American Dream: can this giant New
Jersey mega-mall revive US retail?
Guardian [U.K.],
by
Dominic Rushe
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
12/27/2019 9:44:08 AM
On a dreary Tuesday morning shortly before Christmas, two passengers boarded the 9.30am 355 bus from New York’s Port Authority bus terminal bound for American Dream, the most ambitious new mall to be built in the US in a generation. One was a mall worker who didn’t want to talk to the media; the other was me.(Snip) “They filled in wetlands to build a water park. It’s almost funny,” Jeff Tittel, the director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club environmental group, said bitterly. He predicts that the site will need to attract 100,000 cars a day to be successful,
Reply 1 - Posted by:
JL80863 12/27/2019 9:53:06 AM (No. 272241)
Or not OP.
2 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
bad-hair 12/27/2019 10:13:25 AM (No. 272271)
I can order a plastic car part that costs $3.57 from Amazon and it arrives on my doorstep the next day, shipped free. I can't imagine how they do that but Amazon is quite apparently profitable. Why would I waste an afternoon at a shopping mall. There are a lot of things I won't buy online, very few of which exist in malls. Tear the joint down and build a refinery. Iran needs gasoline.
13 people like this.
And how, pray tell, will you regulate/restrict/ban the feral urges, hood and barrio dwelling hoodlums and other undesirables from raping, burning, and looting??
21 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
chumley 12/27/2019 10:49:53 AM (No. 272306)
I wish them well and hope they can make a go of it, but I don't like shopping and especially not mall shopping. The places seem to attract rude people and way too many unsupervised teenagers who think the place belongs to them. The prices are too high and the sales people know no more about their products than I do. Essentially they are there just to smile and ring up purchases. Ok, the smiles are nice sometimes.
10 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
WV.Hillbilly 12/27/2019 10:58:19 AM (No. 272315)
No.
"See it: Wild melee breaks out at upstate New York mall on Christmas Eve "
11 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
coldoc 12/27/2019 11:07:35 AM (No. 272322)
As per previous prescient posters, if the feral minorities get in, it's toast.
15 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
jacksin5 12/27/2019 11:08:25 AM (No. 272324)
Enclosed shopping malls are so 1980's. The specialty retail shops like Panama Jack can't afford the high rents year-round and hope to make a profit for the year with Christmas sales. The anchor store chains suck as Sears and J.C.Penney. are crippled and on their way out.
You can build it, but good luck finding tenants.
6 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
jacksin5 12/27/2019 11:09:21 AM (No. 272325)
Sorry the word I wanted was "such".
2 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
earlybird 12/27/2019 12:00:27 PM (No. 272367)
This is not a good time for malls. Many across the country have closed or are on their way downhill. Sounds like a very bad business decision to me...
6 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 12/27/2019 12:32:46 PM (No. 272381)
Re #9. Malls seem to a dying idea that was all the rage some years ago....unique stores, food courts, good weather all year. Now online shopping is pushing brick and mortar to the wall. Toss in the high rents and retail businesses can’t make it in a mall. The other factor involved is allowing feral ‘youths’ to run freely and drive away the few customers left. Malls use to be special but, as another poster mentioned, anything I want is a few clicks away with free delivery.
7 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
dbdiva 12/27/2019 12:35:29 PM (No. 272383)
The two main malls in my area are bleeding tenants and 3 of the 4 anchor stores in each are also gone. It's pretty depressing especially at this time of year.
I took a quick trip to the mall several weeks ago; there was a forlorn Santa sitting in Santa Land but sadly there were no kids in sight. I felt so bad for him I almost went over to sit on his lap!
I wish this mall luck but I have my doubts....
4 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Highlander 12/27/2019 1:45:44 PM (No. 272445)
Our number one mall in the middle of downtown is long passed its glory days. When I last went there ten years ago, there was just dollar stores with Asian junk and an Avon lady set-up. The year before, on Christmas Eve, it was a ghost town.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
privateer 12/27/2019 1:49:15 PM (No. 272447)
Back in the very late 70s there was an entertaining movie---a sequel to the earlier cult classic "Night of the Living Dead. It was called "Dawn of the Dead". . In it, some people, unfortunately in the wrong place/wrong time, are hunted by zombies in a deserted or maybe abandoned shopping mall. I think life is beginning to imitate art.
2 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
dirtyjersey 12/27/2019 2:23:55 PM (No. 272466)
Trust me, if Jeff Tittel is against it, you’re for it.
1 person likes this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
hershey 12/27/2019 3:07:39 PM (No. 272492)
Todays news 'news' .... TWO local shopping malls have started curfews for teenagers... wild unsupervised kids are creating chaos at the malls...one experienced a big time fight .... I repeat, 'unsupervised kids'.... probably can't find their daddies anywhere around either...and the mommies are holding down two jobs .... and of course they are Amish....
4 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
bad-hair 12/27/2019 3:14:21 PM (No. 272496)
Entropy under way.. There are those of us Texans who live on acreage but close enough to cities that Amazon can find us. When the malls die and the cities die I will still have my tomato patch and my several cows. Good luck Philadelphia. Cost me less than a condo in DC.
3 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Terry_tr6 12/27/2019 3:26:22 PM (No. 272500)
No. Wonder if it can be repurposed into an Amazon distribution center.
3 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
franq 12/27/2019 3:56:20 PM (No. 272521)
LOL, #12, those tenants mean the mall is Stage IV. Happened to ours. It closed for good about 5 years ago.
2 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
red1066 12/27/2019 5:24:46 PM (No. 272558)
I think at some point, people will want to see what they want to buy in person before buying it. Right now, shopping on line seems to be what people want. However, with returns after Christmas reaching an all time high this year, buying online seems to have a few setbacks. There is something to be said about trying something on or seeing an item in person before buying it. I can think of a number of items I've seen online, but when I saw them in person, it just didn't meet my expectations.
1 person likes this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
kono 12/27/2019 5:25:43 PM (No. 272559)
#7 still works, even with the typo (which may make the grammar a little awkward but doesn't invalidate the statement).
Snarkiness notwithstanding, we need only notice the byline to predict what follows. Letting the Guardian criticize a consumer or capitalist marketplace is like giving your Labrador Retriever a chew toy that makes noise and tries to flee...
As for this being bad timing, perhaps it's a case where those who invest when the market is down stand a good chance of reaping the biggest rewards.
0 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
earlybird 12/27/2019 5:57:16 PM (No. 272571)
Re #20, nice try at playing devil’s advocate, but most of us have seen too many malls die slow painful deaths. And most of us would rather not venture into one - even the parking garages can be dangerous places. I was nearly pushed down an escalator by a bunch of young boys clowning around with baby sister’s (empty) stroller. And the department stores that have anchored many malls are dying. Once they go, the draw to foot traffic - which is the lifeblood of malls - dwindles to a trickle. Heading into a mall situation to shop only one small store is not really a big winner… Once the big stores shutter, it is just a matter of time.
4 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
bighambone 12/28/2019 10:33:05 AM (No. 273052)
If they are not on top of it, there is no doubt that large numbers of feral youth affiliated with violent gangs and degenerate violent cultures will kill that mall. New Jersey is a liberal Democrat place where “political correctness” is very high on the political agenda there so there may not be anyway that those criminally disposed groups who are not there to shop can legally be kept under control or out of that Mall. Once that happens large percentages of law abiding shoppers will not longer shop there for fear of becoming crime victims. That’s what happened around here, and resulted in whatever new malls are built not being enclosed, and open to the weather that serves to keep a lot of those criminal elements away.
0 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
karo 12/28/2019 2:10:53 PM (No. 273214)
I was at Macy's at LaCumbre Plaza in Santa Barbara, CA the day after Christmas. It was busy but the store was in a huge disarray and I didn't have much interest in pawing through a bunch of messy racks of clothing to find a bargain. I remember this store as Robinson's back in the '70s when it was first-class. It's still a beautiful building though. There was another Macy's at Paseo Nuevo downtown but it closed up recently. The Nordstrom at that (outdoor-ish) mall was also busy, and spotless and well organized. Definitely a throwback to the old days.
0 people like this.
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When is a protected wetlands not a protected wetlands? In NJ, it's when there's yet another mall to be built and more than a billion dollars of taxpayer money to be squandered as if thrown on a dumpster fire. The bailout on this thing will be one for the books.