I went to the Ecehelon Mall this weekend, and they have already start remaking the area into the Voorhees Town Center. The mall, as I reported is to be cut in half, altough it seems to me more like cut to 1/4 the size. The mall ends at that cool sports store down when you go right out of the foot court.
Well there is a long torn up hall way now that leads you towards the only two other stores down there now Radio Shack and Macy's. Eventually they will have an all new entreance to the mall there. The rest has been torn down for the most part. J C Penny's empty building is no longer connceted to the mall but still there. Sears is gone.
If you go left out of the food court the floor has been total ripped up. I guess the good thing is what is left of the mall is already almost full. Execpt for where the theater was and handful of other stores. They have many signs with the new catch phrase, walk into the future.
The mall as usual was pretty empty as usual once you left the food court (which oddly enough has a jewery store in it now) and even the new store Pay/Half didn't seem to have started any kind of buzz with the employees outnumbering the customers (people there out of boredom and to blog material included).
Where one store once stood is now as time capsule to Echelon, the name will soon be dropped but the display case has all kinds of stuff from back in the day. THey have the shovel that first broke ground in the 70's, pictures of when it was an airport, and boxes from Kimbels (my parent told me about that I don't recall that place). THey also have old Courier-Post newspapers about the mall. One from 2001, when the rumors first started that it was going to close. Yes, that's right its been 6 long years and counting since this whole thing started. I was thinking on printing up a blog article and giving it to them, but I am pretty sure they would not put it in the case.
Many people, have their doubts that a new grocery store, townhouses, and a main street like set up will fail horribly. At this point I am glad they finally just did something. Empty Businesses lead to loss in property value, which result in shady people moving in, which result in crime going up. That part of Voorhees, and many of the towns in in that area of Camden County including my home town ( any man of my readers)have seen a huge many businesses bail out in the last few years and crime increase. The mall itself from what I have heard is a victim of a jewelry robbery on a pretty much weekly basis. In addition to almost every office building around the mall being totally empty.
Right now there isn't much to sell to the public but a mall ripped in half and gutted in side, so I don't imagine they will start trying to win the hearts and minds of anyone just yet. But they got their work cut out for them, because of almost a decade of people thinking the mall was either closing or closed already.
As I was walking upstairs where most the empty spots are.
I heard one guy said to his friend as they past me.
"Dis mall iz shot up, yo, for real!"
That is more a less how most people feel about the place.
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5 comments:
Just a few things...you probably don't remember Kimbels because Gimbels was at the mall.
Where are you getting the robbery statistics? I haven't heard of any robberies in the mall since one happened about 5 years ago. Other than that, I would have thought that something would have been in the news. And just out of curiousity, do you mean black people when you talk about "shady people"? Because it sounds like that is what you are implying. Oh and your quote at the end seems very racist. Is the phoenetic spelling neccessary?
No I am not applying race at all. But, think about when you shopped for apartments with Jay, werent you a little put off for a place that had rent for like $575? Talk to anyone and they will tell you that is a red flag.
Living in ecomomic repressed errors there is a huge decrease in crime that is just a fact. I also read the real estate section of the sunday paper and property worth in many towns off the white horse pike has gone down over the last two years.
In reality you know very well there are towns and parts of towns where you would not want to get lost. You certainly wouldnt want to raise your kid there. Sadly, when you have places that are struggling to keep stores open it draws criminals and shady characters. It is a fact of life, that the poor towns will be more inclined to have such crimes as robbery. You thought you yourself is this a "nice" place to live and that you mean you dont have to worry about everyday crime.
I am not talking about race, but you cant tell me that you would feel just as safe breaking down in Jersey Hill as you would in parts of Camden, Jersey City or Trenton. I honestly hate how when anyone wants to bring up social situation about keeping people safe someone usually calls the person a racsist.
A women was almost raped in public a few blocks away from my house a few months ago. This weekend a major drug bust was made, the people lived in Camden, Lindenwald and Stratford. I don't recall such things happening in these towns before.
young professionals, and new familes all want to live in williamstown, sicklerville, turnersville area where the houses are booming, and tons of new busineses are coming including and Old Navy, in addition to the new Target, Lowes, Chick-fill etc.
Many towns have tried to ban together to try to fill the various empty shopping centers (lions head and the other 4 along the pike) which is important to bring businesses back and keep the ones here.
Honestly that is the first step in towns going to hell.
As for the phoentics, its know different than me doing my Italian Accent (I was going to write Mama Mia as the "Italian Guy" but it doesnt work as well as text") or when I used to make fun of the crazy russian guys that I worked with at shoprite. At work sometimes since we deal with a lot of southerners when we are off the phone we will joke around and talk in southern accents. That doesnt mean that we hate everyone from the south.
As I was walking through the mall I started thinking I have to write about this! So, I did and as I was writing it in my head the guy walked past me and said it. It was just perfect timing so, I had to include it.
Sometimes just the way the way someone says something catches me as funny. Like the girl from awhile back asking if I wanted to smoke tree. If she said weed or pot or whatever, it wouldnt have been so funny to me.
Oh, and you assumed they were black, it turns out you were right. But I know many white people that talk that way too.
I remember reading in the Courier-Post several times over the fall that the jewery store was robbed. Pick up a copy each day on the way to work and read it for like a month or so. Sometimes they dont put online all the stories they print.
First of all Sped, the property value in the area is decreasing because the interest rates are rising. You see, they have an inverse effect. It doesn't mean that shady people are coming in to the area because it pretty much evens itself out.
I don't know where Jersey Hill is but it sounds like a shady area. I don't think I want to go there. And you're right, I wouldn't rent a place for $575 because it is really hard to find a 2 bedroom apartment for that price. People have been raped in Haddonfield, and Voorhees, and Sicklerville and Turnersville and I am sure even Jersey Hill, but an almost rape that doesn't happen often make a place a bad area.
I think that once the Voorhees Town Center is done though, you will be able to relax because the white folk will be back and you will feel safe again.
I do get the paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer which does report news from our area. I am pretty sure that frequent jewelry heists at the Echelon Mall would be reported. Oh, the courier post online does have all of the articles it prints, you just need to know how to find them.
---Jenna
Sped?
I dont know what happened that the spell check thing flipped it to jersey hill. But I don't get the Sped comment.
The houses around here started to go down before the market did. To many towns are knocking down trees and attracting more and more people.
Banks get robbed all the time, and dont always make the papers. I remember when I was in line at Borders in the mall, when someone who worked there talked about the jewerly store being robbed. Okay weekly is blowing it up, but likely once a month.
Bottom line is many towns around here need to bring in businesses.
Please stop turning it into a race thing. I never said anything about the race population shifting at all. NEVER.
But look out all the stores that down come to certain towns and go other places where there is more room to build. Many the businesses we have are moving out of certain towns and it concerns me that not replacing them will lead to more and more empty shopping centers.
With businesses leaving that starts the decline of towns, that is just a fact. It took them almost 10 years to turn the mall around. Seems like everytime I drive down parts of some of my neigbhoring towns I see another store going empty.
Also, I never didn't feel safe. I am just stating concerns of what would happen if more and more stores left a certain area.
Please stop implying I am a racist that is a pretty harsh thing to throw out at me, and out seems as though its just intended to be hurtful.
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