Wednesday, August 5, 2015

New Owner

I've held off on yammering away about the new Mall at Steamtown owner John Basalyga.  I wanted to hear something concrete about what he has planned for the struggling, putting it mildly, shopping center in the middle of downtown Scranton.

So far, all we've heard is the mall will remain a mall.  It's privately owned, so Basalyga doesn't have to divulge chapter and verse on how he intends to make the mall viable again.

It has one department store, Boscov's, and a handful of smaller stores, a library branch, a train display, a tax office, a sub shop, a pizza stand and some empty space.  A whole lot of empty space.

The mall is a fixer upper.  The parking garage really needs work, and you have to find tenants in a building dozens of retailers have deserted, for various reasons.

I keep reading where Americans no longer like malls.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  There are other choices.  Bad malls go away.  Good malls thrive.  Wyoming Valley, Stroud, Lehigh Valley and Viewmont are nearly full.  Lycoming does well.  Columbia and Schuylkill have struggled for years.

People will shop at good malls.  Basalyga has to find that magic formula.  Viewmont has the big department stores locked up.  I can't see them abandoning their space there.  BonTon tried downtown and it didn't work.  What's left?

John Basalyga has a good track record.  He's taken old factories and turned them in to apartments.  His Olyphant and Dickson City projects are really nice.  We're all just wondering if he can work some magic on a much bigger scale.  Good luck.