Plymouth Meeting Mall: Plymouth Meeting, PA

One of the earliest and most overlooked enclosed malls in the Philadelphia market is Plymouth Meeting Mall, a spacious two-level mall opened by the Rouse Company in 1966 that, like many other malls in the region, is overshadowed by the mighty King of Prussia.  Originally anchored by Strawbridge & Clothier and Lit Brothers, the mall was designed by famed mall architect Victor Gruen, and it is shown in a circulated postcard with its signature fountain in front of Strawbridge's that remains to this day.  It was also once a dominant player in the market before multiple expansions of King of Prussia Mall began hurting business.  Because of that, this classy mall has unfortunately been affected by the highly competitive and overbuilt retail environment across the Keystone state that has taken no prisoners.

Plymouth Meeting Mall was one of several Rouse-built malls in the Philadelphia market including Exton Square Mall located 23 miles to the west, The Gallery at Market East in Center City and three malls on the New Jersey side.  Rouse, formerly headquartered in Columbia, MD, was very active in the Mid-Atlantic region and was famous for building some of the largest and first enclosed malls.  The mall has been a laboratory for innovation for a traditional enclosed mall, but today its biggest challenge will be reinventing itself since the market dealt it a crushing blow with the loss of its oldest and most prominent anchor tenant.  Despite being a two level mall that has lasted over 50 years, it was never a true regional mall.  It never had anchors like Sears or JCPenney and it never expanded beyond two anchors.  In most other cities, this mall would have failed by the 1990's due to these factors alone.

Plymouth Meeting Mall's signature fountain dates to the opening of the mall and appears to have been installed by Strawbridge's.  Strawbridge's tended to finance grand fountains as a means of showcasing their stores. Views are from the bottom and top floors with Strawbridge's behind me on the photo.

Plymouth Meeting Mall's signature fountain in the early days of the mall.  Postcard from "Malls of America".  Much has changed, but amazingly the fountain survived!

Another view of the fountain and mall.

View of fountain facing Strawbridge's.  If you look carefully you can see the labelscar.

The "STR" of Strawbridge & Clothier is quite visible in this image from the second level mall entrance.

As a dumbell-shaped mall, the design of the mall is pretty consistent throughout with a few minor discrepancies and alternating skylight styles.  However, with such a wide court and abundant natural light, the mall feels quite spaceous.  The carousel was most likely added in a 1990's renovation.  Carousels were a short-lived fad in malls that were likely put there to fill the void left behind by fountains.  Nowadays, even the carousels are being removed from most malls that had them.

In many ways, the early mall embraced elements of utopianism embraced by both its developer James Rouse and Victor Gruen.  A few years after this mall was constructed, Rouse would construct an entire city in Maryland with an enclosed mall as its downtown.  In some ways, this mall attempted to include some elements of Victor Gruen's original vision of having malls as the center of fully functioning urban villages.  Plymouth Meeting itself was developed as a rough example of the optimistic and often-cited "live, work, play" type of environment with not just a mall, but also an office tower (Pearson Professional Center), medical center, and even a church among its tenants!  Obviously the "live" part did not evolve, but at the time it was built single family houses were far more affordable, and malls as primarily retail centers represented by nearby suburban development at the time.  This vision continued for years after as the mall was innovative in cutting edge retail trends.  Perhaps the "live" part may soon be on the table as the "play" part seems to be winding down.

A side corridor leading to an outside entrance.  Domed skylights were popular in the 60's and 70's, and Rouse Malls tended to have them along entrance wings.

This directory shows that what appears to be a straightforward mall has a catch: a whole office wing featuring a tower and even a church!

One of the mall entrances between the office building and Boscov's

Detail of an entrance atrium from the inside next to the "Church in the Mall"

A look inside the lobby of the office building, which holds on to many more Rouse elements than the mall itself.

This has to be the only case in the entire U.S. where a church was actually built into a mall from the beginning.  Many churches meet in malls, but not as a planned part of the infrastructure.

Despite only having two department store anchors, the mall has no original anchors today.  Lit Brothers went under in 1976 to be replaced by Hess's in 1979.  The Hess's location was apparently the largest branch store in the chain, but it was also the only location in the Philadelphia market.  Hess's was doing marginally throughout the 1980's, suffering from extreme over expansion due to owners Crown American bringing it into many unfamiliar markets.  After many years of decline and selling off chunks in numerous markets, the chain's problems caught up to it and the location was closed in 1993.  After three more years of vacancy, Boscov's arrived and filled the void, and it still operates there to this day.  Strawbridge's, however, operated continuously at the mall until 2006 when it was converted to Macy's.  After poor sales likely due to its proximity to the nearby more popular King of Prussia store, Macy's closed at the mall in 2017 leaving the mall with a major vacancy that will be difficult to fill.

The variety of mall entrances in the mall is intriguing.  Here, the church is on the left and the 9 story office building is on the right.

Detail of the office building.  Plans show that this mid-century facade will be removed and replaced with an updated faced featuring way more glass.

Boscov's mall entrance.  Boscov's opened as Lit Brothers and was later Hess's before becoming Boscov's.

The Boscov's juniors to the left of the entrance would suggest that this used to be a Bamberger's, but that was never the case.  However, Hess's was also aggressive at expanding store space.

A couple shots of the Boscov's on the outside.  The store is original to Lit Brother's except for the white paint and restructuring of the main entrance.

One interesting footnote in the mall's history is that Swedish Furniture chain IKEA opened their first U.S. store on an outlot of the mall.  The chain is ubiquitous as a destination for its cheap furnishings, but it has very few locations across the U.S. making it a destination store.  Ultimately, IKEA would relocate one exit down I-476 with the former tenant demolished and replaced with the present lifestyle center portion.  This new retail center brought in many typical tenants of lifestyle centers (Chico's, etc.) with its centerpiece a Whole Foods Market.  Legoland Discovery Center, another non-traditional tenant, also began construction in 2016 and should be opening this year.

This post would not be complete without interior photos of the old Strawbridge's/Macy's.  It appears the last interior model was done around 1979-1980, and it shows.  However, the design is so warm and inviting compared to the typical sterile look seen in most modern Macy's.  Unfortunately, this lack of updating was for a reason.  The store closed in 2017.

Parquet flooring...a design feature popular in the 70's

Funky goodness here with the wood and floor patterns.

Seeing an actual contrast between the merchandise and the store makes you want to actually buy something here, doesn't it?  Unfortunately, customers chose King of Prussia instead.

Impressive court with fancy skylights, chandeliers, and a mix of stairs and escalators...very similar to their Neshaminy store, but still just as awesome.  RIP, great old store.

So here we have another mall at a crossroads.  As was said on an earlier post, malls in Philadelphia are extremely overbuilt.  Due to the aggressive growth of Strawbridge's and Wanamaker's in the 70's and 80's, Macy's ended up inheriting a ton of locations in the market: many that are no more than 10-15 miles apart.  The process of right-sizing this resulted in Macy's being closed at the mall.  Furthermore, Plymouth Meeting is in an unfortunate position of living in the shadow of the largest mall in the USA.  King of Prussia Mall is not your average competitor.  A mall with under a million square feet and one operational department store is not going to be able to effectively compete with one of over 3 million square feet!  Not only that, but Macy's clearly had no interest in its store at Plymouth Meeting Mall.  It appears the last time any renovations were done was in the late 70's or early 80's.  So what does the mall do now?

Strawbridge's personified the mid-century look on their suburban stores.  A mix of brutalism and "confidence" embodied by a very prosperous time.  In the first pic, you see the mall's office tower on the right.

Macy's takeover of Strawbridge's did not strip the store of all its elements.  The Strawbridge's "Seal of Confidence" (appropriate for a mid-century store) can still be found on nearly all of their former store locations.  If this isn't Philly-pride, I don't know what is.

The sun sets on this former Strawbridge's both literally and figuratively.  Unlike when this mall was built, people are not feeling as much confidence.

In all honesty, Plymouth Meeting Mall has unfortunately become redundant.  Even before Macy's closed, the mall saw a drop in sales per square feet and an uptick in vacancies.  These have undoubtedly accelerated with Macy's closure.  With no options for replacement stores, there is little the mall can do to stop this.  Furthermore, Boscov's may be looking at relocating themselves from their current store although it is unclear if they would just close or where they might move.  Thus, its future as a traditional enclosed retail mall is unlikely.  Pretty much what you can expect for the future of Plymouth Meeting is mixed use.  It is a beautiful, spacious and inviting mall that would be perfect for a college campus, medical center, corporate headquarters, entertainment complex, housing (condos/apartments) or some other non-retail use where lots of space is needed.  It is also in a very upscale part of the Philadelphia metro area meaning that it is in-demand real estate.  This means some sort of redevelopment is likely.  At the very least, substantial renovations for reuse are likely on the now-closed Macy's.  Parts of the mall may be demolished, parts of the mall may be carved up for offices and parts of it used for entertainment.  Offices may be less likely, however, since an office tower already flanks the mall and is definitely there to stay.  However it is carved up, there is still "confidence" that this mall will continue to evolve: hopefully into something that both Victor Gruen and James Rouse originally intended.

Concord Mall: Wilmington, DE

Non-locals and retail enthusiasts seem to have ignored a particular mall in the Philadelphia metro area.  After seeing this mall, we have to wonder why.  Opening in 1965, Concord Mall was originally a small enclosed mall anchored on the south end by a store called Almart, a discount division of Allied Stores founded in 1962.  The mall attached to Almart was also built by Allied Stores.  Of note is also that Almart was known as J.B. Hunter in other markets although J.B. Hunter appears to have been a low-end department store.  While Allied Stores no longer exists as an entity in the U.S., it appears that the mall itself was spun off to a small corporation bearing the name of the former corporate parent.  The early mall was a relatively small and noncompetitive ancillary mall compared with other malls in the market, so it is remarkable that the mall is not only still around today but is doing quite well.

Concord Mall is not a mall without competition, which is part of what makes it unique in how well it does.  Add to that that all malls in Delaware greatly benefit from being in a state with no sales tax, meaning that retail is big business in the First State.  This draws in many shoppers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey that might otherwise go to competing malls.  In all, it basically carved out its own niche in the market despite being 14 miles from far more popular Christiana Mall, 17 miles from Springfield Mall, 17 miles from Exton Square Mall and 27 miles from the massive King of Prussia Mall.  Competition is not that far away, but it is still far enough away that it definitely has a convenience factor.  Its present anchors today include Boscov's, Macy's, Macy's Home and Sears.  With Sears failing as a company, that might present issues for the mall, but as a healthy mall, this anchor may not be super difficult to fill.  In fact, in an era when so many malls are on the brink of failure this is not one of them.

The center court and fountain is very striking with decor similar to what was used in malls in the very early 90's.

Looking south down the Sears wing from center court.  It is clear that the center skylights were added later due to the structural elements being incorporated into the design.

The layout of the original mall was a straight-shot one level mall with a small three-story office building in the middle making it a fairly typical mall of that period.  In 1971, the mall saw its first addition when a Pomeroy's was added on the northern end of the mall transforming it a standard dumbbell shaped mall.  It also appears that it was not an accident that Pomeroy's became the northern anchor.  Pomeroy's was a division of Allied Stores, who also owned Almart on the mall's southern end.  This meant the mall's owners had a vested interest in bringing in stores they already owned.  The biggest coup for the mall, however, came in 1983 when Philadelphia-based Strawbridge & Clothier opened an elegant new store in the front of the mall.  This new store came with very distinct architectural touches and was coupled with an update to the mall that restructured a dark and plain mall into a far more attractive one with a large glass atrium in the center court, added skylights, new planters, fountains and an updated look.  It made an ancillary mall into a truly competitive one.  Strawbridge's was also the first non-Allied anchor to open in the mall.

A more traditional fountain greets shoppers in the lush court in front of Sears.

The mall directory today.  The former north anchor was Pomeroy's and the south anchor was originally Almart.  On the right side, it appears there was once a mall theater.  The strip portion shown on the upper left is owned as part of the mall and is located just north of the mall.

The tall planters were really an elegant touch.

The relocation of Strawbridge's, however, was somewhat sad as it replaced a 1951 store at the Merchandise Mart, now Merchant's Square.  Built as an anchor to one of the oldest strip shopping centers in the country, the former Strawbridge's location was abandoned for many years and finally demolished in 2009 with a Food Lion built just behind the site of the former store.  A set of photos from Retroland USA shows the demolition of the original store.

Detail of the fountain next to the food court and in front of Boscov's.

Boscov's mall entrance, which was Pomeroy's until 1986.  It has been there much longer than its original anchor.

A bit more detail of the tall planters looking south to center court.

Macy's, which was Strawbridge's from 1983-2006, has by far the most elegant mall entrance.  The mall is visible from the second floor of the store.  Below is the Strawbridge & Clothier seal placed as a "monument" to the store.  Every Strawbridge's location had this seal.

In 1984, the Almart chain was sold off to the Montgomery Ward corporation, which Ward's subsequently opened as a unit of their Jefferson Ward division, a discount format of Montgomery Ward.  Jefferson Ward was originally a Miami-based discount chain called Jefferson's that Montgomery Ward purchased in 1973.  Jefferson Ward was poorly operated by Montgomery Ward, and the stores were sold the following year to Bradlee's.  Two years after Almart was sold, the Pomeroy's location was sold off to Boscov's as part of their expansion into the Philadelphia region and as part of the Campeau purchase of Allied stores.  Pomeroy's itself would disappear the following year after Allied Stores was sold.  All Pomeroy's locations were converted to The Bon-Ton.  In all, the 1980's were pretty eventful for the mall.

A view from the second floor of Macy's to the cosmetics department and mall entrance.

Staggered escalators give a unique perspective to the center of Macy's.

Domed skylight with visors in Macy's.

Inside the Macy's outside entrance to the parking lot.

The positive side of all of this was that none of these changes harmed the mall.  Changes in the industry in this case helped improve the mall's position in the market by making it more appealing to the residents of the region by bringing in popular stores.  The addition of Boscov's and Strawbridge's was far more of a boon to the mall than its original format as a low-end mall anchoring a 1960's discount store.   Nonetheless, further changes took place in the 1990's.  1992 saw the closure and demolition of the Bradlee's (former Almart) for a new two-story Sears.  Soon after, 1994 saw creative reuse of the office building draped over the mall as Strawbridge's decided to expand its home section into the office building.  This change created a strange quirk in the mall where the upper levels of the home store actually overlook the mall itself.  Thus, what is otherwise a one level mall suddenly jumps to three levels!  After these two changes occurred, Concord Mall finally stabilized.

Looking up from the mall skylight is the mall's most unusual detail: an office building converted to Strawbridge's Home Store, currently Macy's Home.

The Macy's home store sneaks up on you as its narrow three-story tower looms over the main mall just north of center court.  It opened as Strawbridge's home store in 1994 after previously functioning as an office building.

The Strawbridge & Clothier seal is also located just above the mall on the second floor.

Today, Concord Mall has seen very few changes since the adjustments of the 80's and 90's.  The only anchor change since that time was Strawbridge's, which converted to Macy's in 2006 with the sale of then-owners May Department Stores to Federated Department Stores (now Macy's, Inc.).  What will be interesting to see is what happens when Sears inevitably folds as a chain.  Unless one of the few remaining department stores to choose from relocates from another store, the mall will need to be creative to fill the void.  The most likely possibility is that JCPenney relocates from their current location at Prices Corner Shopping Center to the mall.  JCPenney's current store at the shopping center is from the 1950's, and it is way too close to their Christiana Mall store.  Another possibility is an urban format Wal-Mart, which currently has no locations in the immediate area.  The addition of Wal-Mart in that spot would be incredibly ironic since it is only one letter off from the original anchor Almart, and both were discount stores founded in 1962.  Less likely is that Lord & Taylor may also look to locate a store at the mall (they previously were located at Christiana Mall until 2006).  If none of that materializes, the anchor will probably become extended mall space coupled with junior anchors or an entertainment option creating an interesting two-level addition on the southern end.  Considering the excellent demographics, location and popularity of the mall, it should not be difficult to fill a Sears vacancy.

Two views from the third level of the furniture store down into the main mall.

Outside views of the officer tower transitioned to home store for Strawbridge's, later Macy's.  Note the labeslcar in the third photo.

What is also remarkable about Concord Mall is the way it looks today.  It was certainly a shock to enter a mall that had so much of what is rarely seen in malls today: lush planters, three fountains, colorful decor, and distinctive architectural touches sorely missed in most other malls.  The mall itself does not have an exciting layout, but it was far more enjoyable when coupled with these special touches.  Add this in with the very unique design for the Macy's and the surprising layout of the vertical home store, and what would otherwise be a very bland mall is actually quite beautiful.  It probably helps that the owners are not part of a major mall conglomerate, which is also likely why the mall does so well despite being overlooked by larger, better known malls in the region.  In all, Concord Mall got better with age in its 50+ years of business.  It was an unexpected and surprising retail diamond that will hopefully continue to shine for many more.

View of the furniture store from the west side of the mall.

Boscov's and mall entrance.  Boscov's retains many architectural cues from Pomeroy's.

Exterior shot of Strawbridge's (Macy's) parking lot entrance.  Zoomed out shots were taken, but they did not turn out well due to the store's close proximity to the road.

Detail of mall entrance next to Sears

Sears opened at the mall in 1992 replacing a closed location of a dying discount chain with a full-line department store.  However, the site is the reason the mall was built in the first place: to complement the Almart discount chain that folded in the 80's.  It was Jefferson Ward and Bradlee's prior to Sears.