On Friday, the Hatbox Theatre presented the play 2 Across to its first audience at the Steeplegate Mall. The play is a romantic comedy, but the significance of the venue is dramatic.
It’s no secret that the American mall is in trouble. Brick-and-mortar stores can’t compete with Amazon and other online retailers, and the existence of social media means kids no longer have to meet in the food court to chat with friends after school or on weekends.
For those reasons, among others, malls throughout the country are focused on re-invention. In order for 26-year-old Steeplegate to not merely survive but thrive, it doesn’t just need more tenants – it needs the right tenants. In that regard, the Hatbox Theatre is a good fit. It marks the end of an old mall and the beginning of a new one.
Steeplegate is spacious, inviting, structurally sound and easily accessible. There is an abundance of parking, and it’s an easy drive from surrounding towns, especially those to the city’s east, such as Loudon, Pembroke, Chichester and Epsom. Now, with American Eagle, Abercrombie & Fitch, Old Navy and Gap gone, never to look back, Steeplegate needs a new owner who recognizes that the past is the past and it’s not coming back. It seems almost certain that the mall, now assessed at $25,290,400, will never return to the $80 million valuation it carried less than a decade ago, especially if the focus remains on retail.
The good news is that there is a growing field of investors with fresh eyes.
Earlier this week, the Dallas Morning News’ Biz Beat Blog profiled Dallas real estate developers Tony Ruggeri and Frank Mihalopoulos, who travel around the country in search of mall properties worth saving. So far, they have tackled projects in Nashville, Atlanta, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Four years ago, they sold their first mall – One Hundred Oaks in Nashville – for a profit even after investing several million dollars, the Morning News reported.
Mihalopoulos says there are no “magic numbers” for the projects they choose. Each one, he says, is unique, and sometimes you have to “re-imagine the property as something else.” That seems to be the best bet for Steeplegate – and the Hatbox Theatre is just the beginning.
Imagine the now-vacant food court converted into a greenhouse and butterfly sanctuary that becomes a destination for school field trips and families looking for a reprieve from the dark days of deep winter. Imagine a cooking school dedicated to Asian cuisine next door to a spot where you can experience virtual reality gaming. Imagine a large section of the parking lot transformed into a “town green” with flower beds, shade trees, benches, a cafe and fountains.
Imagine nothing less than a lifestyle center that complements rather than competes with downtown shops.
The elephant in the room, or mall, when it comes to that grand vision is cost. How do you attract that level of investment in a relic of an old economy? The answer is, for now, bit by bit. You do it by bringing in the Hatbox Theatre and its 54-seat (and growing) performance space in the former Coldwater Creek storefront. You do it by bringing in VI Party Rentals and its 11 bounce houses into the old Old Navy. You do it, like the Mall of New Hampshire, by offering indoor glow mini golf. You show potential investors that while the national trend for malls points downward, this city is on the rise.
The Concord Heights, as Deputy City Manager Carlos Baia points out, is economically strong with a low business vacancy rate. That makes it easy to envision the re-emergence of Steeplegate. It’s just going to take a committed buyer with a valuable imagination.