Dulles Town Center - Raw & Real Retail

Рет қаралды 7,209

2 жыл бұрын

This is our walkthrough of the Dulles Town Center mall in Sterling, VA from May 10, 2021. This is a very nice 90s mall that has seen better days. After losing 3 anchors, Sears, Nordstrom, and Lord & Taylor, the mall seems to be on the decline, with vacancies popping up here and there and a general slower feeling in the air. This is sad, because the architecture of the building is quite stunning, with a huge stained glass spire rising out of center court and cool scaffolding and beams throughout, not to mention cool skylights, light fixtures, and one of the best food courts I've seen, resembling an airplane hangar. It feels really good walking around this mall, or just sitting in a chair gawking at everything. We hope the owners can find some way to bounce back from what seems like a path to struggling mall status.
Songs used in this video (in order):
Alan Barcus - Going Out
Mladen Franko - Long, Long Straight On
Cory Wong & Dave Koz - Restoration
Steve Gray - Long Time Gone
Brian Bennett & Alan Hawkshaw - Getting It Together
David Marriott, Jr. - On the Seventh Day
Steve Gray - Wonder Groove
Steve Gray - Reach Out
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I'd like to say a few words about being an ambassador to your local malls. We have been taking the time to visit all the malls within a reasonable driving distance to check up on them and see how they are doing. Also filming an updated video every year or so, regardless of the lack of many changes, just so there is a video record of the health over time. We think this is an important thing to keep tabs on, especially in these wildly turbulent times. The health emergency has accelerated the impending Retail Apocalypse we've all been talking about these last several years. This was already a big problem, but the restrictions have made the issue 5x worse and likely hastened the death of the enclosed shopping mall.
I know we've all been on pins and needles wondering how bad the fallout is going to be from all of this.
There really is no way to know exactly unless we ALL go and do our small part to make it known how it turns out. I implore you, if you have the means to pick an area you would like to be an ambassador for, and go document your local malls. Whatever your medium, it doesn't matter, any and all documentation is necessary and vital in this day and age. Whether it be on Social Media, Flickr, KZfaq, any platform gets it out there and preserves it for posterity. We can't paint this picture unless we all grab a brush...
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We utilize the value-for-value model here at RRR. Our product is free, and we're not asking you to pay for it. If you received value in any way from watching RRR, you can help us by donating, if you feel like it. Any little bit helps us to keep corporations and advertisers out of the decision making process. Your donation will keep us ad-free, and in turn, it will give us the opportunity to get to more far-flung locations to help tell this tale of retail instability.
This is a non-profit project and every penny will go back into the gas tank for future trips!
/ rawandrealretail
ITM

Пікірлер: 22

@CherryFrog321 Жыл бұрын

My family lived in Sterling between 1997 and 2005 when I was in elementary and middle school. It was fun growing up there and I have the best memories of going to this mall with my family as a child, and then going with my friends as I got older.

@juliehoot3916 2 жыл бұрын

Beautiful mall! Love the sun streaming in and the carousel! Not a big fan of carpets in a mall but still love this mall. Thank you for sharing.

@noahvoris3637 2 жыл бұрын

This looks like a typical mall that is doing relatively well despite the anchoritis! When anchors leaves the inline tenants usually fall off quickly or they stay.

@ThresholdDreamer111 2 жыл бұрын

It was a real pleasure visiting this mall that May afternoon! Such a perfect specimen of a 90s mall. Love that skylight, and all the color choices, lighting fixtures, etc, throughout! We at RRR have WAY too much fun visiting these places for you guys! :D

@R32R38 2 жыл бұрын

Nice looking mall, and the inline vacancies still look manageable.The lack of customer traffic is concerning, but from the description it looks like you went on a Monday, generally a slow day, and it was over four months ago. It may be busier today.

@gordonsabean6860 2 жыл бұрын

It’s always a bad sign when a mall doesn’t pull the signs from a dead anchor. It speaks to the malls management being rather lacking. On the positive side this mall despite not having a refresh since the 90’s, It does hold up well even today. Loosing three anchors though is a bitter pill to swallow and I fear a turnaround will be hampered. It’s possible given good management however I don’t see this happening any time soon. Finally Macy’s likely own the building that there location is in. If this is a former May Co. location they liked to own their own locations. This is a situation where somebody needs to light a candle under management’s, you know what, and get working on a turnaround plan before more inline stores vacate.

@devinterry1309 2 жыл бұрын

That’s a huge big beautiful mall

@estroger 2 жыл бұрын

It’s sad because it was really bustling when all the anchors were open and I used to go there very often during many lunch breaks during the work day to just walk around DTC mid-late 2000s and early 2010s. It’s a nice mall but a shame that Lord & Taylor, Sears and Nordstrom closed. Nordstrom decided to focus on their higher tiered Tyson’s and Pentagon City locations.

@BlackArroToons 2 жыл бұрын

Yes, the scaffolding on top is impressive along with the design of the mall's walls and ceiling. At 3:00 hopefully that security guard standing on the 2nd level looking down didn't cause any issues with filming indoors. I always wondered why malls are so against subtle filming for memory's sake, but maybe because they feel it distracts patrons.

@RawRealRetail 2 жыл бұрын

Many malls have adopted a non-commercial filming policy. So long as you're not filming for commercial reasons, it's explicitly allowed. I know most of the Simon and PREIT malls near us all have adopted this practice. Besides, that security guard was standing at that spot for most of my walk, and he had no idea what I was doing. I use a device that is practically invisible when filming, the DJI Osmo Pocket. No one ever knows what I'm up to.

@BlackArroToons 2 жыл бұрын

@@RawRealRetail Thanks. That's good to hear as it makes your filming much less stressful I can imagine. And that's really cool you have a device that is not easily noticeable. Great job as always filming.

@RawRealRetail 2 жыл бұрын

@@BlackArroToons Yeah, it's funny, you can see him again at 15:28.

@tresgriffin8242 4 ай бұрын

I'm starting to realize that Nordstrom really sort of mis-calculated and over-expanded during the late 90s and 2000s. It just dawned on me that a good chunk of the stores they opened during that stretch has since closed down. All of their stores in the state of Virginia that opened during this stretch (Richmond, Norfolk, and this one at Dulles Town Center) have since closed, leaving just Tysons Corner and Pentagon City open in VA. (As a side note, the latter actually intrigues me, as that location seems to be stuck in 1989 when it first opened. Even still has the original signage from that era.) Other store that opened during this era that have since closed include Mall of Georgia (Buford, GA), The Florida Mall (Orlando, FL), The Mall at Wellington Green (Wellington, FL), Chandler Fashion Center (Chandler, AZ), FlatIron Crossing (Denver, CO), The Waterside Shops (Naples, FL), and North East Mall (Dallas, TX)

@mistyyoung9742 2 жыл бұрын

This is my local mall. If memory serves correct, Macy’s owns the space. They’re tossing around lots of ideas to fill the vacancies including mixed usage. Most recently, the empty Nordstrom’s was a vaccination center which was a great creative use for an empty space. Here’s hoping they can bring it back, I’ve got fond memories of “walking the mall” during the cold winters when my son was a toddler 😁

@RawRealRetail 2 жыл бұрын

It's a great mall to walk.

@BoratWanksta 2 жыл бұрын

Would be nice to get the vacant anchor spaces filled, with something new. I.e. like Round One (IF they are still expanding anymore), or Von Maur if they wanted to take one of the vacant anchor spaces. And is the Regal theater still open, here? I also was wondering what restaurant that was on the right, towards the very end of the video part. At least it doesn't have a lot of tenant vacancies within the mall hallways, but I do worry that might become a problem if they don't fill at least one of the anchor vacancies soon.

@rl8429 2 жыл бұрын

Round 1 is still expanding. They just opened about 4 locations this year, with another 4 coming soon: www.round1usa.com/locations Also, Regal is still open, they were just closed indefinitely for a while.

@arturocuizon69 2 жыл бұрын

So if this video from May 10 that means this is an updated video of this mall and if I go there the video should match what I'll see when I'm there right or no cause a store like Lord & Taylor has probably fully left by now and is probably something else already?

@RawRealRetail 2 жыл бұрын

This was our first and only visit to this property.

@arturocuizon69 2 жыл бұрын

I think it will match when Im there except for the Lord and Taylor part of course since they went out of business and is probably something else by now since this video is fairly updated. But if the video of the place I'm in doesn't match what I'm seeing that doesn't mean the camera lied right it just means a lot of stores left that mall I'm in since that video was filmed right?

@RawRealRetail 2 жыл бұрын

@@arturocuizon69 I'm pretty sure cameras aren't capable of lying.

@arturocuizon69 2 жыл бұрын

Ok so if I go to this mall and the video doesn't match what I'm seeing that means the video will be something to use to remember what this mall or any mall used to be like right and that explains why you film these malls right?