Merry Xmas From the Dead Malls
Historically, the Santaland at Antioch Center has drawn crowds worthy of St. Nick. Gary Dull remembers days when a veteran mall Santa like himself would attract a line of children and parents that stretched clear to the food court.
On opening night this year, Dull donned the red suit in the office of the Northland mall and steeled himself for an evening of excited and frightened tots. As he walked the hallway leading from the office to Santaland, where oversized presents sit under artificial trees and synthetic snow is knee-high in places, Dull began to bellow the traditional “ho, ho, ho!” As he turned the corner, though, he saw only three children waiting on a bench to whisper in his ear.
A few nights later, Dull returns to Antioch Center wearing civilian attire. He is ready to talk about the days before the mall died. He brings his wife, Patricia, who wants to shop for clothes at C.J. Banks, one of Antioch’s few remaining specialty shops. As his wife browses, 59-year-old Dull finds his way to Santaland, where the on-duty Santa, a guy named Bud, sits cross-legged.
Dull is something of a student of mall Kris Kringling. “At Christmastime, I’ve gotten into a terrible habit of going around and watching other Santas,” he says.
Dull stepped into the boots for the first time in 1975. A former fire inspector, he was working as a private detective for Burlington Coat Factory, which clings to life at the dying mall. A master-class St. Nick named Ed Walters, a retired Kansas City police sergeant, approached him to ask a favor. Santa had showed up with booze on his breath.
Dull loved the role and has stuck with it. At 250 pounds, he has the belly for the part, and he has the blue-eyed twinkle. It didn’t take him long to develop the tricks to being a successful Santa: Be jolly and don’t promise anything. He coaxes reluctant children onto his lap by telling them he wants to measure their growth from last Christmas. And he tries to spend equal time with the kids whose parents do not pay the $10.69 for a photo. “I want a child to know that when they leave here, they had a real visit with Santa Claus,” he says.
As Dull honed his skills — then took them on the road to hospitals and tree-lighting ceremonies at City Hall — Antioch crumbled around him. Chained-shut store entrances and smeared glass now trace the abandonment of the 50-year-old mall.
There may not be a Santaland at Antioch next year. The shopping center’s Canadian owner, Eastbourne Investments, has an $80-million plan to replace the mall with a horseshoe of big-box retailers, specialty stores and restaurants. The proposal requires city leaders to give Eastbourne $40 million through tax-increment financing, which allows developers to skim from the new taxes that projects generate. If the Kansas City Council agrees to the deal, demolition crews will start at the southern end of the mall and work their way north. Dull will miss Antioch Center. He lives nearby, and he became the primary Santa in 1998 after Walters, his mentor, developed health problems. “I try not to think about it,” Dull says when asked about the mall closing.
Once kings of the retail jungle, Antioch Center and malls like it have lost customers to the Internet and big-box retailers. Now shoppers flock to the latest “lifestyle center” to rise from the soybean fields and to sprout names like Zona Rosa. In Kansas City, where suburban sprawl underlies the economy, shopping centers in every direction harden into fossils. Their weedy parking lots and fading façades give them away. A dying mall is quite a thing: Unlike an animal, it cannot slink off into a cave and die. It just stands there, huge and vacant.
Even one-time national icons of the business have gone dark. The Galleria Mall in Sherman Oaks, California, where parts of the ’80s classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High were filmed, closed in 1999. The Web site Deadmalls.com provides a state-by-state directory of failed shopping centers. By one count three years ago, 4,000 malls sat empty or abandoned.
Wrecking balls have begun to swing. Blue Ridge Mall, which opened alongside Interstate 70 in 1958, will give way to a new, tax-money-supported development anchored by a Wal-Mart. Kansas City needs another Wal-Mart the way it needs the Chiefs to make another quick exit in the playoffs. But given Blue Ridge Mall’s unsightliness and worthlessness as a tax-revenue producer, one can begin to understand the decision to reach into taxpayers’ pockets to help feed the world’s largest corporation.
Malls have deprived communities. Critics of shopping centers lament the way they privatized the public realm and drove local merchants out of business. Yes, grieving for an aging mall is a little like feeling sad for a tyrannical starlet who loses her looks. But this is a season for forgiving and celebrating. In fact, we found that the yuletide spirit even touches those shopping malls with the bleakest of prospects. At Antioch, for instance, mall management expected Santaland’s popularity to endure, this season at least, in spite of numerous empty storefronts. Each child who visits Santa receives a small toy. The mall ordered 10,000 units. At other aging malls, dreamy merchants, steadfast developers and a very special tennis shoe mark the holiday in their own way.
A press conference is scheduled for the day before Thanksgiving at Patrick Crowe’s store on the lower level of the slowly dying Bannister Mall. Crowe has risked a $65,000 investment and a possible lawsuit on an idea: Oprah Winfrey would make a fine president.
Crowe’s store trades almost exclusively in “Oprah for President!” merchandise. He sells professionally printed buttons, bumper stickers and T-shirts. A retired high school and community college math teacher with a sunny manner, 68-year-old Crowe is also the author of the self-published book, Oprah for President: Run, Oprah, Run. “I think she’d be a superb candidate, if I can convince her to run,” he says.
Assisting Crowe with the opening and the planned press conference are a former student, the former student’s son, and Crowe’s second wife, Patricia. Everyone but Patricia is wearing a white “Oprah for President!” T-shirt. A string of fat Christmas lights adorn the entrance of the store, which Crowe opened with the understanding that its existence could be short. “If I haven’t sold a ton of shirts, books, bumper stickers or pins, I think we’ll close up after Christmas,” he says.
Bannister Mall, where Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana’s wife used to shop, rented space to Crowe on the cheap ($500 a month) and without a long-term commitment. (His lease renews at the end of each month.) Management also allowed Crowe to park his restored white-and-aquamarine 1959 Ford Skyliner (license plate: “Oprah’8”) on the mall floor outside his store. The car does not obstruct anyone’s path; the storefronts on either side of Crowe’s are vacant.
The Bannister Mall store marks Crowe’s second attempt to bring attention to the idea of a Winfrey candidacy. Signs attached to the Wonderful Waldo Car Wash he once owned encouraged the talk-show host to run for president in 2004. The sign got him so much attention that The New York Post interviewed him, and he even flew to Hollywood to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live. With all the attention, he was sure that the store would take off. But now, Crowe mingles his political enthusiasm for Oprah ’08 with opportunism; he says the endeavor is too deep in the red for him to begin thinking about profits. “If I never sell a book, it’s been a hoot,” he says.
As for convincing Winfrey to become a presidential candidate, Crowe has yet to receive positive feedback from the host herself. In early 2004, Crowe began calling Harpo Productions, Winfrey’s company, and leaving messages describing his effort. He called every week but heard no response. Finally, that summer, one of Winfrey’s representatives returned his call. But instead of inviting Crowe to appear on the show, the representative had a warning: the name “Oprah” is copyrighted.
Undeterred by the threat, Crowe decided in November to rent the space at the mall, which opened at Interstate 435 and Bannister Road in 1980. Once a place where four anchor stores drew customers, the mall looms over its asphalt surroundings like a colossus. The interior shows a softer side. The architect kept the right angles to a minimum on the theory that women related better to curves. Bannister’s ribbon-shaped design failed to save it from a growing reputation for lawlessness, however. By the late ’80s, security guards were posted at wooden “welcome” booths in the parking lot. The wives of professional athletes gave way to gangbangers who posed with their guns in instant-photo booths. Bannister Mall is today a place where people can burn a karaoke CD and shop for gold fronts for their teeth, where Victoria’s Secret shares a roof with the more down-market Valerie’s Closet. “I watched the mall come up out of a cornfield, and everything was gold and glory,” says Lou Austin, the chairman of a community-improvement district that encompasses the shopping center. “And then it was gone.”
Spigel specializes in distressed properties, and there’s hope that he may convert Bannister Mall into a development more neighborhood-oriented and less automobile-dependent. This month, Kansas State University architecture students will present ideas for a new “master plan” for the mall.
Crowe’s Oprah store does not figure to be part of Bannister’s future, whatever it might look like. The only person who approaches the business during the scheduled press conference turns out to be another mall tenant. Samuel Bottley, who runs a barbecue stand in what remains of the mall’s food court, presses his face to the glass storefront and asks if Winfrey is inside. “Tell her I’ve got some gumbo up there,” Bottley says, hoisting a plastic grocery sack in the air.
A few minutes later, the phone rings. When he’s done speaking, Crowe steps out to the mall floor as Frank Sinatra’s version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” plays over the sound system. He’s smiling. The media announcement has drawn attention after all. “We just got a call from ABC, Good Morning America,” he says.
Two days later, a photojournalist from KMBC Channel 9, an ABC affiliate, shoots footage of the store. A brief segment airs on Good Morning America on Sunday, December 4. Crowe misses the piece, however, thinking it would appear on a different day.
Metcalf South Shopping Center in Overland Park is one of the area’s oldest malls and one of the most meticulously maintained. The beige-and-salmon-colored tile floors shine. Skylights bathe the concourse. Gurgling indoor fountains emit the somehow comforting smell of chlorine.
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, draws near. Yet on this day, the portion of the mall between its two anchors, Sears and the Jones Store, is virtually vacant. Just about the only activity is from a blond-haired woman who carefully applies blue paint to a wheelchair-access ramp. The absence of people seems strange in relation to the state of the physical surroundings. The mall opened in 1967, but its tidy interior belies its age. Inside, the mall looks as good as new. The customers appear to have been swept away by the biblical Rapture in the middle of their shopping.
Of course, people are not the only thing missing from Metcalf South. Stores are, too. County Seat, Hannoush Jewelers, The Limited, Victoria’s Secret, KG Men’s Store, Mr. Bulky Treats & Gifts — all gone. Most stores have left behind clear evidence of their former presence; a stenciled window tells of departed video retailer Suncoast.
Metcalf South is a mall in decline. Sears and the Jones Store remain, and the three-screen Glenwood Arts theater appeals to niche audiences with films such as Pride & Prejudice and The Squid and the Whale. But the mall’s depressed state is evident in the presence of a volunteer center, a karate club and the storefront occupied by adult-learning franchise Fred Pryor Seminars. The mall’s owner, Sherman Dreiseszun, concedes that Metcalf South is not the draw it once was — at least for people who actually buy things. “We’ve got walkers,” Dreiseszun says. “We’ve got to maintain it well. There are no customers, but there are walkers.”
Malls tend to change hands frequently, yet Dreiseszun has held onto Metcalf South for nearly four decades. The 83-year-old also owns Metro North and once held a stake in the successful Oak Park Mall. But things haven’t always been good for Dreiseszun. In 1992, Dreiseszun was indicted on charges that he took part in a scheme to rig bids for government office space. The target of the investigation was Frank Morgan, a banker and developer who was Dreiseszun’s nephew. Morgan died before trial, and Dreiseszun and the two remaining defendants eventually entered misdemeanor guilty pleas, agreeing to pay $1.5 million in restitution.
Metcalf South was the second mall Dreiseszun developed, and it appears to occupy a place in his heart as well as on his asset sheet. “It’s pretty tough to tear something down,” he says. An employee in one of the remaining Metcalf South stores says Dreiseszun employs a larger maintenance and custodial staff than the mall needs, which helps explain its immaculate condition. Dreiseszun shows loyalty to his employees and vice versa. The head of security, Vernon May, has worked at the shopping center for 20 years.
His apparent conscientiousness notwithstanding, Dreiseszun is not to be pitied. After all, by investing in nearby Oak Park, he created his own competition. Besides, developers of his era benefited richly from the federal housing and highway subsidies that powered suburban growth. In 1954, Congress changed IRS rules to effectively make shopping malls the mother of all tax shelters. The change allowed developers to depreciate, or write down, the value of new buildings in seven years instead of 40. The rule made it easy for developers to show losses instead of profits and encouraged the frequent trading of property, which led to the shoddy construction and inadequate maintenance that have contributed to today’s dead-mall phenomenon.
As for the future of Metcalf South, Dreiseszun offers few clues. “We’re trying to work on something, but I can’t talk about it,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s going to happen or not.” Dreiseszun notes that Sears owns its building, and the Jones Store’s lease won’t expire for eight years.
Overland Park officials recently formed a committee to look at options to encourage development in the area that includes Metcalf South. “I think it’s obvious that mall is nearing the end of its useful life, at least in that configuration,” Overland Park City Manager John Nachbar tells the Pitch.
Meanwhile, groups lead unconventional activities in the space where Johnson County residents once brought their credit cards and holiday shopping lists. Perhaps the most glaring sign of the death of Metcalf South came the week after Thanksgiving. At a job and health fair conducted on an upper floor of the mall, Spanish speakers could pick up pamphlets describing la gonorrea and other sexually transmitted diseases.
A couple of mall walkers trip the motion sensor on the robotic Santa planted outside Jesus de la Torre’s jewelry store at Indian Springs Marketplace in Kansas City, Kansas. Santa’s hips jerk, and he begins to sing “Deck the Halls” from a puppetlike mouth. Another passer-by elicits a Spanish-language rendition of “O, Christmas Tree.”
De la Torre says he bought the bilingual Santa to appeal to children. He likes kids and often gives his customers a Dora the Explorer or Spider-Man plush blanket. He named his store, Joyeria Estrella, after his 10-year-old daughter. De la Torre comes from a family of jewelers, and he expects Estrella to continue the tradition. “She knows this is her future,” he says.
De la Torre, who grew up in Independence, wears a gold chain anchored by the letters of his first name perched on an eagle. His first job at the mall was working for the jeweler Krigels. When Krigels left, de la Torre and another man took over the spot. Eventually, de la Torre bought out his partner. “He was expecting to make money quick and get rich,” he says. “Jewelry doesn’t work that way. You have to work your way up.” After four years at the mall, de la Torre recently took out a loan and agreed to buy a building on Central Avenue, where he may open a second store or move his entire business.
Nobody can blame him for thinking about leaving. Joyeria Estrella is one of only a handful of retail businesses at Indian Springs. A few years ago, the struggling State Avenue mall, which opened in 1971, attempted to reinvent itself as “Plaza Azteca.” But management never quite committed to the concept of a mall marketed to a Hispanic crowd. Today, most of Indian Springs’ storefronts aren’t what you’d expect to see in a mall. The Unified Government of Wyandotte County accepts police reports and issues driver’s licenses in a converted storefront on the lower level. A former J.C. Penney store houses public school administrators for Kansas City, Kansas.
Indian Springs also offers second chances. At 500 Reach Community Learning, “quiet zone” posters hang over heads of high school dropouts who sit at computers, slowly amassing the credit hours necessary to earn diplomas. Evelyn Dodd, a 23-year-old student, remembers coming to Indian Springs to shop and hang out nearly every weekend when she was younger. “It used to be full of stores,” she says. Now Dodd goes to the mall to file book reports.
The mall’s owner, the Kashani family of Los Angeles, bought it in 1996 from Aetna for the bargain-basement price of $2 million. Soon, Indian Springs will change its name to Park West Business Center, and warehouses may fill vacant stores.
The mall’s more traditional tenants linger, in spite of the shift in emphasis. Just off the main entrance, Italian Delight restaurant serves pizza slices and calzones. The owner, Franco Brunetti, immigrated from Puglia, Italy; he opened the restaurant in 1977. “This is my baby,” he says, stirring a boiling pot of lasagna noodles. “My kids grew up here.” Across the way, a woman behind the counter of Computer Zone advises a man shopping for a used laptop that he might find more powerful models at a pawnshop.
The focus of Indian Springs has turned away from retail, but mall workers still manage to drag out and put up Christmas decorations. Boughs of fake pine wrap around poles. Man-sized candy canes stand like lonely sentries near the entrance. The unlit tree lists like a drunk. A fake poinsettia stuck in a sneaker serves as a centerpiece on a table in the north concourse.
Fancier decorations may deck the halls of other malls. But the preschool in the lower level has set aside December 16 for caroling. For one day, Indian Springs will ring with joy.
