E. Colonial between 436 and Primrose

[JFW657]

1 minute ago, spenser1058 said:

Class A malls and Class B Malls tend to still be doing fine as the higher income folks still find value in the customer service mall stores tend to offer.

Below that, malls targeted (more on that in a moment) to middle and lower income shoppers have lost their markets to big box and online shopping.

I mention Target because their makeovers are increasingly including the kinds of stores-within-a-store and visual merchandising displays that used to be the province of mid-range department stores (not surprising-Target, unlike Kmart and Walmart, never was a dime store - it evolved from the Dayton’s department store).

The results? Not only are Sears and JCPenney in a downward spiral, now even Macy’s is in trouble while Target cleaned up for the holidays.

My question for JFW? You’re absolutely right about OFS being an anachronism but none of the strip centers to the east are doing all that well, either. So what is the X factor that’s working west of Maguire (I assume the Target is still OK) but not east?

My guess is it maybe, even if Bumby and Colonial don’t make CP/Coytown walkcentric, they’re still more accessible to the nearby neighborhoods than the poorly planned retail strip to the east. Just a guess, though.

Well, as I opined in my prior pontification, I think the "X factor" lies in the nature of the businesses located within the centers. Notice that certain businesses in Colonial Promenade have thrived over the years. Sam Ash, Men's Warehouse (I'm guessing it's still there?) and Sweet Tomatoes. If you're selling something there's a demand for, people will come to your store to buy it.

There could also be a geographic factor in play as well. Colonial Plaza is located so much closer in to the center of town and several neighborhoods, while the Promenade requires crossing some perceived geographic barrier that says "too far to bother with".

And of course, there's the PITA E. Colonial Dr traffic nightmare.

[spenser1058]

1 minute ago, dcluley98 said:

Honestly, They are both crap, but FS is destinational crap, defined on somebody parking and trying to go inside and deal with all that crap for a while, while CP is Task Oriented crap, where you go to your (as JFW pointed out) very specific and specialized big box consumpton center, park your crap-box as close as you can to the entrance, go look at the crap, buy the crap, throw the crap in your car, and get the hell out of there. 

crap. 

Ironically, when we tried to get the City to use its bully pulpit to encourage retailers with expiring contracts at OFS to consider options downtown (or uptown), there was a hue and cry that Fashion Square was just fine and just needed some TLC.

There were also several who believed the developer who was going to make all the wonderful changes to the mall. He, of course, is now long gone and very little has changed; in fact, the spiral continues.

[JFW657]

22 minutes ago, dcluley98 said:

Honestly, they are both crap, but FS is destinational crap, predicated upon and defined by somebody parking and trying to go inside and deal with all that crap for a while, while CP is Task- Oriented crap, where you go to your (as JFW pointed out) very specific and specialized big box consumpton center, park your crap-box as close as you can to the crappy entrance, go look at the crap, buy the crap, throw the crap in your car, and get the hell out of there. 

crap. 

This may or may not be funnier now that the offensive language filter edited it. hahaha. 

I dunno. A lot of people enjoy going shopping. Some people do it out of boredom and a lack of anything better to do. Get out of the house and be around people.

Mall shopping was actually a reasonably pleasant experience (for me anyway) back when there were stores I liked going into and poking around. Get an ice cream cone and stroll around in the a/c on a hot day.

FS/FM used to have stores like The Discovery Store, Black Market Minerals, The Game Stop, Spencer's Gifts, Radio Shack, some indie sporting goods store, Walden Books, Sam Goodie, a tobacconist, Mr Dunderbak's/Wunderbar, etc, etc.

But, as I've lamented here before, malls are all just women's apparel boutiques now, with maybe a men's apparel store and a sneaker store thrown in for good measure.

Nothing for me to go there for anymore.

I'm guessing that came about because mall rents just got too high for these other stores to turn a profit.

 

.

Edited January 12, 2019 by JFW657

[dcluley98]

Nobody enjoys going shopping at Fashion Square. Am I a millennial? I thought I was just beyond the cusp. 

I do remember "Spencer's Gifts" and "Sharper Image" and "FootLocker" and . . . Dang. I'm old. 

Hold on, Got to go dig out a rotary phone and call my momma and tell her. 

[spenser1058]

32 minutes ago, dcluley98 said:

Honestly, they are both crap, but FS is destinational crap, predicated upon and defined by somebody parking and trying to go inside and deal with all that crap for a while, while CP is Task- Oriented crap, where you go to your (as JFW pointed out) very specific and specialized big box consumpton center, park your crap-box as close as you can to the crappy entrance, go look at the crap, buy the crap, throw the crap in your car, and get the hell out of there. 

crap. 

This may or may not be funnier now that the offensive language filter edited it. hahaha. 

dcluley was always such a nice boy and here he is getting feisty. Rock on, dcluley!

(JFW, we may be a bad influence on the lad *giggles*)

[dcluley98]

At least I sprinkle in a couple of multi-syllabic words just to keep you all on your toes. 

[JFW657]

6 minutes ago, dcluley98 said:

Nobody enjoys going shopping at Fashion Square. Am I a millennial? I thought I was just beyond the cusp. 

I do remember "Spencer's Gifts" and "Sharper Image" and "FootLocker" and . . . Dang. I'm old. 

Hold on, Got to go dig out a rotary phone and call my momma and tell her. 

Correction.... "Nobody enjoys going shopping at Fashion Square ANYMORE."

Which was basically my point.

Back in "the day" (as you kids say nowadays) (or did ten years ago) a lot of people, myself included, enjoyed an occasional trip to FS. What I really enjoyed was taking an trip down to FM before they ripped out all the old, original interior and painted everything white. The original interior from the 80's was kind of reminiscent of Main St. USA at WDW. Kind of "theme park-ish".

Cheesey by today's standards? Maybe. But I guess in some ways I'm proudly stuck in the past.

Now get off my lawn!!!

14 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

dcluley was always such a nice boy and here he is getting feisty. Rock on, dcluley!

(JFW, we may be a bad influence on the lad *giggles*)

Wouldn't be the first young'un I've led astray. 

[spenser1058]

13 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

Correction.... "Nobody enjoys going shopping at Fashion Square ANYMORE."

Which was basically my point.

Back in "the day" (as you kids say nowadays) (or did ten years ago) a lot of people, myself included, enjoyed an occasional trip to FS. What I really enjoyed was taking an trip down to FM before they ripped out all the old, original interior and painted everything white. The original interior from the 80's was kind of reminiscent of Main St. USA at WDW. Kind of "theme park-ish".

Cheesey by today's standards? Maybe. But I guess in some ways I'm proudly stuck in the past.

Now get off my lawn!!!

Wouldn't be the first young'un I've led astray. 

Florida Mall opened with three themes: Mediterranean, Victorian, and Deco. They did indeed take their cues from the parks.

[dcluley98]

Back in my hometown, it was a big deal when they actually cut skylights in the roof to plant real palm trees around the "wishing fountain" to make it look less like a suburban consumption warehouse. We used to ride the Santa's Helper train around the fountain every Chrismas and get our mall-only gift-certificates next to the Barnie's and across from the anchor Dillard's. The movie theater and arcade were down that middle aisle toward the parking lot, but they both sucked and it was so in decline at that point that everybody used the Sears entrance instead.

Oh, and our music store was "Spec's" but nobody actually bought music there because it was about $3 more expensive to buy a cd than any regular store, so all the bratty teens would just hang out and posture for control of the crappy headphone preview listening station and probably catch some sort of ear infection while we all sat in the food court in envy wishing we knew what the next coolest thing they were listening to we should buy when their moms picked them up and it was safe to head in.  I think I bought Smashing Pumpkins Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness there maybe, but probably not because it was outrageously priced, but I remember listening to that. . . and probably a lot more crappy music that I should choose to forget. . . 

Good Times. Hooray Capitalism! 

Edited January 12, 2019 by dcluley98

[JFW657]

2 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Florida Mall opened with three themes: Mediterranean, Victorian, and Deco. They did indeed take their cues from the parks.

The things I remember about the original FM, were...

The area adjacent to the food court and facing the central commons area (that eventually got built out to house a Universal Studios store), where there was what looked like a two story village building with a balcony and thatched shingle "roof", etc. Might have been the location where the current Starbucks is.

Another feature that I liked was how along all the cross or side "streets", the store fronts also kind of resembled individual buildings you might see along a quaint village street, with what resembled shingled roof overhangs etc. over the entrances and display windows. 

And lastly, near either the east or west end, there were two or three miniature versions of striped, mosque style arches similar to these:

...but much smaller of course and with much less complex detail, and sort of light pastel colored stripes on the arches atop marble columns. Though they served no useful purpose whatsoever beyond decorative, they were one of my favorite features.

The place looks like just another mall now.

[spenser1058]

13 hours ago, JFW657 said:

The things I remember about the original FM, were...

The area adjacent to the food court and facing the central commons area (that eventually got built out to house a Universal Studios store), where there was what looked like a two story village building with a balcony and thatched shingle "roof", etc. Might have been the location where the current Starbucks is.

Another feature that I liked was how along all the cross or side "streets", the store fronts also kind of resembled individual buildings you might see along a quaint village street, with what resembled shingled roof overhangs etc. over the entrances and display windows. 

And lastly, near either the east or west end, there were two or three miniature versions of striped, mosque style arches similar to these:

...but much smaller of course and with much less complex detail, and sort of light pastel colored stripes on the arches atop marble columns. Though they served no useful purpose whatsoever beyond decorative, they were one of my favorite features.

The place looks like just another mall now.

Yes, the center of the mall was the Victorian area (looked like Main St USA). The Mediterranean area was down by JCPenney and Eckerd. The Deco area was at the other end of the mall, which in 1986 when it opened was mostly empty.

It’s easy to forget how meh the mall was when it opened, with only Sears, Penney and Belk, all lower-end stores as the only anchors.

What gave it attention was having a hotel in the mall (a first for the area) and a rather large food court (they were still a novelty then.)

The first more upscale anchors were supposed to be Jordan Marsh or Ivey’s but neither were convinced the surrounding area had the income to support them.

What changed everything were the Brazilian tourists who came and bought everything in sight. Local Ivey’s folks passed that info on to BATUS corporate and led to our first high-end department store, Saks.

Did you know Florida Mall was supposed to open before Altamonte? The land was mostly in place by the late ‘60s but Ed DeBartolo couldn’t make everything work until the mid-80’s.

Edited January 13, 2019 by spenser1058

[JFW657]

3 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Did you know Florida Mall was supposed to open before Altamonte. The land was mostly in place by the late ‘60s but Ed DeBarrolo couldn’t make everything work until the mid-80’s.

No, I only moved over here from the coast in '81, so I was never up on the area's history prior to that.

The first I ever heard of Altamonte Mall was from a guy I knew in high school around 1974 or '75. He was telling a few of us in class one day about how much bigger and cooler it was than Merritt Square because it was two levels.

Edited January 13, 2019 by JFW657

[codypet]

Remember the wing with Nordstrom and Macy's (then Burdines) wasn't built until Mall at Millenia broke ground.  There was a theater in an outparcel to the east of the mall.  There were two Dillards (one at the current Dillards and another became the hallway to Macy's after the current Dillards was expanded.)  I recall the center part of the mall being two story with a WB store in the center.  The Great Train store was there.  When they expanded the mall, that's when they gutted the whole thing to look uniform like it does now.

[jliv]

I dunno. A lot of people enjoy going shopping. Some people do it out of boredom and a lack of anything better to do. Get out of the house and be around people.
Mall shopping was actually a reasonably pleasant experience (for me anyway) back when there were stores I liked going into and poking around. Get an ice cream cone and stroll around in the a/c on a hot day.
FS/FM used to have stores like The Discovery Store, Black Market Minerals, The Game Stop, Spencer's Gifts, Radio Shack, some indie sporting goods store, Walden Books, Sam Goodie, a tobacconist, Mr Dunderbak's/Wunderbar, etc, etc.
But, as I've lamented here before, malls are all just women's apparel boutiques now, with maybe a men's apparel store and a sneaker store thrown in for good measure.
Nothing for me to go there for anymore.
I'm guessing that came about because mall rents just got too high for these other stores to turn a profit.
 
.

I think malls are dying as a consequence of the slow death of department stores. This is been happening since the 80’s, and the consolidation of regional chains has hastened their demise. Department stores are supposed to anchor malls and draw shoppers to the rent-paying smaller stores. The loss of one anchor sets off a chain reaction that spreads like a virus. The upscale malls are doing well because their anchor stores still make smart merchandising decisions which draw spend-happy customers (even though Neiman Marcus is in trouble).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[smileguy]

I got a little intel on the Colonial Promenade land. It sounds like the Airport wanted to put multi-use there with multifamily residential and ground floor retail like we're seeing everywhere else, but ran into problems with the FAA, who see residential on airport-owned land as a liability. Now their plan is to clean up the shopping center and lease as it stands, investing in some deferred maintenance - cleanup of the old movie theatre, repairing roofs, etc.  Their shopping center getting a Lucky's (and surprise - CRUNCH Fitness) has done relatively well since its re-do, so hopefully they can see the same here. 

[codypet]

11 hours ago, smileguy said:

I got a little intel on the Colonial Promenade land. It sounds like the Airport wanted to put multi-use there with multifamily residential and ground floor retail like we're seeing everywhere else, but ran into problems with the FAA, who see residential on airport-owned land as a liability. Now their plan is to clean up the shopping center and lease as it stands, investing in some deferred maintenance - cleanup of the old movie theatre, repairing roofs, etc.  Their shopping center getting a Lucky's (and surprise - CRUNCH Fitness) has done relatively well since its re-do, so hopefully they can see the same here. 

Who's shopping center getting a Lucky's?  Herndon Plaza (which I assume is also owned by GOAA) has the planned Lucky's and its not built out yet.  Is Crunch fitness going in the Hhregg spot?  I hate to say this, but Colonial Promenade, or the empty lot next to Kanes where Circuit City was would actually be a good spot for a Walmart.

Edited January 18, 2019 by codypet

[spenser1058]

Herndon Plaza was GOAA’s first shopping center, ca. 1972.

It has always amazed me that strip of Colonial didn’t have a Walmart. The JM Fields At Herndon Plaza (later Kmart after Fields died as a chain) always did well.

The Kmart mostly left because Kmart made a corporate decision not to go head to head with Target stores.

Before all of that, the shopping center where Target is was originally a Miller’s discount store, also.

[JFW657]

2 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

It has always amazed me that strip of Colonial didn’t have a Walmart. 

That's probably what Fashion Square will eventually become.

[smileguy]

On 1/18/2019 at 8:21 AM, codypet said:

Who's shopping center getting a Lucky's?  Herndon Plaza (which I assume is also owned by GOAA) has the planned Lucky's and its not built out yet.  Is Crunch fitness going in the Hhregg spot?  I hate to say this, but Colonial Promenade, or the empty lot next to Kanes where Circuit City was would actually be a good spot for a Walmart.

Walmart has looked at that land, but GOAA didn't want them in the neighborhood. 

[spenser1058]

It’s official - JFW will get another chance to get Lucky with the opening of Orlando’s latest Lucky’s Market across from Fashion Square in May:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/consumer/os-cfb-luckys-market-colonial-orlando-20190311-story.html

From the Sentinel 

 

 

[JFW657]

Getting Lucky in May?

Yay!! 

[spenser1058]

11 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

Getting Lucky in May?

Yay!! 

Just think - if they keep opening all these new grocery stores (Earth Fare On Gore, too!) you can keep stocking up on the free samples and may not have to buy groceries for years...

[JFW657]

34 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

Just think - if they keep opening all these new grocery stores (Earth Fare On Gore, too!) you can keep stocking up on the free samples and may not have to buy groceries for years...

True, but that would be...

Oh wait, I AM tacky....

Maybe I'll try it!!!! 

[spenser1058]

JFW may be getting even Luckier...Lucky’s Market is going to be the first major retailer to offer cannabis-derived CBD products.

No word if that dog will hunt at their Florida stores yet, but meanwhile look for John Morgan to stop by his neighborhood Lucky’s soon. For the Stoners!

https://www.thecannabist.co/2017/10/09/luckys-market-cbd-oil-hemp-extracts-nationwide/89449/

From The Cannabist 

[NJBlake]

2 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

JFW may be getting even Luckier...Lucky’s Market is going to be the first major retailer to offer cannabis-derived CBD products.

No word if that dog will hunt at their Florida stores yet, but meanwhile look for John Morgan to stop by his neighborhood Lucky’s soon. For the Stoners!

https://www.thecannabist.co/2017/10/09/luckys-market-cbd-oil-hemp-extracts-nationwide/89449/

From The Cannabist 

They already offer them at the Sodo Luckys. they are expensive as heck