What did my local mall look like the day when covid restrictions statewide were lifted on May 4th, 2020? Mall retailers were allowed to begin to-go service to customers on April 24, 2020 as a soft reopening.
Well the first change is the Sears which closed back in April. Somehow the store closing sale continued even though Sears was not an essential business.
5:30 in the afternoon and the mall is a ghost town. Only a handful of businesses reopened.
Seats closed off.
JCPenney still closed.
Bath and Body Works still closed.
Dillard's still closed.
The last bit of 90's left in the mall, the neon elevator.
Normally these corridors would have been pretty busy.
The few stores that were open had customer capacity restrictions and facemask signs.
The first anchor that was open for business so far. Dick's Sporting Goods. This second level mall entrance now closed off. It is still closed off most of the time even with business mostly back to normal as of this post.
Macy's was also open, almost like an oasis in the mostly dark corridors.
H&M had just barely opened before the holidays and it was closed for the mall reopening.
Customer traffic in Dick's Sporting Goods was just as bad as in the mall. Maybe 5 people besides the employees.
The movie theater is the one part of the mall that is still not back to normal.
A handful of restaurants were open but for to-go orders only. All seating was closed off.
Seeing the mall like this was a huge shock. I had a lot of questions at that point.
Did we go to far with the lockdowns?
When will things return to normal?
Will things return to normal?
Will these stores that didn't reopen come back at some point?
As of the posting of this article, things have mostly returned to normal at the mall. As of 2021, the mall has lost some inline tenants from bankruptcies and smaller retailers that couldn't recover. One of the most popular food court restaurants has been locked out of their business since October. The AMC is open but with greatly reduced offerings. Sears was reopened by Spirit Halloween for three months so we were able to see the inside of the store one last time. The Sears building currently is sitting vacant awaiting redevelopment or demolition.
Now for some more shots of the freshly closed Sears.
2nd floor mall entrance.
1st floor mall entrance.
