Developed by the Zamais Services company, McKinley Mall first opened its doors in 1985- making it among the newer malls for the Buffalo area. Anchors at the time included Sears, JCPenney, Sibley's and several local to Buffalo chains which included AM&A's, L.L. Berger, Kleinhans and The Sample.
As with other AM&A's stores, the location at the McKinley Mall would become a Bon-Ton store. Kaufman's would acquire the Sibley's space and the space that LL Berger occupied would become a Kaufman's home store. Eventually both locations were branded as Macy's stores before they would in 2016. I do not know exactly where The Sample and Kleinhans spaces were at the mall. My best guess is that these storefronts were taken over by the junior anchors of Best Buy, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Old Navy and/or Barnes and Noble.
I personally do not have a lot of hope for the future for this mall. It has one lone anchor in JCPenney and a few junior anchors that do help it to survive, but the Macy's spaces have been vacant for almost four years. The Bon-Ton space for almost two and now another giant empty space exists from Sears after it closed earlier this year. The best ideal reuse, in my opinion, for this particular property may just be to de-mall the property, but we shall see what happens.
They should make one of those empty department stores into an event venue. The Sears is twice the size of the big room at the Fairgounds down the road. It could be done fairly inexpensively and let people have larger gatherings without running into capacity issues.
ReplyDeleteOne unusual thing in this mall is the game center, is a former Deb Shop that was L-shaped with two entrances. I think I read somewhere that the store was remodeled and expanded and the only way to expand it was to add the space on the side. L-shaped stores are kind of unusual, the only others I know of were a G&G Rave in Greece Ridge Mall and a Regis salon in the long gone Camillus Mall. The Rave may have been a factor of how the two malls there were combined into one, but the Regis was built that way.
I was in the Sears it's last week or so, also, one of the last upstate NY ones to close. I think the store did well, but it was never too busy when I was in it. A woman was killed there and that probably took the last wind out of the sales.
DeleteI don't see this mall surviving in the long term, so adaptive reuses like an event center would be ideal.
ReplyDeleteOn the point of L-shaped stores in malls, I do agree. One other instance I can think of is the Children's Place store in the Millcreek Mall in Erie.
I heard about that iccendent and that would make a lot of sense.
I've lived near this mall my whole life. It opened when I was 4. I still go there from time to time to kill time but it's not even a shell of its former self. More like a rolled up dead leaf. There used to be 2 arcades, and the big one could be rented for birthday parties. Whatever Ninja Turtle figure I wanted could be found at one of the 2 toy stores. I laugh and cry at the same time whenever I walk through it as see all the "For Lease" signs on all the store fronts. As if they're trying to convince people it's a good idea to open a store there NOW.
ReplyDeleteIt truly is a shame to see it go downhill. Sadly so many other malls are in the same situation.
DeleteThere's likely little hope for McKinley. New ownership seems like a real gem and will not do anything to really help the mall revive. In the current climate, there simply is no longer a need for an indoor shopping center south of Buffalo. Quaker Crossing has pulled too much away from the mall area and if it wasn't for Wegmans and Home Depot, that area might be completely dead.
ReplyDeleteAM&A's and Sears were the only original anchors. It took 3 years before Berger's opened in 1988 and then Sibley's in 1989. The Sample was located in the L-shaped store that another poster mentioned was the former Deb shop. After Sample closed, the store remained one large space but was 'two stores' that kind of blended together in the middle - Deb, and Tops and Bottoms. Kleinhans opened in the late 80's as well in a former restaurant space adjacent to the south mall entrance. Like other Kleinhans locations, it too had an L-shape with two entrances, one nearest the mall entrance, and another at the beginning of the hallway that eventually led to JCPenney. You can still see the covered up exterior entrance and display windows for Kleinhans between the mall entrance and Barnes and Noble today.
Oh yes. Well familar with the new owners and their horrible track record of "helping distressed properties." Very like McKinley may continue for a while, but dying a very slow death.
DeleteThanks for some of the past tenants listed there!