This is our walkthrough of the Southside Mall in Oneonta, NY from September 9, 2020. This is a vintage rural mall that features a wonderful wooden vaulted ceiling complete with wooden beams, looking like the sort of ceiling one would find in a hunting lodge. The mall is a single hallway connecting the JCPenney and TJ Maxx (formerly Kmart), but is it ever worth the drive. The floors have the old soft tiles from the 1980s and the ceiling just delights. Unfortunately, the mall is emptying out as more and more businesses turn their entrances outward. Southside Mall can definitely be placed in the dying mall category.

For a complimentary property to this one, please do check out our good friend Doomie Grunt's excellent tour of the Three Star Mall in McMinnville, TN. It bears a striking resemblance with the pitched wood ceiling and beams:

   • A Visit To Three Star Mall  


Songs used in this video (in order):

Steve Gray - Manhattan Transfer
Mladen Franko & His Orchestra - Jamboree
Steve Gray - Wonder Groove
Steve Gray - Reach Out


The article from Wikipedia is very tiny:

Southside Mall is an enclosed shopping mall in Oneonta, New York. It opened in 1983 and features Dick's Sporting Goods, Harbor Freight, J. C. Penney, OfficeMax, and TJ Maxx as its anchor stores. It is managed by Fameco Real Estate.

The mall opened June 30, 1983, featuring Kmart, Great American supermarket (now OfficeMax), and J. C. Penney. For dining, Applebee's has served the mall patrons since 2002. Kmart closed in 2003. The mall was sold by Glimcher Realty Trust in 2005.

Bed Bath & Beyond was added in 2007 but replaced by Harbor Freight in 2019. In October 2007, Steve & Barry's signed a lease to open in the vacant Kmart. However, the store never opened, due to that chain's bankruptcy and structural problems with the roof. In 2010, the former Kmart building was partially demolished for a TJ Maxx. Dick's Sporting Goods and Petco followed in 2012. On December 3, 2018, it was announced that Bed, Bath & Beyond would be closing in early 2019.

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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 current 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 shutdowns and 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, Youtube, 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