Raw & Real Retail

This is the 20th tour of our series, THE REAL TOURS, in which we provide an in the moment glimpse into a place with off-the-cuff commentary completely intact! No research, no script, just RRR letting you in on their insights and observations walking the malls. The Cressona Mall in Pottsville, PA is a tale of an already demalled mall. It used to be bigger, with most of its sustainable tenants being solely outward-facing now. The remnants of the interior mall are rather sad now, with few tenants left besides Goodwill, and little attention paid to the hallway it seems, besides removing the foliage, which was a bad move in my opinion. The new owners seem to care, with the repaving of the parking lot as proof, but I don't think the interior hallway is going to last much longer. Here's a shoutout to the classic SkyCity blog's coverage of this mall: http://skycity2.blogspot.com/2017/03/cressona-mall-pottsville-pa.html This tour was recorded on September 14, 2022 at around 4:30pm

This is our walkthrough of the Concord Mall in Elkhart, IN from October 21, 2019. This is a dying mall that has retained all of its 1970s design glory. From epic skylights, to the liberal use of mercury vapor light bulbs, all tied together with ancient brickwork and striking planters. This mall was a delight to walk around. Here is a pretty verbose blog post about the Concord Mall from a local: http://rumored.com/2016/07/02/death-of-the-concord-mall/

This is our walkthrough of the West End Plaza, formerly the Salisbury Mall in Salisbury, NC from August 6, 2019. This is a very dead mall that mostly survives because of social services located in the mall. Surprisingly, among the nearly complete lack of business, there are two fully functional fountains with classical statues mounted inside. This mall felt very strange to walk around.

This is our walkthrough of the Wilton Mall in Wilton, NY from April 17, 2019. This is a former Wilmorite property, as evidenced by the gigantic swimming-pool style fountain located in center court. This is a regional mall that hasn't received much in the way of renovations, although I have in on good authority that the fountain is operating at no more than 10% pressure. It feels very early 90s in the mall, with the softer colored tiles on the floors instead of hard marble. The mall has an anchor problem, with JCPenney being the only traditional anchor tenant left. Many inline tenants have followed suit and many vacancies can be seen throughout the tour. The management of this mall seems to just make random decisions, with some vacant spots covered up with temporary walls and others just bare and exposed. Despite all of this, it felt good walking around Wilton Mall and I would definitely spend more time here if I lived in the area.

This is our walkthrough of the White Marsh Mall in White Marsh, MD from January 10, 2019. This is a big, thriving Rouse mall in the Baltimore suburbs. Even though it has been whitened and modernized quite heavily, it still has a very recognizable architecture, being similar to other Jim Rouse properties.

This is our walkthrough of the Wakefield Mall in South Kingstown, RI from February 20, 2019. This is a little mini-mall tucked in the back of a strip mall dominated by a Shaw's grocery store. The mirrored ceiling and neon accents make this a unique throwback to older times when this sort of setup was more frequently done.

This is our walkthrough of the Berkshire Mall in Lanesborough, MA from April 30, 2019. We have done a previous video of this mall, and were in the area again, so decided to film the ongoing decay of this cozy property. The number of inline stores has dropped below 10, management, maintenance, and security are all out to lunch, the food court is now totally empty, and the HVAC is turned off. Two days after this filming we visited again on the way out of town and the mall was closed. They had pushed all the food court tables up as barricades, allowing access only to the movie theater. They stayed closed for a week with no word as to why except rumblings in the local news about a pending foreclosure. This is the third or fourth time this sort of sudden closure has happened because of various unpaid bills in the last year, and one has to wonder how much longer the remaining 10 or so tenants will put up with these interruptions to their business. As of May 28, 2019, this mall is permanently closed.

We photograph and take video of interesting retail, with a strong emphasis on malls. We take a more raw approach than some, providing as much of an in-the-moment sort of cinéma vérité documentation of these endangered places, that is we are not producing documentary shorts for the intention of an education on a property with a voice-over but rather I want you to feel like you are taking a walk with us through these properties.