When was the last time you were in a mall? These Tarrant shoppers recall the good old days

Black Friday at North East Mall in Hurst could have easily passed for any normal weekend day if you didn’t look at the calendar.

Just after 10 a.m., shoppers carried — sometimes dragged — bags in drooped arms across tile floors.

But there was something that Black Friday shoppers years ago didn’t normally see: room to breathe.

There was ample space to park among miles of parking lot. Shelves remained neat. There were no lines to get into stores, except for the one outside QuickLotz, which is where Nordstrom once stood.

North East Mall has long been heralded as a destination mall, and to this day it retains its popularity. But those who have shopped there for years remember what it used to be.

Sheri Carter Biggs has fond memories of going to the mall with her grandmother when it had an Orange Julius and a steakhouse. She remembers going on dates at the movie theater and hitting the steakhouse or food court after.

Marla Coker remembers shopping at the old Nordstrom and being so blown away by a perfect-for-her pair of shoes that she couldn’t leave the store without them.

And Sarah Killingsworth and Devin Bennett remember strolling the mall in their teenage years before they met or got married, just trying to stay on top of the latest trends and maybe meet a boy or two.

To all of them, the mall just isn’t the same anymore.

There are about 1,000 malls nationwide — 25% may close in the next two to three years, said Erin George, who leads the Southwest System for Boston Consulting Group and is a part of its consumer and retail practice.

What happened to malls?

Mall shopping’s decline started well before the COVID-19 pandemic. And when the pandemic hit, the downfall quickened.

Retail vacancies in malls are the highest they have ever been, George said. Off-mall retail space has increased, and stores that once found their homes in malls are starting to change strategy.

Stores like makeup-mecca Sephora, clothing classic Gap and candle and scent wonderland Bath & Body Works are now shifting outdoor sites. In Fort Worth, a new Sephora will soon open its doors at a strip shopping center across the street from Hulen Mall.

“They are destinations unto themselves at this point,” George said of the stores.

The reason for the site shift? Mall rents are high, and stores tend to perform better economically outside of a mall, George said. Buyers have also shifted toward buying items online and picking them up in store — a trend that picked up during the pandemic and doesn’t work as well when shoppers have to walk far, like in a mall.

Then comes online shopping, which increased 50% during the pandemic. George said retailers have wondered whether that traffic would shift back to in-store shopping once the pandemic was over.

“The reality is that it really hasn’t,” she said.

Life at North East Mall

Biggs was back at the mall for the first time in two years. She couldn’t believe all the stores that used to be there that were now gone. The mall, in her eyes, has been on a downward slope since the ’70s or ’80s.

Coker remembers the mall being “elegant,” and said it was a place where people used to dress up to stroll the mix of high-end and regular stores. She said the mall doesn’t have the same sparkle as it did that day she found her perfect pair of shoes.

Kathryn Omarkhail still frequents the mall for Christmas shopping, but part of her thinks mall shopping is coming to an end because of online shopping and Amazon. She even orders groceries online so she doesn’t have to lug the bags inside the house.

Bennett said that as he and Killingsworth got older, the mall grew with them instead of marketing to the teens. The couple avoids any mall for Christmas shopping because the prices are typically cheaper online.

The mall’s main function for them now is just for walking around and going to the movies. Even then, Killingsworth said she will take the couple’s four kids over to Ridgmar Mall because it has a childrens’ play area.

North East Mall still carries nostalgia for them.

“We’re the teenagers, the angsty ‘90s kids that grew up and if they have more stuff that like, our children could do there, it’d be easier for us to go to that mall,” Killingsworth said.

Other Tarrant County malls

You wouldn’t know Ridgmar Mall in west Fort Worth was still open by looking at it. Few cars dotted miles of worn black parking lot space just before noon the day before Thanksgiving.

Inside, unmistakable smell of popcorn wafted through empty halls on the mall’s second floor from the movie theater. A mostly empty food court just had two restaurants open: a taco shop and a pizza place.

Children ran around in a washed out, highlighter pack-colored play area. The most trafficked stores were the ones on the bottom level — a LensCrafters, a hair salon, a Toys for Tots and an aquarium. Water flowed weakly from two spouts into the basin of a shallow fountain with a penny-lined bottom.

Big box stores like Dillard’s and JC Penney — as well as a SeaQuest aquarium — seem to keep the mall afloat.

And 12 minutes away at Hulen Mall in highly developed south Fort Worth, there was an abundance of life by comparison. Cars packed into spaces by an Abuelo’s, Red Robin and BJ’s Brewhouse. Inside, shoppers shuffled about like ants through classic mall favorites like American Eagle, Hollister, Tilly’s and Forever 21.

But this mall isn’t immune to changes in consumerism. What used to be a Sears still stood like a skeleton in an empty parking lot.

Can mall shopping make a comeback?

The decline of malls across the country boils down to abundant changes in consumerism.

Theaters were once the lifeblood of malls, George said. With streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, the game changed for movie theaters everywhere — and subsequently the ones attached to malls.

And the way younger generations are spending their money now, George said, has shifted too. They now want to spend their money on experiences instead of things. Building lifestyle experiences into the shopping experience could be a solution to re-establish malls as a gathering space.

But can the mall as it’s been for years be saved?

George thinks the concept of having a bunch of stores in one place for shoppers to peruse will be saved, but it won’t be easy and will take investment and modernization. Retail stores have to invest in their in-store experience too, she said.

Until then, the new shopping habits will be hard to beat.

When Coker needs something from a store in the mall, she’ll just buy it online and shipped to her, though she only lives 10 minutes away in Oakhurst.

And Omarkhail, who once strolled North East Mall with her preteen daughter, will just hand her the computer and let her put what she wants in the online cart herself.