Decline
By 1990, Carolina Circle Mall was clearly in decline. A skateboarding park adjacent to the mall drew complaints, as incidents such as drug use increased around the mall's property. The waste water treatment facility behind the mall produced an unpleasant stench on the site. The neighborhood around the mall, which was not great to begin with, was in a clear decline as well. Many housing projects were popping up nearby or being converted, and the crime rate in this area was among the highest in the city. In 1991 a man is shot outside of the Montgomery Ward department store.
A growing number of gangs combined with a perception of crime kept shoppers away from Carolina Circle Mall. The vacancy rate increased, as many felt it was no longer safe to shop there. Rivals Four Seasons (and the High Point Road corridor) and a growing and increasingly affluent Friendly Center were the retail hot spots in town. To counter the perception of problems at Carolina Circle Mall, a police substation was put in place.
Major retail changes start to occur by the mid-1990s. Mainstays such as Waldenbooks, Camelot Music and Radio Shack leave the mall. Belk downsizes its department store, leasing the lower level to the U.S. Post Office. In 1998 Belk and Dillard's (formerly Ivey's) close their doors, leaving Montgomery Ward as the sole anchor and only a handful of inline tenants left. By 2002, with Montgomery Ward in bankruptcy, the closure of that chain signals the closure of the entire mall--much like what happened with Regency Mall in Augusta, Georgia.
Read more about this topic: Carolina Circle Mall
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall,
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)