Maryland community anxiously awaits mall’s replacement
"It makes me feel really, really sad. I hate to even go up that way. Sometimes I go up that way because I go to the movie theater and I got to ride by it, and it's just heartbreaking, and to see the mall gone,” Owings Mills, Maryland resident Glenn Watlingon told WMAR-TV about the demolition of the Owings Mills Mall.
Failing malls present challenges to owners, but local residents, too, are reluctant to say goodbye to these retail centers that served them as gathering places and repositories of memories over — in the case of Owings Mills Mall — 30 years.
“I just hope they bring in something good for the neighborhood," Watlingon said to the Baltimore news station.
The property’s owner, Kimco, is currently pursuing leases for Owing Mills Mall’s replacement, a 600,000-sq.-ft. open-air center. Citing a combination of decreased shopper traffic and retail occupancy, Kimco decided to replace the mall with individual, exterior-facing shops around a central parking lot (above).
The AMC theater, which will be the lone hold-over from the mall, is getting a reported $8 million makeover, and Kimco is pursuing big-box retailers and food and beverage formats as tenants.
Kimco has allocated a $108 million budget for the new center, expected to be completed in fall 2019.
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