Posted on 03/07/2025 1:41:56 PM PST by DallasBiff
I can remember in the 1960s when the Lloyd Center in Portland was in the Guinness book as the largest shopping center in the world. That distinction is long, long gone, and I have no idea if the place is still open. Haven’t been there in about 40 years, but it was the place to do all my Christmas shopping way back when.
Apparently, Lloyd Center in Portland is still in business.
That’s nice to know, though I doubt I’ll ever see Portland again.
one of the biggest mall killers has been bus lines extended from inner cities to the suburbs; Chris Rock once joked: “There are two kinds of malls: malls that white people go to and malls that white people USED to go to” ...
but the diversity of goods via online shopping in general plus online reviews and near instant delivery and hassle-free returns, as well as lack of time to drive, park, walk for miles and then not find anything worth buying for a reasonable price at covered malls were all major factors as well ... covered malls that covered acres with many more surrounding acres of asphalt parking lots are dinosaurs from another era ...
Bezos didnt wipe out malls.
Oversaturation of malls in finite markets is a big factor.
Bad decisions by certain stores is another.
The rise of superstores that people could get everything in one place, is another.
Online shopping is another factor.
Malls having security and safety problems with gangs and problem people is another, causing stores to leave for places not dealing with urban crime issues that weren’t addressed correctly.
I remember going to Century III when it was first built. The site was a slag pile, basically a dump for the waste material from the steel making process. At the time the mall was built, all the experts predicted the ground would collapse under the structure within a few years. Seems the change in economy not the slag did it in.
Century III Mall was one of my main hangouts growing up. As another poster said, it was built on a slag dump - piles of slag were visible all around as you drove toward it. Was a pretty good repurposing of wasted land. I haven’t been back to the ‘Burgh area since the 90’s so I didn’t know it was closed, let alone being demolished. What do you do with a used slag dump?
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