Cherry Hill Mall

Another suburban casualty has been logged in the sometimes frenzied bookseller's battles. B. Dalton, the sole bookstore in Cherry Hill Mall, closed Jan. 10, failing to renew its lease. Waldenbooks, of comparable size, is scheduled to fill the space on April 1. "This was not a competition issue," said David Altman, general manager for the mall. Barnes & Noble, the parent company of B. Dalton, is the largest retail bookseller in the country. Its urban tangles with other bookstore behemoths, such as the number two Borders, have spilled over into the suburbs in recent years.

The Cherry Hill Mall's $200 million makeover, while expected to boost the mall's appeal when finished, is taking a toll on merchants in the short run. Starbucks Corp. said yesterday it would close one of two sites there, and other merchants have noted a decline in shoppers. "Usually a lot of people walk around exercising in the morning," coffee drinker Ernie Alejo, sitting at the food court, said yesterday. "They stopped because of all the inside construction. A lot of things have closed.

A $200 million splurge on Cherry Hill Mall during the depths of the last recession, when cash was poured into a full-blown renovation while many Americans were clinging to every last dime, appears to be paying off four years later, according to financial disclosures Tuesday by its owner, Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust. Sales per square foot at the mall reached an all-time high of $623 during the quarter that ended March 31, executives of Center City-based PREIT told investors, and a plan to refinance the property this summer could generate yet another payday for the crown retail jewel of Ronald Rubin's real estate empire by helping to pay down $2.3 billion in debt.

In a sudden, swift changing of the guard, the Cherry Hill Mall management dismissed 30 members of its cleaning staff and replaced them with a private company yesterday. The staff members - responsible for cleaning the food court, bathrooms and floors of the milelong mall - had no warning that they were about to lose their jobs. When they showed up for work, they were given severance pay and sent home. "It was a difficult thing to do, but something we felt had to be done," said David B. Altman, the mall's vice president and general manager.

Cherry Hill Mall - the first big enclosed shopping center in the Eastern United States - is getting a $100 million makeover and a high-profile upscale retailer, Nordstrom. The mall's makeover, announced yesterday, had been promised in 2003, when Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, or PREIT, the Philadelphia-based retail landlord, bought the mall from its developer, the Rouse Co., of Columbia, Md. The long-sought Nordstrom deal was the key to PREIT's moving forward with the overhaul, which adds valet parking and a new mall brand: "South Jersey's fashion destination.

About a quarter of the businesses in the Cherry Hill Mall were without power for most of the day yesterday after a 5,000-volt power line blew out. Edward J. Vasconcellos Jr., who manages the mall for the Rouse Co., said an underground cable that supplies power to a section of the mall went out at about 8 a.m. About 160 businesses are located in the mall, Vasconcellos said. The stores affected were on the mall's east side. Vasconcellos said 36 stores were without power for most of the day. Sixteen of them regained power late in the afternoon, and work to restore power to the remaining 20 stores was expected to be completed overnight.

On Oct. 25, two events took place that were intended to change the face of area retailing. Philadelphia City Council approved the creation of a Special Services District in Center City. And the Cherry Hill Mall celebrated completion of a long and extensive renovation program intended to create a grander, more sophisticated environment. The Special Services District is the latest of many decades of attempts by downtown interests to emulate the success of the shopping malls, which have captured much of Center City business.

Police yesterday were seeking a man who shoved a 51-year-old Cherry Hill woman into her car in the Cherry Hill Mall parking lot, drove around after forcing her in the trunk and then locked her into a shed behind a house in Somerdale, authorities said. The victim, Vivian Malone, a longtime employee of Macy's department store, was freed about 15 hours after her ordeal began, when passing youths heard her calls for help and alerted a neighbor who telephoned police, authorities said.

The little triangular announcement card that decorated all the other tables in the Cherry Hill Mall's Food Court was gone, stuck out of sight on a half wall running behind Walter Sternin's head. Sternin, meanwhile, had pushed back his plate, set his elbows on the table, and pulled out his cigarettes. And when asked what he thought about the mall's decision to become a smoke- free facility next Sunday - the policy advertised on that pesky little announcement card - the Maple Shade man had just one reaction, the same reaction others have had to his habit: "It stinks.

In a move that caught industry watchers by surprise, the Rouse Co. yesterday said it will acquire the Moorestown Mall, leaving the mall's proposed expansion uncertain. The announcement came two months after the mall's management unveiled plans to turn the shopping complex, which has struggled over the years, into an upscale retail center with the addition of Lord & Taylor and possibly Nordstrom, and the expansion of three anchor stores. In a written statement that did not disclose the sale's cost, Rouse's CEO, Anthony W. Deering, said only that his Columbia, Md., company would evaluate the feasibility of the proposed expansion of Moorestown.

A $200 million splurge on Cherry Hill Mall during the depths of the last recession, when cash was poured into a full-blown renovation while many Americans were clinging to every last dime, appears to be paying off four years later, according to financial disclosures Tuesday by its owner, Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust. Sales per square foot at the mall reached an all-time high of $623 during the quarter that ended March 31, executives of Center City-based PREIT told investors, and a plan to refinance the property this summer could generate yet another payday for the crown retail jewel of Ronald Rubin's real estate empire by helping to pay down $2.3 billion in debt.

Burlington Center was packed on the day it opened in 1982, according to Deanna Walls, then a young clerk at the Barbara Moss clothing store. Yesterday, she browsed a mall largely void of shoppers. "Those were the days, and now this mall is dead," she said. "It seems like they have all junk stores in here. " Macy's, one of the mall's three anchors, announced Tuesday that it was closing its 185,000-square-foot store in the Burlington Township mall, citing underperformance. The closure is another hit for a mall that shoppers, tenants, and industry analysts yesterday described as dead.

The snowstorm of the decade spelled potential disaster for the region's retailers on what is typically one of the most profitable weekends of the year. As snow crippled the area, retail and restaurant managers from Center City and King of Prussia to Voorhees and Atlantic City worked feverishly with snowplow teams throughout the day to keep up with the massive snowfall and ensure their sidewalks and parking lots were cleared. But many customers stayed home, forcing several malls, which had extended hours for the holiday season, to close early, including Cherry Hill Mall, or not open at all, like The Walk, an outdoor outlet mall in Atlantic City.

Nearly every holiday season in Tovah Ross' memory has included gift-wrapping at the Cherry Hill Mall. During the annual fund-raiser for Camden County Hadassah, the Jewish women's service organization, Ross has sat at her mother's elbow and learned the tricks to tying a bow around a bowling ball and disguising a jogging stroller in snowman-covered paper. "It's always been part of my life," said Ross, 22, a Cherry Hill High School East and University of Delaware graduate just back from studying archaeology in Scotland.

BLACK FRIDAY, the day to rejoice in great deals or revolt against massive consumerism, has arrived. The annual post-Thanksgiving, shop-till-you-drop tradition that kicks off the holiday shopping season, and is covered by the media with a frenzy befitting a World Series game, has its feverish fans and its devoted detractors. It's a day when retailers entice shoppers with deep discounts, when malls give out free snacks and when festive events are intended to get everyone "into the spirit" of the season, retail observers say. For anti-consumer advocates, Black Friday is known as "Buy Nothing Day," a time to stay away from bustling malls and reflect, they say, on the toll that consumerism has taken on the planet.

Could a concept as enlightened as seasonal, healthful cooking possibly exist at the Cherry Hill Mall? Yes, I know we're talking about the hallowed ground where the first climate-controlled indoor mall east of the Mississippi was born nearly half a century ago. I know we're talking about a town so thoroughly infested with big-box commercialism that any hopeful sprout of independently owned-restaurant spirit is often squashed by the cheesecake weight...

Versace and Valentino handbags priced at $4,500 and $2,895 dangled from display racks at Nordstrom's gleaming new Cherry Hill store recently as a trainer explained to a circle of sales clerks how to properly court a shopper who "spends $75,000 to $100,000 a year. " It was a display of opulence and affluence in the midst of recession as workers prepared for the opening this Friday of the upscale department store's latest luxury gem, at the newly renovated Cherry Hill Mall. And it raises the question: How on earth is there room for a new luxury store in the middle of this economic mess?

The Cherry Hill Mall's $200 million makeover, while expected to boost the mall's appeal when finished, is taking a toll on merchants in the short run. Starbucks Corp. said yesterday it would close one of two sites there, and other merchants have noted a decline in shoppers. "Usually a lot of people walk around exercising in the morning," coffee drinker Ernie Alejo, sitting at the food court, said yesterday. "They stopped because of all the inside construction. A lot of things have closed.

On the mall, on the mall On the Cherry Hill Mall It's spring in the summer, winter and fall You can shop, you can stroll Where the weather is grand At Cherry Hill, Cherry Hill Your new spring wonderland! Forty-six years ago when the Cherry Hill Mall opened, that catchy jingle filled the radio airwaves and shoppers flocked to their new spring wonderland. On opening day the mall had one department store: Strawbridge & Clothier. The Bamberger's (later Macy's)

Scouring the mall for her favorite shop isn't Jeanmarie Farkas' idea of a fun-filled shopping experience. "They need stores with easy access to get in and out," the Marlton resident said recently as she chased after her 2-year-old son, Andrew, at the Cherry Hill Mall. Farkas, 36, is one of a growing number of time-pressed, convenience-driven shoppers who are questioning their love for behemoth malls with long hallways and mazes of stores. Instead, many shoppers now fancy the newer tree-lined, open-air centers such as Wolfson Verrichia's Main Street at Exton, the kind that allows shopping on the go. Mall developers are taking note.