boutiques take a big hit.
Thankfully, American politicians are beginning to take note of the eerily rapid decline of malls and are proposing solutions to this national issue. Andrew Yang, a Democratic presidential candidate polling at seven percent in a late January Washington Post-ABC News poll, has proposed what he dubs the American Mall Act. According to his campaign website, Yang believes the revitalization of malls as local centers for socialization and shopping is critical. He vows to “secure a $6 billion fund to help struggling malls . . . find new uses for the buildings and commercial spaces.”
But what changes could be made to resuscitate our friendly neighborhood dying mall? It’s clear that malls are becoming less popular as shopping hotspots because online shopping dominates in terms of selection and prices. So it’s evident that malls, including the Shops at Ithaca Mall, need to reinvent themselves to stay alive. The mall needs to be a place to hang out, relax, and seek refuge from Ithaca winters, not just a place to shop. In order to transform its image, our mall specifically should add more family-friendly spaces. It should add green to its interior in order to make it more aesthetically pleasing and welcoming. The mall could also introduce green roofing. Sure, green roofing doesn’t exactly make the experience more enjoyable, but it makes the mall more environmentally friendly. According to the U.S. General Services Administration, green rooftops attract wildlife and can reduce roof storm runoff by up to 65 percent. They also cut down on heating bills, and could help the aesthetics of the mall fit in with the Ithacan spirit.
Another option could be adding public indoor play spaces so parents can bring their children. Scottsdale Quarter, a shopping center in Arizona, saw significant increases in revenue when it began to think out of the box and redesign itself for an experience that people can’t get online.
In short, we need to make the mall more inviting and have a purpose greater than shopping. The mall has no viable future if its sole purpose is to be a shopping location. It has to be a community center, where Ithacans and other locals can come to hang out on weekends. It needs to be a place where parents are comfortable bringing up their children. To this end, playgrounds and breastfeeding spaces should be added to fill in some of the vacant storefronts. The mall should also utilize public spaces and rotating art exhibits. C.J. Hughes, writer for the New York Times, uses the example of Miami’s Aventura Mall in his article, “Dying Malls? This One Has Found a Way to Thrive,” to prove how malls can be more than just a commercial center. Art pieces such as “figurative sculptures” are featured often and “events are also part of the equation . . . weddings, fashion shows and art exhibits.”
The future currently looks bleak for the Ithaca Mall, and it will only continue to, unless the Shops at Ithaca Mall revamps its game plan. Malls around the country are losing business to online shopping, and therefore, following the same modus operandi that worked twenty-five years ago is no longer viable. Malls, and The Shops at Ithaca Mall, should be a recreational space and a pleasant shopping space, not just a barebones collection of chain stores and unoriginal retailers.