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Camp Hill Mall on the outskirts of Harrisburg started out as a strip mall when it opened in 1986.
In the 1990s, it became an enclosed mall. Now in 2003, it is going back to being an outdoor center.
The flip flop is a result of changing design tastes and the decline of department stores, the traditional mall anchor.
Discount, big-box retailers, such as Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., have been snatching customers from stores such as J.C. Penney Co. Inc., Sears Roebuck and Co. and the now defunct Montgomery Ward.
Keeping an anchor store can mean the difference between saving a mall and dooming it to vacant storefronts and empty aisles, said Richard Moore, chairman of the retail committee for Landmark Commercial Realty Inc. of Lemoyne.
Capital City Mall, only a few miles from Camp Hill Mall, is thriving with 100 percent occupancy. It has $350 in sales per square foot compared to a national average of $330 per square foot. Moore said that is because the mall kept its three major anchors Sears, Hecht's and J. C. Penney
John Walters, the senior general manager of Capital City Mall, said he keeps tight control on expenses so that his common area costs such as heating and air-conditioning are low. That allows him to charge $6.75 per square foot in rent, compared to the nearly $8 per square foot at other malls.
Walters shrugs off talks that malls are going to die. People said the same thing when home-shopping networks started on cable television and the Internet took hold; malls still offer a controlled climate and convenience, and teenagers still regard them as a social nexus, he said.
"I don't believe that anything is going to kill malls," Walters said.
Another area mall may get a makeover soon. A real estate developer based in Phoenix, Ariz., is planning to buy the struggling Harrisburg East Mall for an undisclosed sum. Feldman Equities Inc. hopes to close the deal in the fall, said Larry Feldman, president and chief executive officer of the privately held company. The mall is owned by Prudential Insurance Co. of America in Newark, N.J. Feldman Equities owns or manages office buildings and malls in Arizona, Florida and New York City.
Feldman said his company has focused on revamping distressed malls. He said he would be ready in 60 days to announce new tenants to fill the spaces vacated by J.C. Penney in 2001 and Lord & Taylor last week.
There is no problem getting parking during weeknights at the Harrisburg East Mall. At the Paxton Towne Centre, a power center built in 2001, the parking lot is congested during weeknights. Power centers feature several big box retailers such as Target or category killers such as Circuit City.
Paxton Towne Centre has a Kohl's, Costco, Old Navy Borders, Bed Bath & Beyond and Target. These retailers are considered to be nontraditional anchors, as opposed to the older, more established department store chains, said Patrice Duker, a spokeswoman for the International Council of Shopping Centers in Manhattan. Kohl's has emerged as a competitor to other department stores only in the past few years, she said.
One reason developers like power centers is space. Developers have trouble finding enough land for enclosed malls, which are increasingly more than 800,000 square feet. Power centers and lifestyle centers which incorporate entertainment, such as movie theaters - range from 150,000 to 500,000 square feet.
Time-starved shoppers like power centers because they can get in and out quickly, Duker said. Research shows browsers still frequent the enclosed malls about three times per month and spend an average of 74 minutes shopping.
Whether a mall can rebound after losing an anchor depends on several factors, Duker said. The location of the mall, its tenant mix and the mall's design all play a role. Malls have been looking to the nontraditional anchors such as Wal-Mart to keep people coming, Duker said.
West Manchester Mall in York County has been struggling with an occupancy rate of about 76 percent and a sales volume of $182 per square foot.
The mall is hoping to bounce back with the expansion of its Wal-Mart into a supercenter. Wal-Mart will nearly double its square footage to 206,000 square feet next year.
Camp Hill Mall never seemed to recover after it lost Montgomery Ward in 2001. Cedar Income Fund, a real estate investment trust based in Port Washington, N.Y., bought the mall in the fall of 2002. Cedar Income is planning a new movie theater with stadium seating and an expanded Giant Foods store.
The back of the mall will be developed into restaurants, said Leo Ullman, the chief executive officer of Cedar Income Fund. He said he is close to signing with a women's clothing store, which will take up much of the enclosed mall space.
The mall has been searching for possible anchor stores. Ullman said he has gotten interest, but none of them wanted space in a mall. Cleaning, heating and airconditioning and security add to tenant costs, he said.
The new plans have mixed reviews from tenants. The tenants who will lose their space hate them, and those who will get a new larger spot praised Ullman's vision.
"It was a great mall, and I think it still could be a great mall," said Dick Loucks, manager of Keyboard World. Loucks said he depends too much on passersby to survive in a strip center.
Ullman said he is trying to make Camp Hill Mall an attraction for shoppers.
"I bridle at the comment that we're going in the wrong direction," Ullman said. "We are making this a very thoughtful, attractive, threedimensional property."
In addition to Capital City Mall, three enclosed malls in the area are bucking the outdoor shopping center trend.
* Lancaster-based Park City Center is the area's largest enclosed mall with 1.4 million square feet. General Growth Properties owns the shopping center. The J. C. Penney space remains open, but the mall is 92 percent filled and has the benefit of having The Bon-Ton, Boscovs, Kohl's and Sears as anchors. (The industry average in 2002 was 92 percent, much higher' than the mid-to-high 80s of other years, according to the council of shopping centers.) The mall has potential tenants for two restaurant spaces on the ring road around the mall, but it is still working on the paperwork.
* Colonial Park Mall is less than a mile from Paxton Towne Centre, but it too boasts a 90 percent occupancy rate, said Joanna Drexel, the mall's marketing director. The mall benefits from the same highincome area as well as its three large anchor tenants, The Bon-Ton, Boscov's and Sears.
* Lauri Altman, the manager for York Galleria, said her mall does not have the same issues facing West Manchester Mall, Camp Hill and Harrisburg East Mall. The 14-year-old mall is much younger and was designed to be trendier, already having the skylights and white tile floor many malls are adding, she said. Altman said the mall is full.
The conversion of Camp Hill Mall makes sense to help a struggling mall with large vacancies, said Dawn Lecklikner, mall manager of Lebanon Valley Mall. Lebanon Valley Mall is facing competition from a proposed power center at Lebanon Valley Plaza. The plaza is slated to get a Kohl's, TJ Maxx and Famous Footwear.
Lebanon Valley Mall lost Ames last year, but it managed to fill that with Boscov's furniture outlet. It still has a Sears and The Bon-Ton as anchors.
The mall is actively pursuing four different companies that have expressed an interest, Lecklikner said.
She said she thinks the power center actually will help the mall, although it would siphon off some traffic.
More shoppers will stay in Lebanon rather than travel to Harrisburg and return to the mall when they cannot find what they need, she said.
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