Popular mall anchor chain closing dozens more stores
The company has been proactively closing stores that don't add to its bottom line.
Many people think that retailers have suffered because consumers have stopped going to malls.
The reality is that while purchasing patterns have changed, traffic has not had some major dropoff. People still go to malls, but they might spend less time there. And that’s a failure of the retailers, not the malls.
Related: After Chapter 11 bankruptcy, beloved retailer closing all stores
While mall traffic varies month to month, it was relatively flat in February
“Comparing [year over year] at average daily visits — a more accurate analysis of YoY performance when comparing a regular year to a leap year — reveals that visits to indoor malls and open-air shopping centers held relatively stable in February 2025, despite the sharp drop in consumer confidence," according to Placer.ai data.
"And both mall types outperformed the wider retail YoY average, highlighting the ongoing resilience of the retail format."
Traffic eased 0.4%, but if you factor in the missing day, that figure adjusts to more or less even. But even if you do not correct for the missing day, it’s hard to blame malls for not doing their part in getting people into stores.
