Can we talk about the difference between dead malls with anchor stores still open vs. totally empty ones?
I hit two malls last weekend in Ohio, one in Dayton and one in Cincinnati. The Dayton one still had a Macy's and a JCPenney hanging on, and it felt way more alive even though most of the inline stores were dark. The Cincinnati one had zero anchors left, just a shuttered Sears and a empty food court, and it was creepy in a bad way. Like the difference was night and day in terms of how the atmosphere felt. The half-dead one had people actually walking through, even if they were just going to the anchor. The fully dead one felt like a tomb, no foot traffic at all. Has anyone else noticed that one anchor store can totally change the vibe of a dead mall?