Staff photo by Greg Gammon
The flag in front of the academic building was captured
during a translucent moment on one of the hot, bright after
noons that have marked the second summer session. More
sunny weather is predicted for the rest of the week.
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Success of malls is disputed
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United Press International
I NEW YORK — The suburban
shopping center, whose
mushrooming spread almost
wiped out downtown shopping
areas after World War II, may be
kr oip ex ti n ct by the end of the century,
I that sb some rea ] es t a te and merchandiz
ing prophets claim.
irbroadi This view is hotly disputed by
is exact 1 shopping center operators and
trade associations. They say malls
are too good as long-term profit-
makers, too much money has been
invested in them and they are too
convenient for most people for
U them to be allowed to go under.
But the bloom has been off the
shopping center business during
the past five or six years. Some big
investors have pulled out. It has
become more difficult to get bank
" money to finance new centers.
Even insurance companies, usual
ly the major financers of the malls,
aid Tufl have started demanding adjust-
have $ able interest rates and equity posi-
te a tai tions that can make new projects
delaying extremely risky for the de
velopers.
1 the bit Even those industry observers
id thers.
who are convinced the suburban
1(1 on | vi centers will survive concede that
I ( | i v the industry’s opportunities are
| shrinking because of a growing
shortage of suitable sites and for
m terms 5
several other reasons.
Food
fax.
Michael Hirschfield, chairman
of Garrick-Aug Associates Store
Tuesd»! Leasing, Inc., of New York, says
nistrafe he is convinced the suburban
the rate shopping center is doomed. He
nocratic says it will be replaced by multi
level downtown malls with co-
ernati't vered pedestrian walks, many of
irtualN them underneath towering office
i Capitol or apartment buildings like New
elatioos York City’s Rockefeller Center
underground mall built in the
1930s.
| How will people get to these
multi-level downtown malls to
shop? By means of mass transpor
tation. Hirschfeld is convinced
that despite the Reagan adminis
tration’s indifference to mass tran
sit, business and the federal and
local governments will come
around to rebuilding urban mass
transit systems and restoring
downtown shopping areas.
Gasoline and other costs of
driving are going to make today’s
shopping-by-car habit too expen
sive, he says. The shopping cen
ters themselves will become less
and less profitable, both to the
operators and developers and to
the merchandizing tenants.
Hirschfield does not envision a
andB# complete turnaround. He says the
revived urban shopping districts
of the future will not greatly re
semble the old-time downtown
' shopping area.
;; Other factors — high taxes,
high rents, high interest rates and
operating costs — will force stores
to become smaller, he says. “This
P will mean smaller stocks, less vari
ety and, in general, a higher price
level in the stores of the future.
: The urban store that today
occupies 1,500 square feet will
have to be satisfied with 1,000
square feet or less in the future
'and there will be relatively few
free-standing stores. Supermar-
ECIAL kets will occupy the ground floors
rfjiud °f a P art ment buildings. Not even
the largest dry goods and fashion
IDIN^ stores b e free-standing.
i A powerful magnet to draw
, ' 1 merchandisers back into the inner
3 uce cities as urban redevelopment
3bS ;. proceeds, Hirschfield said, is high
times that in the suburban center
spot.”
Hirschfield said the dawning
business of electronic shopping is
a threat to shopping centers.
When people can order from cata
logues and their television screens
and arrange payment, credit and
delivery at the same time, they
will be much less willing to drive
to the shopping center.
That a considerable part of the
merchandising world is starting to
take the potential of electronic-
shopping seriously is indicated by
a report from Stuart Moreau of
Thorndike DeLand Associates, a
New York executive recruiting
The future of shopping
centers is uncertain
firm, that requests are coming in a
steady trickle for executives with
knowledge and experience in this
field. He said Sears Roebuck,
Montgomery Ward, J.C. Penney,
K-Mart, Carter Hawley Hale
Stores and many manufacturers
are eager to get into electronic
shopping.
The contrary point of view on
shopping centers was expressed
by an article in Grey Matter, the
research magazine of Grey Adver
tising, Inc., entitled “Tomorrow’s
Towns.” This article concluded
that the larger suburban shopping
centers are “America’s new town
centers, the sites of theatres,
meeting halls, restaurants, other
amusement attractions and even
municipal service offices and that
they are here to stay.
The Grey piece, quoting the
International Council of Shopping
Centers, concludes that stream
lining and modernization now
going on in the centers will assure
their survival.
“Due to several built-in incen
tives, they represent an excep
tionally safe way to reap long-term
profits,” the article says. “As in
most commercial real estate ven
tures, taxes are relatively low on
money invested in shopping cen
ters, thanks to property deprecia
tion allowances. The centers
themselves also are somewhat in
flation-proof; the burden of ever-
increasing overhead is carried by
tenants in the form of ever-
increasing rents.
Others are further protected by
a lease stipulation called the ‘over
age charge,’ which guarantees that
when sales rise above a pre-agreed
amount, the mall owner receives a
percentage of the added income
from the tenants.
The article said the “smart
money” investors, particularly
people with Eurodollars or petro
dollars, continue to see shopping
center investing as the ideal tax
shelter.
The article conceded that the
size of new shopping malls will
shrink — no more vast stretches of
up to two million square feet with
walking distances of a mile or
more — and that there will be
fewer full-line department stores
or discount stores and more small
boutiques and convenience
stores. It also conceded that shop
ping center tenants may have to
double their present average
advertising outlays of 3 percent of
sales.
But Grey concluded that “de
spite a slackening economy and
population, when tomorrow’s con
sumer buys his Timex wrist-size
biofeedback data watch, he’ll do it
in a shopping center. ”
United Press International
WARSAW — It was close to 2
a. m. and the empty street near the
Polish parliament building was
quiet. Suddenly, three drunks
with arms entwined appeared
around the corner and began to
sing:
“Poland still has not perished
(and won’t) while we’re still alive. ”
It was the Polish national
anthem.
Across town a few days later, an
American tourist — one of the few
this year — went shopping at Su-
persam, one of the city’s largest
supermarkets, to get a closer idea
of how Poles live.
“Now I understand the
psychology of bread riots,” he said
later, describing the mad scram
ble as shoppers, fearing that sup
plies would run out, mobbed the
shop attendants filling the shelves
with loaves.
“There actually was plenty of
bread,” he said. “They were simp
ly afraid it would run out.”
The past year of crisis has made
its mark on Poland’s 36 million
people and has forced a redefini
tion of what is meant by the term
“normal life.”
Unquenchable and growing
Polish patriotism, as well as eco
nomic crisis, are part of it.
Normal life now entails the ra
tioning of most basic foods —
meat, butter, sugar, flour, buck
wheat groats and, in some regions,
other goods from chocolate to
cigarettes.
“I find it sad, ” said a 35-year-
old father of two. “My 10 year-old
daughter thinks it’s exciting to
take her ration coupons into the
shop. She feels grown up.”
Normal life in Poland has long
entailed standing in line for food.
But now the lines are longer and
there are more of them. A whole
syndrome of waiting — for fear of
being too late — has grown up.
People start queuing three or
four hours before shops open—or
before the crowded visa sections
of foreign embassies open for busi
ness.
“I got to the visa office of the
British embassy at 5 a.m.,” said
Maria, a secretary. “I was number
15 in line. But I got my visa by
noon. ”
The number of Poles wanting to
Cigarettes are scarce. Alcohol,
even Polish vodka, is almost im
possible to buy. With the shortage
of sugar, ice cream and candy are
in top demand and the line for ice
cream cones at the Hortex sweet
shop on Constitution square often
is several hundred people long.
This is not the only way “normal
life” has changed.
It also has led to a liberalized
press, more exciting television
and a plethora of “internal” bulle
tins put out by the Solidarity un
ion which spread news not printed
in the regular media.
This liberalization has been
Changes in the political situa
tion and the effects on the cultural
and social scene are eye-opening.
Solidarity has utilized the tradi
tional Polish flair for graphic arts
to turn out striking posters to mark
all occasions — from union elec
tions to commemorations of ear
lier riots. The number and diversi
ty of union badges increases all the
time.
The new fad among young peo
ple is a plastic badge with the ini
tials “E. A.” — standing for the
words “anti-socialist element” —
or a similar T-shirt.
Commenting on both the scar
city of certain goods and the re
cent crime wave in Poland, a
young woman told of a friend who
had her car stolen. When police
recovered it, she found a ski jacket
left inside — but its Solidarity
badge and a lipstick in its pocket
were missing.
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3 of 3R)f
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traffic. “Urban shopping space
may cost $25 a square foot against
only $5 for suburban shopping
center space,” he said “but the
fraffic in the urban area may be ten
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