The original Nordstrom mall entrance would have been somewhere in this area, since Apple and Dick's are the two tenants in that space; you'd never guess that from the mall corridor, though, since there's absolutely nothing special design-wise. I'm not surprised the Bon Marche got the fanciest part of the mall right outside of their store, since they were the mall's original developers after all, but it's a little strange to see absolutely nothing here. There's also something a little amusing about taking pictures of an Apple store with a massively outdated iPhone, though the one I upgraded to earlier this year is the same model that they would have been selling at the time of this 2021 visit. The "new" Macbook I've been using for the past month or so was already discontinued by that time, though, so I'm still nowhere near as up-to-date as their marketing people try to make me feel I need to be! 😉
It is a bit strange to see an anchor have their mall entrance be the same like any other in-line tenant. then again, this is less strange than my local mall where Dick's Sporting Goods was added to a spot in the food court that was never intended to be an anchor! But, still, usually malls take advantage of the added traffic created by anchors by creating a separate corridor for the anchor or by putting the anchor at the end of the main corridor to help draw traffic to the in-line tenants.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, this feels even weirder than that case, since this was like this from the beginning rather than being an awkward addition! Heck, the anchors that were added on to this mall later got more of a typical anchor entrance setup. I really do wonder if Allied/the Bon Marche designed this mall specifically to highlight their own store!
DeleteNorthgate also had some really awkward anchor entrance setups, but I think they were mainly due to a combination of the original open-air design and various additions over the years.