Shopping malls, long thought to be in a death spiral, are poised for reinvention around the Baltimore area. But they’re not all expected to make it.

The region’s larger enclosed malls face headwinds from online buying and shifts in consumer habits that have retailers across the U.S. closing stores and shrinking footprints.

While some centers de-malled and sought out non-retail tenants years ago, others now are grappling with how to get there or whether retail is still viable.

“A lot of malls were built at a time where that was where people wanted to be and wanted to shop, but trends change,” said Richard Latella, an executive managing director for Cushman & Wakefield and a retail practice group leader for the brokerage. “Not all the malls will continue to be viable as retail centers. Some will be scrapped or completely redeveloped.”

In the Baltimore region, Latella sees strong redevelopment potential for even aging centers with public or private backing, such as Security Square Mall, where a Baltimore County redevelopment plan gained momentum earlier this month, and Annapolis Mall and Eastpoint Mall, where owners are reinvesting.

Changing consumer patterns, the pandemic and pressure on commercial real estate portfolios have all affected how local shoppers approach malls and what they offer.

Shatina Phipps headed to Security with her 4-year-old daughter on a recent Tuesday, but made just a quick stop to buy shoes at Shoe Show. She mostly buys what she needs online.

And if she’s looking for a day out or more extensive shopping, she said she typically makes a longer drive to Arundel Mills in Hanover, for “the variety of all the stores, all the different eateries and the movies.”

Latella, who has assessed mall performance across the country, also expects the Mall in Columbia, an anchor for growing mixed-use surrounding development, to remain viable.

Security Square “has been a dying mall for long time, but it seems like the government is focused on redeveloping that,” said Latella, adding that public funding, with community backing, is becoming a critical piece of salvaging some older regional malls.

Other centers, such as Marley Station in Glen Burnie, lack investment from owners and face less certain futures as traditional malls, he believes.

Spinoso Real Estate, owner of Baltimore County’s White Marsh Mall — another mall Latella says has a questionable future — has said the three department store-center will remain a mall. Meanwhile, controversial plans to turn a former Sears into apartments are underway by a separate owner.

The 35-year-old Spinoso, which owns retail properties in 24 states and did not respond to requests for comment, says on its website it believes in malls as “the heartbeat of communities.”

“We exist to unlock the untapped potential of these spaces, transforming them into vibrant hubs of activity and growth that serve as anchors for their communities,” the company says.

Mixed-use malls tend to survive longer

Today’s successful malls generally have reduced enclosed space, fewer department store anchors and far less leasable area devoted to apparel, a big online category. They devote more space to bars, restaurants and other entertainment.

Housing, often multi-family or senior living, ranks as a top non-traditional mall use, followed by medical clinics or offices, Latella said.

Former department stores have been transformed as well for government services or community colleges. And though remaining department stores often have a say in re-development, they’re less likely than in the past to try to block such projects, he said.

Woodlawn residents have long pushed for an overhaul of a deteriorating Security Square, a throwback to a 1980s mall. It lost anchors Sears and Burlington and is losing Macy’s, where store closeout signs and few shoppers dominate space once occupied by Hecht Co.

“This used to be the mall. Everybody went to Security mall,” said Michelle Mitchell, who lives nearby and works for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “They had so many stores here that you liked. I loved Hecht Co. There have been a lot of stores, good stores, that are no longer with us.”

Some malls are finding new life via deals with local government planning officials, who want to turn the sites into resident-friendly developments.

Baltimore County earlier this month finalized a $6.5 million deal to buy the department store building that Macy’s will shutter at Security in the chain’s closure of 66 unproductive stores nationwide. The county, which has been acquiring mall property since 2022 and is now the largest owner, hopes to usher in mixed-use, transit oriented development.

Officials continue to have “productive discussions” with other mall property owners, Sameer Sidh, Baltimore County senior deputy administrative officer, told The Sun last month. Other owners include Set the Captives Free Outreach Center, which runs a nondenominational church, and mall owner City View Commercial, that did not respond to requests for comment.

“The county buying property is an innovative situation,” that should help control what ultimately happens at the site, said Ryan Coleman, president of Randallstown NAACP, which in 2021 formed a task force to call attention to the lack of investment.

“My mantra has been to give the community what they want, not for the county or for businesses to tell us what they’re going to give us,” Coleman said. “That has really been an issue in the black community, giving us stores and stuff that people really don’t want.”

A 2023 report by the county and consultants found that residents want to see walkable, green areas with mixed-use development and entertainment options.

“That’s the concept of what’s working in other places,” Coleman said. “People come to malls to do things, buying things is almost secondary … What we’re seeing now is a lot of middle class folks going to Howard County.”

Some residents are getting impatient with mall planning

Coleman says community members near Security Square want officials to move forward with promised next steps for the center.

A county-hired consultant has started reviewing specific plans and funding, then the county expects to offer parcels to developers. But even if other mall property owners are not immediately on board, construction on the county’s portion should get underway, Coleman said.

“We don’t intend for the county to buy property and hold it in perpetuity,” he said.

Like Security Square, Harford Mall in Bel Air will soon find itself with a massive vacancy when Macy’s closes. A mall spokeswoman said the owner is “monitoring the situation.”

“While it’s far too soon to share any details, we believe the closure provides an opportunity for future redevelopment,” said Stacey Keating, a spokeswoman for Tennessee-based CBL Properties.

The recipe for mall reinvention has become tried and true for one retail center owner. Dallas-based Centennial, which bought Annapolis Mall in September with a partner, said it has successfully followed a formula of remerchandising, adding gathering space and bringing in uses such as residential in places such as suburban Chicago.

The same should work in Annapolis, said Paul Kurzawa, Centennial’s president.

The mall offers a chance to create a mixed-used destination out of a center in a growing trade area with no enclosed retail competition for 25 miles, he said.

“We saw an opportunity to reinvest in the property and create the next chapter of what it wants to be,” he said.

Short term plans call for remerchandising and adding “experiential” tenants Dave & Buster’s arcade and sports bar and Dick’s House of Sport, the sporting goods chains new concept allowing shoppers to try out products on a climbing wall, golf bays and sports cages.

Longer term, the new owners are studying options such as adding housing. That approach, or some mix of entertainment, office, hotel and grocery, has worked elsewhere, he said.

“With the evolution of department stores, those parking fields are vacant, and that lends itself to using land that would otherwise be vacant and bringing in new activity, new people,” he said.

Having such options on-site and nearby has helped the Mall in Columbia evolve, said Jannell Vaughan, a vice president of property management for Brookfield Properties, which still owns three of the Baltimore area malls originally built by Columbia’s developer, the Rouse Co., including the Mall in Columbia.

Brookfield also owns Towson Town Center in Towson and Mondawmin Mall in West Baltimore.

The housing, retail and other commercial uses that have sprouted near the Columbia mall shows “Jim Rouse’s vision coming to fruition,” Vaughan said. “The mall was the first piece of that vision. We are truly the center of that community, physically, but also emotionally.”

For many, malls hold treasured milestone memories

Mall traditions have persisted, Vaughan said, such as the annual 20-foot-tall poinsettia tree each Christmas at the Columbia mall and the return of “Santa Luke” to Mondawmin nearly every holiday season for decades.

“But what what keeps them coming to the mall is the change,” Vaughan said. “We have to continue to evolve to keep up with the wants and needs of our market.”

At Mondawmin, the former Target is being redeveloped as a community hub to help revitalize the West Baltimore neighborhood and mall.

The Columbia mall, meanwhile has over the past five years incorporated more entertainment, brought a Lidl grocer and a Main Event to a former Sears and added restaurants and an outdoor plaza, all “to attract residents now living in our backyard … We don’t have any residential development going on on our properties, but there’s certainly a great deal going on around them.”

“We’re over the narrative,” she said, “that the mall is dying.”

Have a news tip? Contact Lorraine Mirabella at lmirabella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6672 and @lmirabella on X.