We’d all written it off as being dead, but apparently there’s still a little life left in the Carson Mall after all. This article details the $12 million plans to renovate the whole mall, top to bottom, to try to freshen it up for the new millennium. I think that out of all the problems the malls has, though, the outdated architecture is the least of their worries. So hopefully this remodeling will also work on bringing in some new stores, stores that folks actually want to shop at, to go along with the new decor. I only venture inside that mall about once a year, even though I drive by it every day, and the reason is that there’s nothing inside to draw me in. No stores that I want to shop at. And whenever I do go inside, it’s always as dead as a tomb in there. I mean, it’s not as bad as the Silver City Mall, which used to stand where Lowe’s is now, for those of you that remember that ghoulishly dark place. But the Carson Mall has several problems, and $12 million worth of new paint isn’t going to fix most of them. A new restaurant, like the article talks about? That’s the kind of thing it needs.
The article also mentions, but doesn’t link to, this review of the Carson Mall by bigmallrat.com. The review highlights the dated architectural appearance, truck-stop cleanliness, and run-of-the-mill uniqueness of the mall. Sounds like a winner!
The heyday of the CM was the 1970s. There was practically nothing south of Fairview and the site of K-Mart/Silver City Mall was an open field. Safeway was the north end of the mall and JC Penneys was the south. The rest of Carson offered Murdocks for your clothing needs, a couple of Mayfairs, one McD on north Carson (near the edge of town) and a Taco Bell where Playa Azule is now. In the mall, there were gift shops and book stores and Bobby Page’s (which should be rewarded for their loyalty to location), but as time went by, the stores faded away, the mall underwent some remodeling, and middle-class and big-money customers went somewhere else.
Would a restaurant help? Sure, but people are loyal to brandnames. A single Starbucks or an ATT Wireless store would probably bring more foot traffic than Joe Smith’s Exceptional Meathouse. And anything for teenagers with disposable income would be even better.
Until then, the CM will continue to quietly fade away until another max-Baer-type comes along and tears it down. You just watch.