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Posted on 07/07/2003 3:23:10 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Inside Cinnaminson Mall, the once-bustling promenade was deserted and eerily silent. Stools at the old lunch counter were empty. And some store windows were shattered from vandalism years ago.
With the Caldor store, cinema and shops closed, the center has a new use - training site for police dogs and SWAT team officers. A sign on a storefront warns: "Do Not Enter - Police Dog Training."
German shepherds now sniff through vacant stores for hidden drugs and explosives, and SWAT teams practice tactics.
Cinnaminson Mall is one of dozens of closed or struggling suburban shopping centers along Pennsylvania and South Jersey highways, where they languish with boarded-up windows, for-lease signs, and trash-strewn parking lots.
Across the eight-county Philadelphia area, the equivalent of about 45 average-sized shopping centers lies vacant, according to industry statistics from Reis Inc., a national commercial real estate data company.
In the first three months of this year, more than 8 percent of the nearly 57 million square feet of shopping-center space was vacant - slightly above the national average of 7 percent.
It is far worse in some area counties than others: Gloucester County's vacancy rate was nearly 15 percent, and Camden County's was 11 percent.
These shopping ghost towns appeared largely because of the overbuilding in the 1990s, the region's sluggish economy, and the closing of discount department stores such as Kmart, Caldor, Bradlees and Ames.
The higher rate also reflects lower population growth, lower retail demand, and the age of the eight-county Philadelphia area, which had some of the first shopping centers in the country, said James W. Hughes, dean of the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
"A tight market would be at 5 percent [vacancy] or lower," Hughes said. "You'll have some level of vacancy because of tenants leaving and coming on. A disaster would be a rate in the double digits."
Drive in many parts of the Philadelphia area, and you will see the vacancies.
In Cheltenham, the closing of the Kmart and Rickel stores at Cedarbrook Shopping Center left space that will be filled this fall by Wal-Mart and Bally Total Fitness.
In Cherry Hill, the empty Bradlees store, Shop N Bag and Drug Emporium at a retail center on Route 38 are being considered for the site of a new Wal-Mart.
And in Willingboro, the vacant Village Mall on Route 130 is being looked at for redevelopment.
Developers, planners and Realtors say the desertion of some shopping centers is part of an ongoing evolution of the retail industry in which larger and more attractive locations are overtaking older and sometimes poorly maintained sites.
Many centers are getting a second chance, especially those on well-traveled roads in economically viable communities. Their retail space is being recycled.
Hughes, of Rutgers, said the retail industry was an "extraordinarily aggressive business that's constantly escalating. It's always adding new inventory, and if the market is saturated, they'll invent a new one."
To some, the change is viewed as evolution.
"The good locations are recycled with stronger retailers," said Daniel J. Hughes, president of Metro Commercial Real Estate Inc., the leasing agent for the Cinnaminson Mall site and many properties across the region. "I expect this one will be turned around - either knocked down or partially knocked down."
Eric Becker of both Becker Associates in Bala Cynwyd and Mall Associates, which owns Cinnaminson Mall, now rents the ground but expects to buy the land by October.
"We plan to take an old, tired, run-down and desolate property and turn it into one of the better shopping centers in the area," said Becker, former owner of the Ellisburg Shopping Center in Cherry Hill.
Business leaders identify the retailer interested in the Cinnaminson site as Target.
In Cheltenham, the parking lots near the former Kmart and Rickel stores at Cedarbrook Shopping Center have been deserted since their closings in the last two years.
"We're rejuvenating the shopping center and keeping it attractive," said Mike Nassimi, president of Cedarbrook Plaza Inc.
The owners of some old centers sometimes lose tenants because they do not improve their properties, said Tom Dwyer, manager of retail solutions for Reis, the New York real estate information company.
"If a shopping center doesn't make an investment, if it looks old and dingy, retailers will pick up and move down the road. They want to be where the shoppers want to be."
In Yeadon, a strip shopping center in the 200 block of McDade Boulevard has lost a supermarket, a drugstore, and other shops in the last few years.
Alice Lavelle, manager of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop, one of a few businesses at the center, said some tenants had relocated because a previous landlord had not maintained the buildings. Other stores had to close because of poor business practices or high rent, she said.
In Delran, some stores have left the Millside Shopping Center, and others are moving, including the ShopRite; the company is planning to open a supermarket less than a mile away at Hartford Corners Center, a new shopping center also on Route 130.
The Millside 4 movie theater closed about a year ago. Kmart and Payless Shoe Source left a few months ago. And ShopRite, GNC and Radio Shack are expected to relocate by the fall.
Other shopping centers along the Route 130 corridor in Burlington County are nearly or completely vacant.
In Willingboro, the former Village Mall is deserted. Weeds grow on the macadam parking lot, which is empty except for broken glass, bottles and trash. Occasionally, drivers-in-training practice parking cars and buses there.
The leasing agent said plans were being made to redevelop the site, but nothing is definite.
Mark Remsa, director of economic development and regional planning for Burlington County, said the Route 130 corridor was beginning a slow comeback by developing a mix of retail shopping and light industry. Light industry would include the Burlington Coat Factory distribution center being built in Edgewater Park and a firm selling premanufactured housing components in Delanco by the end of the year.
"It's the nature of capitalism," Remsa said. "It's what the country was founded on. There are no safety nets, no protectionism like other countries. It's Darwinian."
If you don't move forward, he added, "you're not just left behind, you're run over and ground in. The fix doesn't come overnight; it takes a long time."
The vacancy at Cinnaminson Mall has been a boon to the area police, though, giving them a place - if only temporarily - to train themselves and their dogs.
"It's eerie some nights when you're here," Mount Holly Officer John Miller said as barking dogs strained at leashes inside a former Woodworkers Warehouse, "but we appreciate the chance to use the place."
Contact staff writer Edward Colimore at 856-779-3833 or ecolimore@phillynews.com.
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Tumbleweeds blow down the dusty main streets where businesses used to thrive. And the howls of coyotes compete with the chirp of crickets in the morbid, desolate silence. Such is the legacy of George Bush and the Stinking Republicans Who Ruined Our Economy.
Either that or this is a cliche-fest from the Daily Gloom.
Yeah, yeah, and replace Hertz rent a car with rent-a-wreck, and Nordstroms with Pick and Save
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