Colonial Park Mall: Classic Mall Survivor (2021 Update!) - Raw & Real Retail

This is our walkthrough of the Colonial Park Mall in Colonial Park, PA, just outside Harrisburg from July 29, 2021. This is a mall we love, and have covered a couple times on the channel. This mall was built in 1960, enclosed in 1970, and has stood the test of time during its lifetime. While sitting today at a tipping point, with maybe 50% occupancy, it has not succumb to the usual pressures other malls have fallen to. Despite being purchased by the worst of the worst mall managers, Kohan Retail Investment Group 4 years ago, this mall has not slid into disrepair. No clusters of buckets on the floors, no reports of missed bill payments, none of the usual earmarks a mall owned by Mike Kohan usually would exhibit. It still has 2 anchors, by the grace of God, because they still have an open Sears! It's not the best example of Sears, but I don't think many of them are anymore. The other anchor, Boscov's, is known to be a life preserver for malls that aren't doing wonderfully. Boscov's is a throwback to the way department stores used to be, and this particular one is no exception. Boscov's home base is in east-central PA and most of the locations in this area are pretty darn nice. And they have a pretty sweet fountain too!

One of the cool aspects of this mall is that it was built on a hill, and the mall slopes downward east-west with many ramps every few feet, and stairs on the left and right side with maybe 1 or 2 steps tops. This makes for a very unusual topography, and I daresay you could probably roll a quarter from one end to the other if there were no kiosks in the way!


Songs used in this video (in order):

Boney James - Tonic
Spyro Gyra - Morning Dance
The Braxton Brothers - A Night To Love
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, 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  



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