Shopping Malls

Fifteen years ago, the Lakes Mall in Lauderdale Lakes, Fla., was a showplace. It isn't anymore.Instead, it is a stark example of a decline in suburban enclosed malls. The decline is expected to continue far into the future.Back in the middle to late 1970s, the Lakes Mall was like popular, modern malls everywhere: One or more big "anchor" stores owned by giant department store chains, a multi-screen movie theater, a food market, a sizable pharmacy and dozens of smaller specialty shops. The place was crowded each day from the moment it opened to the moment it closed.

Just when you thought Annapolis had run out of new ways to tax us, now we're all going to be hit again with the accurately named "rain tax" ("Anger grows over stormwater fees," April 16). Of course, the editors of The Sun think this is just wonderful and sorely needed to pay for all the new storm drains, collection ponds, stream restorations and so on mandated the E.P.A. Funny though, how it was only a couple of years ago that we were told the major cause of pollution in the bay was manure from chicken farms and agricultural run-off on the Eastern Shore.

First, they killed Main Street. Now shopping malls are bringing it back to suburbia.When Rebecca and Richard Maltz wanted to buy a house recently, they went to The Mall in Columbia. When Christina Norico needs a baby sitter, she drops off her toddler at Owings Mills Mall. And when Ann Bailey needed to correct her nearsightedness, she, too, found help at the Columbia mall.That aging, concrete dinosaur -- the shopping mall -- is being remade into a place that not only sells the perfect pair of shoes but also offers hospital clinics, church services, laser eye surgery and online stock trading.

Peyton Skipwith Cochran Jr., a longtime Rouse Co. executive who helped develop shopping centers but was deeply interested in land preservation, died Thursday at Springwell Senior Living in Baltimore from complications of Alzheimer's and a stroke. He was 85. In addition to helping start two local groups that reflected his interest in the outdoors, Mr. Cochran — known as Skip — was active in fox hunting and steeplechasing. He was a partner in Arcadia Stable, owner of Buck Jakes, a horse that twice won the Maryland Hunt Cup and died at age 24 in January.

As chief executive officer, Gordon Becker sets an example for his staff by wearing Santa Claus cuff links and, at times, a red, fur-trimmed hat to match. His company markets itself with the tag line "Making reindeer fly." Major departments are Christmas and Easter, and a corporate conference room is trimmed in holly, wreaths and bows most months.For Baltimore-based Becker Group, founded more than four decades ago, Christmas is no holiday. It's year-round work, with more than $22 million in sales and hundreds of clients as far-flung as Brazil, Paris and Tokyo.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Uh-oh, another victim riding to certain doom. Clear across the shopping mall, you can see the terror in her eyes, a middle-aged woman frozen on the metal stairs as they glide upward, upward -- and now, with the end near, she leaps!Skidding across the floor of the food court, she knocks over a large metal ashtray, spilling sand everywhere, before coming safely (sort of) to rest against a wall.Bystanders, pursing their lips, nod appreciatively. One more brave Nicaraguan has survived her first trip on an escalator.

PITTSBURGH - The staples of suburban mall shopping are present: GAP, Brooks Brothers and T.G.I Fridays. Then, there's an actual Staples office supply store. But something is different here. The aisles between the 100 or so shops are strangely wide. Most of the bags people carry have wheels. And the shoppers come and go by airplane. It's the Pittsburgh International Airport Airmall - the nation's first mall-style airport concession and a highly profitable retailing success that the managers of Baltimore-Washington International Airport hope to imitate.

ISSUE: -- After a teenager killed eight people and then himself in a Nebraska mall, local malls are trying to send a message that their shopping centers are safe. Cpl. Mark Shawkey, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Police Department, said the shooting didn't prompt additional policing efforts. "It's heightened their awareness," Shawkey said of the officers and security guards who patrol shopping centers. "They're more in tune and will be on the lookout for those types of things, especially groups congregating in the food court and other parts of the mall."

Fresh off closing the company's largest deal ever, Anthony W. Deering, chairman and chief executive of Columbia-based Rouse Co., told more than 600 shareholders yesterday that 2002 would be a good year. Last Friday's closing came just in time for Deering, whose company sold 16.7 million shares of stock to help pay for an interest in eight premier shopping malls, thereby diluting the value of the stock. He was able to report to shareholders yesterday that, although the acquisitions took longer than expected, income from them will immediately begin to offset the slight loss they had felt.

In less than a year, the prospect of saving Maryland's racing industry with an infusion of slots dollars has become something of a mirage. The owner of the state's biggest tracks is in bankruptcy court, the promise of robust gaming parlors is iffy and the future of the Preakness Stakes is fuzzy. And the latest interested buyer of Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park wants to build shopping malls on their grassy environs and says he'll pay for the tracks - in cash. After years of debate over legalizing slots in Maryland, voters overwhelmingly approved them (granted, the recession and the state's deep budget woes helped)

Matthew Waylett has put down his cocktail to adjust the tilt of an Indiana Jones-esque fedora, admiring his reflection in the mirror set up at the bar. It's Men's Night Out at the Manor Tavern, and Waylett has been lured to the shopping event, not so much by the chance to buy as the promise of cigars, free-flowing bourbon and a steak dinner. "You won't catch me dead in a mall," says the Monkton man, back in his own John Deere cap. "But when you bring whiskey into the equation …" With its first Men's Night Out, the Baltimore County tavern joins what's looking like a nationwide experiment in testosterone-fueled retail this holiday season.

Frank Taliaferro, a founder and former chairman of the RTKL architects recalled as the "soul" of that firm, died of lung cancer Saturday at his Santa Monica, Calif., home. The former resident of Harwood in Anne Arundel County was 89. Remembered as a mentor to numerous designers at RTKL, Mr. Taliaferro led architects who refined old retail strip centers and finessed them into shopping malls, including Harundale in Glen Burnie and Paramus Park in New Jersey, known for its early food court.

Dozens of people were evacuated from businesses near a large Anne Arundel County mall Tuesday morning after a cylinder carrying 250 gallons of highly flammable propane began leaking. The leak erupted when the cylinder fell from a forklift and broke a valve, according to a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. The incident occurred shortly after 9 a.m. on the construction site of a LongHorn Steakhouse restaurant on Arundel Mills Circle in Hanover. People within a half-mile radius of the site — most of them in businesses — were told to leave the area, said the spokesman, Capt.

The Red Parrot Asian Bistro in Hanover — the community in Anne Arundel County, not Pennsylvania — has good food in a bland setting. It is a restaurant that specializes in Southeast Asian fare. The setting, a glassy corner building in a mall just off the Baltimore- Washington Parkway, is less than uplifting. The service, young men and women clad in black, is spotty. The fare, however, has taste and substance. Red Parrot is one of the tenants of a shopping center that has sprung up on Dorchester Boulevard and Arundel Mills Boulevard, not far from the mother of all malls, Arundel Mills.

In less than a year, the prospect of saving Maryland's racing industry with an infusion of slots dollars has become something of a mirage. The owner of the state's biggest tracks is in bankruptcy court, the promise of robust gaming parlors is iffy and the future of the Preakness Stakes is fuzzy. And the latest interested buyer of Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park wants to build shopping malls on their grassy environs and says he'll pay for the tracks - in cash. After years of debate over legalizing slots in Maryland, voters overwhelmingly approved them (granted, the recession and the state's deep budget woes helped)

Faced with rising food and other costs, plummeting retirement assets and fears about job security, shoppers said they tempered their spending at Baltimore-area shopping malls and other retail spots yesterday while marking the traditional kickoff to the holiday buying season. Familiar "Black Friday" scenes of die-hard shoppers camped out before dawn for bargains on electronics, long lines at cash registers and packed parking lots were seen throughout the day. But many shoppers said they plan to spend less, wait for prices to drop even more and purchase gifts for a smaller number of friends and family.

In a marketing stunt that could have been dreamed up by shopping mall pop queen Tiffany and Internet savvy political operative Joe Trippi, singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne this spring will take part in a "flash-mob" concert tour. The appearances - to be held in shopping malls - are part of the publicity blitz surrounding her next record, Under My Skin, which will be released in late May. "Flash mobs," popular last summer among hipsters and computer geeks, are rooted in Internet culture where blogging and electronic message boards rule.

From around the region come alarming stories of charities running dry at a crucial time of year. Carroll County's Neighbors in Need program had hoped to help 1,200 families this year. But as of last week the group had to tell volunteers not to bother to come in to pack holiday food boxes -- there wasn't enough food to fill them.As The Sun's Liz Atwood reported earlier this week, charities in Anne Arundel County and Harford County also are reporting similar shortfalls. Meanwhile, the United Way is struggling to recoup from a disappointing year, both nationally and here in Maryland.

ISSUE: -- After a teenager killed eight people and then himself in a Nebraska mall, local malls are trying to send a message that their shopping centers are safe. Cpl. Mark Shawkey, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Police Department, said the shooting didn't prompt additional policing efforts. "It's heightened their awareness," Shawkey said of the officers and security guards who patrol shopping centers. "They're more in tune and will be on the lookout for those types of things, especially groups congregating in the food court and other parts of the mall."

Black Friday is over, but the holiday shopping season has just begun. For many people that means lots of car trips to the mall and the inevitable traffic hassles. But for Shalonda Long, it's all a walk in the park -- the parking lot, that is. As one of the residents of Greenwich Place at Town Center, a luxury townhouse and apartment complex in Owings Mills, Long lives just a stone's throw from the sprawling Owings Mills Mall. "The mall is so close, you can walk there in about five minutes," said Long, 31, who also manages the luxury property, which opened last fall.