Pringles

Well let's see here. Bath and Body Works is opening their new store on the 23rd, followed by Victoria's Secret on the 25th. Kay Jewelers appears to be close to completing their renovation. The Men's Express closed. I don't know who's coming in there, but Gap was about 10 years ahead of it's time. God forbid it's Charlotte Russe. And why in the hell did Sonny's BBQ close?

Late to the party, but this has been talked about Now to the good stuff. The Women's Belk store is making room for the men's product in the old store. I see product being shuffled past me every day and the Men's store is really starting to look like a shell. Kinda like a store in its last days of going out of business. The new home store looks like it is just days away from opening. I thought at first it would be one big store, but it's going to be clothing in the old store and Home stuff in a separate, but contiguous store (You can't get to the home store from Belk, but they are side-by-side.) I got a memo from mall management advising me not to be concerned if there are fires/fire dept. activity in the bingo building. Anderson FD will be practicing fire drills in that building prior to its demolition (that space will be used to replace the parking lost by Dillard's.) At least a third, if not half, of the Men's Belk wing is now vacant. As it stands, Enoch's Karate has moved to the former Tri-County Tech spot. What is now the management office and the old theater, as well as everything from Enoch's toward Belk is going to be gone. How they're going to do that is beyond me, but it should be interesting. I should probably start bringing my camera to work Victoria's Secret is going to be bigger than hell whenever they finish their thing, construction continues there. Bath and Body Works intrigues me. Originally I thought they would just be between Rack Room Shoes and Hot Topic, but there is a second wall on the entrance between Sears and JCPenney. Is it going to have two entrances? I wonder this because they are blocking in the old stockroom door and actually knocking a new doorway to the left of the old one. That doesn't sound like a stockroom to me. Someone asked in this thread if the mall is stepping things up? The exterior was power washed a couple months ago. The Sears parking lot was repaved. There is something going on next to the new water tower (I'd love to hear WTF that is.) Rumor has it that the hallway kiosks are going to get replaced with nicer looking fixtures. Even the Coke machines have gone from sitting beside a store to having their own little housing. Things are happening, and I think the fact that a 34 year old mall can attract the kind of development that is happening says volumes about the future of Anderson. Mom and pop shops (Crosby's hotdogs is one that comes to mind) are being run out. I'm a "glass half full" person, but this mall's going places. Edit: This is not official in any way, it was just passed on to me by mall employees. I was told that Simon's people told mall management to "clean it up or knock it down." Funny that all these changes are suddenly happening.

Belk has finally begun construction. Yes, as was quoted many pages back, UP scooped everyone.

In the mall, FYE has started their liquidation sale, which was a surprise to me. Their last day of business is the 22nd, according to the store manager. They are the latest victim of Belk's planned consolidation into that corridor. The mall manager told me Belk starts construction in March. No word on Dillard's replacing the men's Belk site. Here's a rough idea of what's going down (new Belk area roughly outlined in red). Of course it's not exact, and I didn't make it pretty in Photoshop. But you get the idea. I'm thinking Belk will have to do some outside construction to expand this, because as is, that's one screwed-up floorplan.

Now that the Blue Laws are gone, I'd say you're spot on.

Mall news - Bath & Body Works is going to move across the hall into the space currently occupied by SC Place (between Hot Topic and Rack Room Shoes). Victoria's Secret is going to expand into the Bath & Body space. No word on if it's going to be a Victoria's Secret Beauty shop or what, but there were planners in the mall recently that were taking measurements and they told me what little they knew.

I haven't heard much about the plans, but it sounds like they are going to tear down the existing structure. No word on planned square footage or anything. As for Imagine Anderson, I really hope that people bring serious talk and that the guys in charge listen.

Finally got confirmation from the mall offices yesterday. Belk starts work on consolidating the two stores in October and Dillard's starts construction to expand the men's Belk site in February. Yay!

Hahahaha, there's a head shop coming to the mall. White Rabbit, which I believe has a location in Clemson is planning to open in the first space at the front of the mall (Next to NY & Co). Can't wait to see how this goes over.

The mall's already made it 34 years, but I know what you mean. That end of the mall really could use a kick in the ass. Some things (like Gap) might have been ahead of their time. Others, such as the recently opened SC Place, seemed like an obvious fit, what with Clemson being so close. They're getting good traffic, but that still leaves the front of the mall with slow traffic. Moving NY & Co to the front of the mall is a good start. I spoke to a somewhat big shot in the mall today - he told me there were definately "big plans" for the Women's Belk corridor, but he still wouldn't go into details. Grrrrrr.

There was a Borders in the mall, and it closed in January. However, the way the place was set up wasn't really in line with the way big book chains are going these days. It was a small footprint, near Sears and only had books (no coffee shop or any of that). Books-A-Million on Clemson Blvd seems to be doing well, though. If a chain had the nerve to put a big, anchor-type store at the food court entrance, that might work better, although it would be a tight fit. Another note about the mall. All I heard in the papers the past week was how shoppers were going to hold back on back to school shopping, and the tax free weekend wasn't going to be a big deal, and Anderson schools start before tax free weekend, gas prices, blah blah. Well, after two of the three tax free days, I have a 30.1% sales increase over LY that would like to argue with that sentiment

Within the next couple weeks, I'll be celebrating my one-year anniversary in Anderson (I came here from Charlotte, and previously Atlanta.) One of the things that struck me as odd about the mall on a first glance was that there were two Belks. I did a little research and saw that the men's Belk took over the Upton's space. It still seems odd for one company to have two anchor stores, though. If they do end up consolidating, Dillards will definately have to do some construction, as 50 or 60,000 square feet is a tiny footprint for them. As for the viability of the market, it's been mentioned in several threads I've read that people drive for many miles to shop at the mall. I can tell you that that is very true (we ask for zip codes.) Not only do people drive from NE GA, they drive from other upstate towns, even though my company has another location. In the past year, I've been experimenting with our product mix, and within the past couple months we are nearly in line with what our Haywood Mall store carries, as far as high-end names. In a couple cases, quite by accident, we ended up as the only store in Anderson to offer certain name brands and people are buying the crap out of them. The money's definately here. I just wish the mall would do some better advertising instead of laying aroung expecting shoppers to show up just because it's there. We never hear the words "Discover Mills" in the mall. Rather, if someone comes to us for a return or something, they bought it at Haywood Mall or in Commerce at the outlets. I know Anderson sounds crazy for some big retailers, but given the growth of the area, if a retailer was thinking of the future, this place is a goldmine. I like to look at things with rosy glasses

Hello, guys and gals. I run one of the stores in the mall, and after the arcade closed in the food court, I contacted Starbucks about pursuing the vacancy. Don't know what will come of that, but hey, doesn't hurt to try. Also, concerning the mall, I've been browsing the site for a couple hours and I've seen a few posts that cast some doubt on the mall's future. While I'm not running one of the anchors, I do run one of the bigger stores and believe it or not, my store is the #3 volume store in the state, out of nearly 30 locations. In little ol' Anderson! The following is completely mall rumor and shop talk, so please treat it as such. I've heard that the reason NY & Co. relocated to the front of the mall in a smaller store (which completely emptied the corridor adjacent to Women's Belk) is so that Belk could consolidate the Men's store in that space. Dillard's was planned for the shopping center that was scrapped off exit 19, but after that was scrapped was looking at the Men's Belk space. An even quieter rumor is that Bass Pro Shops is eyeing the area around the Bingo building on the mall property. I've just heard that kind of talk from contractors, though. However, any of these developments, should they prove true, would certainly bring a smile to my face.