Danbury Fair Mall in Connecticut is one the few growing and thriving. Palisades Mall in New Jersey (three levels) is a ghost town.
As a daily walker, I use malls to get my miles in on rainy days. Will be sad to see them go.
I live in between both malls you mentioned. Danbury is changing with the times and has many more local retailers (instead of national chains) than they had before the pandemic. They also got Barnes and Noble to move into the Arhaus space - happy to see a bookstore, but its selection is terrible compared to other B&Ns in the region.
The Palisades Mall is in trouble, yes, but some of the problems are organic - they used to draw a fair number of shoppers from Bergen County in NJ, now those folks go to the (even-bigger) American Dream mall next to MetLife Field in East Rutherford. They also took out $418MM mortgage in 2018 right before the American Dream mall opened and only a couple of years before the pandemic - clearly it was based on a repayment schedule that include rising rents and little competition. I read an article earlier this year that they’re trying to re-finance the mortgage. Some days it’s like a ghost town, other days it’s pretty active, especially with the bars and restaurants on the upper level (which I thought was the top of a 4-level mall). I wish them luck and hope they can find a way to survive.