BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. — If the death of the American mall is imminent, Joe Bell said the Meadowbrook Mall in Harrison County isn’t feeling the same pain.
“For the past ten or fifteen years, on a regular basis at least once a month, we see stories come out that talk about the death of the American mall,” Bell, the Director of Corporate Communications at Cafaro Corpation, said Wednesday on “The Gary Bowden Show” on the AJR News Network. “And it just really has never transpired the way some of the doomsayers have said.”
Cafaro Corpotation, which owns the Meadowbrook Mall, recently purchased 30 acres of new land as part of a potential expansion in the Bridgeport area.
“We’ve been changing from a place where people used to go for a pair of shoes or a shirt to a place where they can also go to grab a great meal or be entertained or get professional services done,” Bell said.
Bell said investors like Cafaro Corporation are always on the look-out for ways to adjust — especially as traditional ‘anchor’ stores like Macy’s, J.C. Penny’s, and Sears go through store closures, layoffs, and even potential bankruptcies.
“The first part of the year, the first few months specifically, a lot of retailers found themselves doing some dramatic things to try and fix their bottom lines,” Bell said.
He did note that J.C. Penny’s is already on the road to returning to financial health.
“They brought back a former CEO, and they reconfigured the things that had been tampered with,” Bell said. “And they’ve been doing quite well for a variety of reasons.”
Bell also emphasized the importance of unique offerings — like a quality meal — in terms of setting mall’s apart from the online retail model.
“One thing you can’t do online is have lunch with your best friend,” he said.
Bell said the business models governing mall ownership, like most businesses, continue to change to evolve with what he describes as the constantly changing habits of American consumers.
“Last year, of all the retail sales in America, online sales made up just 8.5 percent of that,” he said. “Now that’s not inconsiderable, but it’s stll just a fraction of all the sales that are going on because people still like to go to a physical place to shop.”
He noted that Carfaro Corp has not made a final decision on how to use the new land they purchased, which is close to Dick’s Sporting Goods.
“That’s space we’ll use in the future for new offerings or new concepts that we’ll be bringing to Meadowbrook Mall,” Bell said. “We don’t have any firm plans yet, but there are an awful lot of possibilities.”