Towne Mall on 'endangered' list? Big surprise

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By Rick McCrabb, Columnist Updated 1:24 AM Thursday, July 2, 2009

MIDDLETOWN — This town is upside down.

As I write this Wednesday, July 1, there’s a traffic jam downtown, and the parking lot at the Towne Mall is nothing but empty, potholed pavement.

Even though the skies were cloudy and there was a threat of rain, hundreds — if not thousands — of people were downtown Wednesday for the Broad Street Bash, which featured The Menus, the popular cover band.

Meanwhile, across town — in the East End, this city’s pride and joy, its future — the only menu items at the Towne Mall were hot dogs and three-way chili from Gold Star and pretzels from Twisted.

I know this will come as a surprise, but the Towne Mall recently was named one of America’s Most Endangered Malls in an article by Rick Newman, a blogger with U.S. News and World Report.

Endangered? The Towne Mall? Dinosaurs have a better chance of making a comeback.

Middletown Vice Mayor Jim Armbruster, a Middletown native, laughed at the report. Or at least how he wasn’t surprised by the results.

“The fact that the article said the mall is endangered is no new news,” Armbruster said. “We already knew that a long time ago.”

Katie Reinsmidt, of Chattanooga-based CBL & Associates, the owners of the Towne Mall, said, “There’s a bright future for the center and we’re going to keep working toward that. CBL is not subscribing to the ‘endangered malls’ thought.”

Not believing everything I read, I drove to the mall Wednesday. At 1 p.m., I counted 47 cars in the parking lot, and I’m guessing at least a few belonged to employees.

Once inside, with notebook in hand, I walked around the mall and counted the occupied and empty retail locations. The empty stores — those with “for lease” signs plastered on the doors — outnumbered those in business, 31-23.

In one wing of the mall, the one with Sears as the anchor, of the 17 locations, six were occupied. Only the Reds have a lower batting average.

Did someone say “endangered?”

The most fun came when a security officer approached me and asked what I was doing. He said someone had reported a suspicious person. Any potential shopper, I guess, could be called suspicious.

Anyway, I told him I was interested in buying the place and hiring a new security company. He didn’t see the humor.

Right now, these are not fun times at the mall.

Contact this

columnist

at (513) 705-2842 or rmccrabb@coxohio.com.

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