Rebirth of a Mall

(Warning: Incredibly long post ahead)

Hello friends and welcome back to another adventure with PlazaACME! This week, we're taking a break from my normal photos to cover what I'd consider the most exciting news from the mall world in several years! As you may remember from what I had Flickr, Philadelphia's struggling Gallery at Market East mall began closing down in 2015. PREIT's original plan was to gut it out and turn it into an outlet mall, but those plans fell through midway through the project- instead, they chose to reopen it as a regular mall. This came as some surprise, since from what I've read only one enclosed mall had opened in the United States in the past 5 years, versus a few dozen malls closing completely. I don't know whether or not this counts as a new mall, but considering that the interior was effectively demolished and rebuilt, I'm leaning towards yes. I believe only three tenants (Cinnabon, Philly Pretzel Factory, and Century 21) are still in their original spaces. There were also a couple stores that got relocated within the mall but never closed (GameStop and Burlington), and some stores that closed outright but will be rejoining the mall (Starbucks and Journeys). After 4 years of construction and a few delays, the majority of the mall opened for business this past Thursday as Fashion District Philadelphia at 60% occupancy, which sounds low but I'm told is good for a newly-built mall.

 These exterior pictures I'm starting off with are actually from the day before the mall opened. The crowds were a little easier to get around before anything was open. :P

 The west end of the mall, which originally held JCPenney and more recently Burlington, was still under construction. It will feature an AMC theater and a Round 1 bowling alley when it opens in November.

 This space was originally Gimbels' flagship location, replacing their now-mostly-demolished original store across Market Street. After they went under, the upper floors were turned into offices. The lower levels became a short-lived Clover, which then became Kmart in the mid-90's. It was kind of a bad location, as it split the mall in two parts on both levels they occupied. As part of the redevelopment, they carved a hallway down the middle and replaced Kmart with more in-line tenants.

 Taking a quick glance into the mall from the 10th St entrance. I didn't go all the way up to the window since there was pretty heavy security inside.

 One of the smaller sculptures that used to be displayed along the front of the mall returned. However, it was moved back to the City Winery entrance on Filbert St, which used to be the rear entrance to Gimbels/Kmart.

 The plaque under it still has the Gimbels name!

 Nike opened up a Factory Store here by the 9th Street entrance.

 The main entrance to the mall was totally rebuilt. It used to open up to the subway level, which you'd have to go down a set of stairs outside to get to. Here they were decorating for the festivities that would be happening tomorrow,

 The main entrance, as seen from a little further back. The LED displays are new, and were being tested while I was here. The mall is plastered in huge new signs and billboards, and happens to span between the new East Market towers and the Lit Bros building, both of which also have big LED displays. I get the impression this part of town's going to look a lot like Times Square before too long.

 More new displays over the Burlington, which moved here from the other end of the mall. The new space is still multi-level but still smaller than the 3-story one it replaced. It takes up the former Walgreens (good riddance), along with Strawbridge's basement, which had been empty since they closed in 2006.

 Smaller streetside signs are still in the process of being installed, bearing the mall's new name. At first I was annoyed they didn't have "mall" anywhere in the name, but then I realized "The Gallery at Market East" didn't have it either. Oops.

 One of the new billboards along Market Street. I've noticed Dunkin' hasn't rolled the new name out to their merchandise yet, which is strange seeing how donuts are the one thing they don't sell in other stores.

 Starbucks is making its return, albeit a little delayed.

 The JCPenney/AMC block of the building, still under construction. This was the last part to begin work, since not only could Burlington not vacate until the new space was ready, but it also shares the building with Jefferson Station, one of Philadelphia's three big rail stations, which relies on part of the mall to connect it with the subway concourse, Convention Center, and the Aramark Tower.

 H&M is one of the new junior anchors. About half of the space they take up on the first floor is new- there used to be an overhang here above a mall entrance.

 Looking along Market Street. I know whitewashing malls is what's trendy now, but this part of the exterior actually looks far less bland than it did before. It used to be a very monotone mix of concrete, metal, and gray-ish marble.

 Future AMC entrance, which is in the same location as Burlington's former entrance.

 Jump forward a few hours and the mall's open! There have been complaints about how white it was inside, but it is so much brighter and less dingy-feeling now. I really loved the old look, but I'll admit it wasn't something you'd want representing downtown Philly.

 A lot of the vacant storefronts were hidden with art displays; this one just had a list of stores. Most of these are already open, but there were a few that still were under construction.

 Yards, a local craft brewery, had a pop-up beergarden here for the grand opening. This setup is temporary, but they're listed on the mall's website which makes me wonder if they're going to build a permanent eatery.

 The Subway level. Gamestop returned to the exact same space they were in before, despite it being totally rebuilt. For the last three years, they had been operating across the street in another PREIT-owned building. Both they and Zumiez have totally different storefronts from what I'm used to seeing, while Spencer's looks exactly the same. They and Zumiez split the space formerly occupied by Bath & Body Works, which I'm surprised hasn't made a return.

 Similar to Dunkin' Donuts dropping the "Donuts" part of their name, Jamba Juice has done away with the "Juice" from theirs. This kiosk wasn't open for business on Thursday, but it looks like they're pretty close. I'm guessing they're probably open by now.

 Looking up the escalators. I really liked the lighting they used under them.
The structure of the mall remained more or less the same as it was before, aside from carving up the Kmart. The old glass ceiling is still going strong here, with a fresh coat of paint on the metal frame!

 The food court's got an unusual lineup- Chick-Fil-A and Pei Wei are the only "normal" food court stores here. The most exciting one is Chickie's & Pete's, best known for their crab Fries. This is their first mall location, most others are in local stadiums, airports, and casinos, although they do have a few standalone restaurants.

 Back up on the ground level, looking toward the 10th St entrance. What's weird about this place is that you can get across through both the subway and upper levels, so the street basically goes through the mall. 9th Street does the same thing, but at 11th Street the mall only goes under.

 The top level of the mall hasn't had stores in years. It's been mostly offices and the occasional daycare for as long as I can remember. The part of it under the Gimbels building been walled off and is now home to a startup incubator.

  You'd never be able to guess it, but where I'm standing was a Kmart up until 2014.

 Some of the vacant storefronts had been decorated with art. It's ironic the new mall has more art than The Gallery did. I liked this display a lot- it's made of sequins like they have on those novelty purses and pillows and shoppers can play with it.

 This was the only kiosk I saw open so far. I think the others are in the boxes surrounding it.

 In the old Kmart, they couldn't put in skylights due to there being floors above. Instead, they put in some color-changing LED strips.

 Hollister wasn't open yet, but they look like they're getting pretty close too.

 This was the first Asics store I've seen that wasn't in an outlet mall. I can't tell if it's an outlet store or a regular one.

 I also didn't know Samsonite luggage had stores. Their storefront sorta reminds me of a 90's GNC.

 Looking out into the main part of the mall. There used to be two glass elevators here that were my favorite part of coming here as a kid. I'm not blaming the remodel on their removal though, for whatever reason they got taken out years before the remodel began.

 The main entrance, as seen from the back of the mall. The big screen must have been inspired by what Simon's been doing with their malls.

 The windows towards the top are offices for the Philadelphia Inquirer, which has been here since the Gallery days. They used to be plastered over with ads, which have tastefully been removed.

 Live jazz band for the grand opening!

 I don't know what exactly Candytopia's going to be but I've seen it referred to as an indoor theme park, so it has my attention.

 Looking out the front. The LED display by the entrance is up and running!

Now for some bonus content. If you've been following me on Flickr for a while, you've already seen most of this. If not, here's your chance to see it while it was still the Gallery!
(Also for what it's worth, these pictures are still up on my Flickr page too)

This first picture, from 2013, is the only one I got of the old Food Court. It's a little grainy but it gets the point across. I sorta assumed this place would always be around so I didn't make a point of photographing the whole mall until redevelopment plans were announced, at which point the mall was already dead.

Flash forward to Summer 2015, and the mall's only a shell of its former self. Construction hadn't started yet but they had ripped into the ceiling in a few places, probably to check out what the structure was. RadioShack was one of the later tenants to leave, as part of their first bankruptcy.

This hallway was the part under 10th Street. Beyond the Food Court signage was under Kmart. They had a former non-Pharmacy CVS (on the left), which closed in the 2000's, most likely due to it being across the street from a regular location.

Modell's was another one of the later holdouts. There were still a few tenants left in the mall but leases were not being renewed at this point. With Modell's eyeing bankruptcy, I doubt they're going to make any return to Fashion District.

Former Suncoast, which had been closed for a while at this point. I don't recall if anything was here after them, but if there was it was short-lived.
I'm not sure why they've got two different types of lighting here. The fluorescent ones were only in the original mall, not the 80's expansion, meaning that if one was added later, it would have been the round ones. Maybe they were added in because the fluorescent ones weren't bright enough?

This sign was one of my favorite parts of the mall. Despite it being pretty far on the wall above the entrance, it was just barely at street level. The railing you see outside was protecting the sidewalk. There were a lot of stairs to go down to get in here.

This escalator went to the secondary entrance and ground level of the mall. In the remodel, the main entrance was bumped up to this level (and with it the lower skylights came out for the new entryway). I think the old entry area was turned into more subway-level retail.

Looking across from where the last photo was. Journeys had already closed here, but they reopened with the new mall. This section of the Gallery was the first to close, so they got booted out fairly early.

This was the former Kmart. I believe Clover totally redid the space when they took over. Since they didn't last long here, Kmart didn't remodel when they moved in, resulting into one of the nicest-looking Kmarts out there.

Looking down the main hallway. The all-glass roof and high ceilings were another thing I really loved about this place- and the best part is that unlike the elevators and sign, these stayed the same!

Former Kmart sign frame. I've got no idea why they put the tarp over the bottom half of the door if they're not going to cover the whole thing. It's not doing much to disguise the fact this was a closed store.

EB Games still had ads up in the lobby. I think this was in a different space than where GameStop was.

Empty space with a ton of neon. I'm guessing this was an independent store.

Some walled-off office space up on the top level. I don't think the remodel sacrificed any further retail space, but the offices were expanded out to the edge of the walkway.

The top floor looked pretty bleak. That walkway wasted a lot of leasable area, getting rid of it was probably  good call.

It doesn't look as bad in the arts where they used windows instead of just a plain wall.

I'd hazard a guess and say this was an independent dollar store.

Down on the Subway level, this was one of the entrances to Strawbridge's. The door that doesn't look abandoned was a carved off the rest of the salesfloor when the upper floors of Strawbridge's were turned into offices, so that they could have a direct connection to the subway.

A blurry look at one of the subway-level stores.

See the mall cop in blue? He's the reason I didn't get more pictures this visit. Don't worry, I came back.

I gave security a few months to cool down (read: waited until the last possible moment) before making my return trip. The west end of the mall was still up and running with a few tenants left, while the east side was a week away from being blocked off. Five Below here was the only tenant to relocate out of the mall and not return; instead, they set up a permanent shop in the Lit Bros building across the street. That building also fittingly happens to be home to their headquarters. They went all-out on the new location, which became their flagship store.

Some construction was already underway. I don't remember where exactly this picture was taken in the building, but I want to say this was the former food court under Kmart.

I always thought the orange-tinted sodium vapor lights were an odd choice for indoors, but I like it. Of course I'm writing this in my apartment's living room which is currently lit by a smaller sodium lamp.
You may have noticed that while a lot of stone was used on the building post-remodel, all of the graying marble paneling the walls disappeared. I am very curious where this all went, assuming it wasn't just buried under drywall.

The Walgreens, which got booted out for Burlington. I already liked PREIT, but this certainly didn't hurt. ;)
The Inquirer is mostly based in the old Strawbridge's building (which you can see in the background), although it spills out into the upper levels of the mall here. The windows look like they were always here, leading me to believe there were always offices in this part at least, but since Strawbridge's used to be all department store, I can't imagine what kind of offices they'd have up here, unless this is where the mall offices were originally located.

Food Court's entrance, Kmart's would have been to the right of here. I'm pretty sure Starbucks was long gone at this point; it's surprising they not only had the old logo until the end here but also were willing to leave it up after vacating the space.

Jumping forward again to 2016, everywhere east of 10th Street has been barricaded off, and the next block of stores was preparing to shut down. The name/logo change from Outlets to District hadn't happened yet, hence the fancier logo above the door.

Leather Man, which just sounds like a local independent shop, was in the beginning stages of liquidation.

The infamous GameStop, next to the Bath & Body Works, who had a surprisingly modern store. I'm still very surprised they didn't return.

While the area under Strawbridge's was blocked off, there was nothing to stop me from getting a picture through the Subway Station doors.

The former main entrance is also barricaded off, but it doesn't look like any major work has been done yet. This sculpture needs to come back. They brought back the little one we saw earlier, but not this.

One of the neon-lined sculptures above a directory. I liked how it depicted so many Philly icons, but I always found this creepier than cool.

Visiting again in 2016, a few weeks before the main mall closed down entirely. This was my first and last time up on the 4th floor, which was looking pretty sad.

Love the skylights up here.

There are a few different storefronts up here, but I doubt they've had actual stores behind them in years.

This hallway led from the top floor to the parking garage across Filbert Street. I loved this mosaic, which faced the windows above the street, functioning as a sign for the mall.

If I remember correctly, the logos were updated on the other floors here but not at the top. These doors were barricaded off once this floor dried up.

The only sign of retail up here was this place, which sold school uniforms.

Lone directory out in the middle of a walkway. In hindsight I should gotten a picture, but at the time I was kinda nervous I wasn't supposed to be up here.

I assumed that would be the last time I'd ever see it as the Gallery, but in early 2018, I made a pleasant surprise- you could still access the little piece of the mall under the Aramark Tower! This one piece connected the tower with Jefferson Station, the Convention Center (where this picture was taken from), and the Subway Concourse.

A lot of the stores were closed off. As you can probably guess, the new name had been announced by this point. I'm not sure if the new logo had been made yet, as it was nowhere to be seen.

The flower shop, Wells Fargo, and Smoothie shop all stuck around after the mall itself closed, but I believe were all evicted before the mall reopened.

Jefferson Station is to the left here. The black wall was put up to block off the rest of the mall. I guess they tried to keep as little of the old mall open as they could.

The directory, which somehow hadn't been yanked out yet. Cinnabon in the background survived the entire project in their original spot. I haven't seen it since they reopened the mall, but I heard they didn't even remodel it. It makes the entire subway level of the mall smell amazing. I always associated that distinct Cinnabon smell with this mall.

I've kept you inside the mall for about 3 years at this point, so why don't we come back outside? They're now in the process of peeling the old paneling off of the former Burlington. I don't quite understand the purpose of the temporary walls if the interior was also gutted out. There shouldn't have been anything to protect there.

They had Market Street blocked off today to remove the old air conditioning condensers from the roof so they can raise it a little bit. It must have taken a while to remove these.

It's usually a pretty big deal when they close off Market Street; it's one of the main roads in the city.
Note the banner advertising a 2018 opening date- this got pushed back a year after AMC signed on due to the amount of structural work that they had to do.

The older part of the Gallery's façade was almost done. Not sure why they couldn't have just opened this part first.

Coming back once again this February, quite a bit has changed. Since the new mall is a joint venture between PREIT and Macerich, I'm expecting them to tack another logo decal on under this.

One thing I found surprising was that the lobby between the 8th Street Subway stop and the mall didn't get any attention. At this point, it's the one part of the mall that's still totally Gallery.

Heading back under the Aramark Tower, the ceiling and floor tile have been pulled out.

New logo up on the barricade! Funny how that went from the least decorated part of the hall to the most.

Despite the space being mostly scraped clean, they didn't tear apart the now-closed Smoothie King (who, by the way, is another tenant I'm surprised didn't return).

Since there were some stores here that didn't close, this space wasn't gutted out entirely. As a result, the tenant spaces all kept the same layout, unlike the rest of the mall.

The directory lives on! ...for now, at least.

We've been neglecting the old Strawbridge's for a while, why don't we check that out? Currently, about half the first floor is still vacant, 13 years after the store closed.

I found a hole in the decal big enough to get a picture through. I hope they haven't left all those lights on all this time.

Sorry for the sideways picture but Blogger isn't letting me rotate it. :/
The store's vestibule is still accessible because a subway entrance comes out here. Strawbridge's seal is still hanging around up there. I'm not sure if that's historically protected or now.

The doors were blacked out, but I could still see a little through the crack between them. The Boar statue is still there!

Sign in the vestibule still leads people to the "Gallery"

Under Strawbridge's, the remodel finished up early for Burlington! This building was put up in 1931, which was several years after the Subway was constructed. I'm guessing this was always here as subway concourse, as opposed to Strawbridge's walling off a portion of their basement to make way for the mall.

Really looks a lot brighter than it did a few pictures ago, doesn't it?

Old piece of Strawbridge's entryway is still here. I guess the office building didn't want to pay to build a new storefront.

Strawbridge's logo in the subway vestibule!

While the old Grayson-Robinson store across the street isn't technically part of the mall, PREIT did buy it along with the two stores to the left of it with the intention of building more shopping space on the site. That project's on hold for the time being. It's getting a lot of backlash because a lot of people want to preserve this building. I've written about this place's history before, but to recap: the store's façade was rebuilt in 1947 by Victor Gruen (the architect credited with inventing the shopping mall). Despite Robinson closing in the 60's, their façade and sign have somehow survived all this time. It was listed on the local historic register in 2017, it was delisted the following year as a result of PREIT pressuring the commission. While I'd hate to see this come down, this really isn't the area you'd want decrepit storefronts hanging around in, so I reluctantly support the project.
Also for what it's worth, The Wiz isn't a real store. There was a local electronics store chain with the same name that went under in the early 90's, but this was not one of them. This Wiz sign was actually put up as a prop for It's Always Sunny, the store operating under it was actually a record shop-turned electronics store called Funk-O-Mart.

Heading back over to Strawbridge's, the day before the mall reopened. They were replacing the decals covering the windows, giving me the opportunity to get a totally unobstructed view of the inside. It also helps that the wall behind it was busted out at some point.  The wood you see up towards the top was actually the top layer of the shelf that used to be on the other side of the wall.

I guess whoever moves in here next isn't supposed to use the windows for displays anymore.

There's Always Something There to Remind Me!

The Robinson Store, as it appeared this year. It sits totally vacant with a barricade over the street level entrance, advertising the Fashion District. I guess we'll have to stay tuned for the next chapter!

I was originally going to do Sammy Davis Jr's Candy Man for today's song, since for whatever reason I always associated that song with The Gallery. I must've heard it there when I was little or something. However, in light of the mall's transformation, I think this song better fits the post. Even more appropriately, I chose the "Reboot" version of the song released earlier this year over the original 90's version.