{"id":7699,"date":"2013-02-27T21:43:38","date_gmt":"2013-02-28T02:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=7699"},"modified":"2013-02-27T21:43:38","modified_gmt":"2013-02-28T02:43:38","slug":"piedmont-mall-the-next-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/27\/piedmont-mall-the-next-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"Piedmont Mall: The Next Generation?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Danville&#8217;s Piedmont Mall is going to become Danville&#8217;s Danville Mall. Let&#8217;s take a look at what this transformation will be&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.piedmontmall.com\/News\/item136\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s the official press release from Hull Storey Gibson, the owners of the mall<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>First, I&#8217;ve got to say that the new name of the place was rather bland &amp; quite boring. I can think of only a few malls that have just the name of the city it&#8217;s in plus the word &#8220;Mall&#8221; tacked to the end of it. If you&#8217;re going to spend money on &#8220;needed renovation&#8221;, put a few bucks into coming up with a new name that makes people remember it. I&#8217;m sure most people around here will still refer to it as &#8220;Piedmont Mall&#8221; anyway&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Next, let&#8217;s take a look at some of the changes they&#8217;re going to make with this renovation in order of what&#8217;s mentioned in the press release.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Carpeting &#8211; Wait, what? You start with carpeting as the first mentioned renovation? The only carpet is in the areas of where the fountains were. When I think of a mall, I really don&#8217;t think of carpeting. But hey, if that&#8217;s good enough to lead the list for HSG, so be it. New carpet. Huzzah.<\/li>\n<li>Restrooms &#8211; The current restrooms are made out of painted concrete blocks that give it that oh-so-comfy prison look. They can only go up from there.<\/li>\n<li>Escalators &#8211; Considering the ones that are in the mall haven&#8217;t worked since about 1917 and they hadn&#8217;t been trying to repair them, this is one of the biggest things that needed working on. Sears, Belk and JCPenney had no problem keeping their escalators running continuously since the stores opened, so I wonder why the mall never even attempted a real repair effort in the past four years? Anyway, about time for that to get redone.<\/li>\n<li>Removing the &#8220;dated wood paneling&#8221; &#8211; I still think the wood paneling looked rather good, so what do I know. Am I &#8220;dated&#8221; for thinking that way? No, I don&#8217;t have avocado green appliances in my kitchen.<\/li>\n<li>Improvements to the interior lighting &#8211; Again, really? I never noticed any dark areas in the place. Go figure.<\/li>\n<li>Installation of historic photographs &#8211; Well, there ya go. With as many vacant storefronts that they have in the mall, they&#8217;ll be enough room they&#8217;ll have enough room to go back to the &#8220;historical photographs&#8221; of the Norman Conquest. We&#8217;ll get to that in the next section. One question&#8230; do you really &#8220;install&#8221; photographs? I just frame them and hang them on the wall.<\/li>\n<li>Landscaping &#8211; It will take them eight years to pick up all of the cigarette butts out of that mulch.<\/li>\n<li>New signage &#8211; Considering there is no marquee sign that mentions the mall anywhere around, I&#8217;m guessing that any signage would be new by definition. I did notice that the Piedmont Mall low-riser sign at the Mt. Cross Rd. entrance has been partially obliterated by what looked like a car accident. Well, that saved them a little money.<\/li>\n<li>Improved entryways &#8211; That means doors that work. By the way, how do doors actually break? And when they do break, wouldn&#8217;t you just put another door in it&#8217;s place? It&#8217;s strange that the anchor stores who have their own entrance doors rarely have to use the &#8220;USE OTHER DOOR&#8221; sign.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We&#8217;re going to have a newly renovated mall, but who&#8217;s going to go there? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsadvance.com\/go_dan_river\/news\/danville\/article_e43caaec-8024-11e2-9102-001a4bcf6878.html\" target=\"_blank\">In an article with the R&amp;B<\/a>, a HSG marketing analyst talked about the issues of getting stores there. Let&#8217;s break that down.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Hull says they are very mindful of the perceptions of their target market, namely women. \u201cWomen don\u2019t like to be cornered,\u201d she said. \u201cThey don\u2019t like that feeling.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Um&#8230; yeah. Patronizing much? Generalizing much? Wow.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One noticeable change at the mall has been the absence of kiosks. Eliminating those was part of improving shopper perceptions, Hull said. \u201cIt opens up the mall,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople enjoy walking in that open space. When you have kiosks, it makes people push to one side.\u201d Shoppers feel cramped, she said, and they can\u2019t see what the opposite side of the mall has to offer. \u201cIf you eliminate the kiosks, you get nice lines of sight,\u201d she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Hey look, Gladys. I can see a bunch of vacant storefronts on the other side of this place now. Man, that&#8217;s refreshing. I&#8217;m glad they got rid of all these extra places where I might have spent some money. God forbid anybody would come to a mall to buy things. Now they&#8217;ve got more room for us to dodge those crazy mall walkers who will run over top of us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Some mall tenants have recently left, such as Health No. 1 and Unlimited, and Hull says some more exits can be expected. \u201cThese were month-to-month leases,\u201d she said. The mall is looking for longer-term tenants that fit their plans. She says the mall is not simply kicking out local businesses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I believe &#8220;Health No. 1&#8221; was that big open area store with massage tables and a creepy looking guy working. I never saw any customers in there. Wow, didn&#8217;t see that closing coming. I have no idea what the hell &#8220;Unlimited&#8221; was. If they were going to get &#8220;tenants that suit their plans&#8221;, they&#8217;d have had them a long time ago.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>She says the mall is not simply kicking out local businesses. \u201cYou need tenants that are compatible with one another and suitable for an enclosed mall tenant,\u201d Hull said. Enclosed malls operate 72 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, she said. \u201cBecause of this, there are higher operating costs for tenants,\u201d she said. \u201cTypically, these tenants are national retailers, because they have a large sales volume and loyal customer base.\u201d She added, \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that a local business could not be successful in a closed mall venue,\u201d she said. \u201cIf they have a large volume and loyal customer base, they could be successful. That doesn\u2019t mean they won\u2019t be successful elsewhere.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Words fail me. They&#8217;re not kicking out local businesses, but they&#8217;d be just as successful elsewhere. Spin cycle, engage!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Of course, that means some empty spaces. Hull Storey Gibson likes to cover vacancies, Hull said, with drywall and historical photographs from the community. \u201cThe community really enjoys coming into the mall, shopping, and taking their time, looking at the photos and reading captions,\u201d she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Oh yes, they&#8217;ll enjoy looking at the historical photographs and will read the captions&#8230; ONCE! Nobody is going to make the trip from 25 miles or more away to come to a newly-renovated mall that has nothing new and exciting to do. Do these people even get it?<\/p>\n<p>OK, I&#8217;m done. Let&#8217;s recap. Yay renovations. Boo idiot management. Same as it ever was. Meh.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Danville&#8217;s Piedmont Mall is going to become Danville&#8217;s Danville Mall. Let&#8217;s take a look at what this transformation will be&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> [&#8230;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Piedmont Mall: The Next Generation","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,58,20,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-businesscentral","category-danville","category-newscentral","category-opinioncentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-20b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6777,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/17\/photos-from-saturdays-piedmont-mall-cruise-in\/","url_meta":{"origin":7699,"position":0},"title":"Photos from Saturday&#8217;s Piedmont Mall Cruise-In","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Danville's Piedmont Mall held there first Cruise-In of the season on Saturday night. SouthsideCentral was there for some photos. Piedmont Mall will be hosting their Cruise-Ins on the third Saturday on every month through September.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7627,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2012\/09\/23\/were-planning-to-kick-you-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":7699,"position":1},"title":"We&#8217;re planning&#8230; to kick you out!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"September 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"You just bought a large mall that's seen better times in a city with 20+% unemployment, so what do you do? That's right... you kick out one of your anchor stores that's been there since the beginning. Wait, what?! Mall to plan future Liberty Fair Mall is in pretty sad\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BusinessCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7445,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2012\/04\/30\/quickhits-43012\/","url_meta":{"origin":7699,"position":2},"title":"QuickHits! (4\/30\/12)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"We've got a new SouthsideCentral writer, so I'm pressured to keep the content flowing. Let's do another round of QuickHits! #1: There's a sign at Danville's Piedmont Mall that says \"It's all here at Piedmont Mall!\" That sign is on a vacant storefront. 'Nuff said. #2: Next sign in a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;QuickHits!&quot;","block_context":{"text":"QuickHits!","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/quickhits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7533,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2012\/05\/31\/a-tale-of-two-malls\/","url_meta":{"origin":7699,"position":3},"title":"A Tale Of Two Malls","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Danville's Piedmont Mall & Martinsville's Liberty Fair Mall have some things in common... They both have the same owner now. They probably also have the same dismal future. Here's a list of other things that they have in common... They have plenty of parking that's rarely used. They have horrible\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BusinessCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5555,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/09\/happy-trails-b-dalton-bookstore\/","url_meta":{"origin":7699,"position":4},"title":"Happy Trails, B. Dalton Bookstore!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Barnes & Noble is getting rid of the last stores that have the B. Dalton name. Kiss another store in Piedmont Mall goodbye. One of the few original stores in Piedmont Mall will be going out of business after the holiday season. B. Dalton is now a part of Barnes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BusinessCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7441,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2012\/05\/01\/a-quick-hits-response\/","url_meta":{"origin":7699,"position":5},"title":"A QuickHits! (4\/30\/12) Response","author":"SheilaB","date":"May 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Sheila's fitting in well at SouthsideCentral! She's got something to say about yesterday's QuickHits! article. #1:\u00a0 That a sign at Piedmont Mall on a vacant storefront stating \"It's all here at Piedmont Mall\" speaks of part of the problem in Danville. That all the words are spelled correctly is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;OpinionCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"OpinionCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/opinioncentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7699"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7702,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7699\/revisions\/7702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}