Isaiah N.
Yelp
Somehow, every time when I go to this mall, there is always some change inside the corridors. Most of the time, it's a store here and there that goes out of business. Sure, there's a Macy's, Gottschalks, and Sears to keep the place together on life support, but I also like to stroll around the little stores and restaurants in between.
It always felt like, even with the new renovations under construction now, that it could close altogether for good. Aside from large swathes of empty spaces, it continues to lose some good stores...once there was a Steve and Barry's, a Champs, Mervyn's, Electronics Boutique, Waldenbooks and Sunglass Hut to name a few. They're all gone (or in the case of Waldenbooks, would be gone after Jan. 24, 2009), and even the local stores are disappearing. Even the typical Sbarro that's virtually in every American mall has disappeared from here. The food choices are quite limited and are mostly on sweets, hot dogs and other fast food.
Unless this mall finds a way to attract other stores and decent food outlets (i.e. perhaps an Old Navy, A&F, GameStop, Cinnabon, etc.) and until Gottschalks moves back into its large space after renovation (assuming that company survives, too), this would be a mall I would probably pass up...unless I'm looking for actual bargains at Macy's (they sometimes have good deals at this location, depending on when you go), because this location used to be a Robinsons-May. But I really hope this mall could survive the current economic downturn long enough to redeem itself when I go there in the future.