o WHAT: A 940,230-square-foot enclosed shopping mall west of Interstate 205 at state Highway 500.
o WHERE: 8700 N.E. Vancouver Mall Drive., Vancouver.
o GENERAL MANAGER: Paige Allen.
o OWNER: Westfield Group, Sydney, Australia.
o WHAT’S NEXT: Marketing efforts will continue to focus on community events to attract potential shoppers, while mall owners mull over long-term plans to renovate the center.
The energy level appears to be picking up at Westfield Vancouver mall, despite the tepid economy.
New food vendors (Express Japan and Simply Sweets) have leased space in the food court; Alley Cat Pet Center has moved its goldfish, kittens and puppies to a more visible spot by the children’s play area; and a few nontraditional newcomers offer everything from mixed martial arts classes (Arsenal Combat Sports) to gold appraisals (Gold Buyers at the Mall) and religious services (Living Hope Church at the Mall).
o WHAT: A 940,230-square-foot enclosed shopping mall west of Interstate 205 at state Highway 500.
o WHERE: 8700 N.E. Vancouver Mall Drive., Vancouver.
o GENERAL MANAGER: Paige Allen.
o OWNER: Westfield Group, Sydney, Australia.
o WHAT'S NEXT: Marketing efforts will continue to focus on community events to attract potential shoppers, while mall owners mull over long-term plans to renovate the center.
The church congregation moved into the former Mervyn’s department store space in April, after outgrowing its Brush Prairie church off Northeast 117th Avenue.
“They bring in 3,000 to 5,000 people a weekend for services,” filling the mall with folks who might not be there otherwise, said Paige Allen, the mall’s new general manager.
She hopes to keep the momentum going with public events, promotions and e-mail blasts that reach out to additional mall patrons.
“We’re really trying to be a town square for the community,” said Allen, 39, who took the reins of the center in April.
West of Interstate 205 at state Highway 500, the mall is Clark County’s largest indoor shopping center. But it remains to be seen whether traffic generated by new mall activities will translate to increasing sales for its 127 stores, salons, food outlets and kiosks. The venue has seen its fair share of disappointment with two years of economic contraction. Gone are some of the better-known retail brands such as the Gap, Cinnabon and the Disney Store.
Redevelopment mothballed
The departures and a protracted slowdown in retail expansion caused Australia-based Westfield Group to mothball redevelopment plans to build a multi-screen cinema and 500,000-square-foot wing for shops at the Vancouver shopping center. Preliminary site plans for the project were approved by the city in 2008, when “the economy was chugging along,” said Katie Dickey, a spokeswoman from the company’s U.S. headquarters in California. But, by the year’s end, demand for mall space had stopped on all fronts.
“If you don’t have demand from the retailers as well as the consumers, you need to rethink the investment,” Dickey said. “It’s just a tough time for retail.”
The weakness in consumer spending was felt throughout Clark County. Countywide store-only retail sales fell by 7.7 percent to $1.8 billion in 2009. That was down from sales totaling $1.95 billion in 2008, according to the most recent figures issued by the Washington State Department of Revenue.
Nevertheless, Dickey said Westfield has not ruled out all investment scenarios for the company’s Vancouver mall.
At the very least, it may update the mall’s white-on-white, 1990s-style interior, though that work hasn’t been scheduled.
“We don’t own a center that isn’t in line for continued investment,” Dickey said of the Westfield Group, which she said spends about $200 million a year refurbishing its global portfolio of 119 shopping malls in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Roadblocks to expansion
The main roadblocks to expansion are a lack of capital to back retailers’ expansion plans and low demand for what’s perceived to be higher-priced mall shops and merchandise, retail experts say. In Clark County, those issues are exacerbated by high unemployment, which impacts consumer spending at the retail level. With 13.7 percent of the work force unemployed in April, the county’s jobless rate is substantially higher than the state’s rate of 9.2 percent.
“The economy has to strengthen and employment has to come back to a point where consumers are comfortable with their jobs before retailers will resume their expansions,” said Pam Lindloff, an associate vice president with NAI Norris Beggs & Simpson commercial real estate office in Vancouver.
Until then, Westfield Vancouver mall is generating less income from leasing, although mall officials said they couldn’t provide the average leasing rates paid by the venue’s boutiques, food court spaces and five anchor stores — Macy’s, Nordstrom, Sears, JC Penney and Old Navy.
Lindloff pointed out that the Living Hope Church likely pays less for its 80,000-square-foot space than Mervyn’s had. “Churches and organizations such as that are not the best use for retail space,” Lindloff said.
But, the rent generated by the church is better than no rent at all. And, the money church members bring to the mall circulates through the local economy, said John Bishop, senior pastor.
“God brought us to the mall to bless the vendors and stores and I think we are. If you ask the food court vendors, many of them are hiring because of us,” he said,
Mall vendors Orange Julius, Paradise Bakery and McDonald’s are all accepting job applications to ensure adequate staffing on weekends.
“I’ve upgraded my store personnel on Saturdays and Sundays,” said Sonia Farias, manager of McDonald’s at the mall.
Still, beefed-up hamburger sales aren’t enough to pull the venue out of its retail slump, said Deborah Ewing, a vice president of Eric Fuller & Associates Inc. in Vancouver.
Instead, she said the mall needs to attract another bargain-oriented department store to capitalize on current shopping trends and draw more traffic to the center.
“Value is the buzz word in today’s retail industry. You’ll notice that businesses like the Nordstrom Rack are beginning to expand,” Ewing said.
Civic center
In the meantime, Allen, an 18-year retail veteran, plans to boost mall business with community events. That could be a tall order at the 940,230-square-foot Westfield Vancouver mall.
But where some see challenges, others see opportunity, said Allen, who formerly worked for a Westfield competitor and the world’s second-largest mall owner, Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc. General Growth hit a rough patch in 2008 when the 200-mall property owner filed the largest real estate bankruptcy in U.S. history.
But it wasn’t the bankruptcy that prompted Allen to switch companies, moving from General Growth’s New Park Mall in the San Francisco Bay Area to Westfield Vancouver.
“I was really attracted to Westfield,” said Allen, who won top honors from General Growth in 2008 for marketing programs and events that generated interest in the 1.4-million-square-foot New Park Mall, near San Jose, Calif.
She is already making plans for similar programs at Westfield Vancouver mall, a smaller and less busy venue than New Park. Among them will be a June 26-27 event encouraging retailers to compost food scraps and recycle packaging.
“A retail environment the size of the mall is a great opportunity to make sure that we are reducing our carbon footprint as much as possible,” Allen said.
She also expects to partner with local hospitals, music and dance groups to put on a health and safety fair, band and choir concerts and a dance recital.
“It shows we’re not just the big bad retailer, we’re a civic center. We’re a place to buy shoes, see a concert or adopt a pet,” Allen said.
