Stepping inside back in time

With most of the anchor spaces filled and a healthy amount of cars in the lot, I was beginning to think that this mall might not be as dead as I had been assuming. After all, the narrative I'm used to hearing about dead malls is that the anchors give up first, leaving the inside tenants to wither for lack of foot traffic. However, the opposite is clearly happening here (and in quite a few local malls, for that matter) -- the anchors seem to be doing OK (even if only one of them is a traditional department store anymore), but the inside of the mall is almost completely hollowed out. Is this actually uncommon in other parts of the country, or am I just confused again?