Wyoming Valley Mall

[MikeRa]

Wyoming Valley Mall, located in Wilkes-Barre, PA, is losing 2 of it's 4 anchor stores, with the Sears closing this location, and Bon-Ton closing all of it's stores.

Bon-Ton started as Pomeroy's.  Macy's main store started as Zollinger-Harned, which converted to Hess's and then to Kaufmann's. The Macy's Men's & Home store opened as McCrory, before conversion to Kaufmann's Home Store.

[esw01407]

I'm about an hour down the road from this mall, and it could go either way if it can be saved. It depends if PREIT puts the money in. It's a good, stable mall in a busy area, but it's aged.

1. You can tell there are places where a new roof is needed, it's hidden somewhat due to the malls design, but it wasn't pretty after a big snowstorm in 2017.
2. Bon-Ton's design is at least 20-30 years out of date and most likely needs to be demolished. High ceilings on the first floor and there is viable roof damage on the second.
3. Sears is a smaller one at 117,000 sq. ft. It already looks half closed and the sale's just started.
4. Interior is well occupied yet. Food court is a total disaster but has been for years.

[danfifepsu]

I'm about an hour down the road from this mall, and it could go either way if it can be saved. It depends if PREIT puts the money in. It's a good, stable mall in a busy area, but it's aged.

1. You can tell there are places where a new roof is needed, it's hidden somewhat due to the malls design, but it wasn't pretty after a big snowstorm in 2017.
2. Bon-Ton's design is at least 20-30 years out of date and most likely needs to be demolished. High ceilings on the first floor and there is viable roof damage on the second.
3. Sears is a smaller one at 117,000 sq. ft. It already looks half closed and the sale's just started.
4. Interior is well occupied yet. Food court is a total disaster but has been for years.

will this be another Lycoming or Columbia mall?

[esw01407]

I'm about an hour down the road from this mall, and it could go either way if it can be saved. It depends if PREIT puts the money in. It's a good, stable mall in a busy area, but it's aged.

1. You can tell there are places where a new roof is needed, it's hidden somewhat due to the malls design, but it wasn't pretty after a big snowstorm in 2017.
2. Bon-Ton's design is at least 20-30 years out of date and most likely needs to be demolished. High ceilings on the first floor and there is viable roof damage on the second.
3. Sears is a smaller one at 117,000 sq. ft. It already looks half closed and the sale's just started.
4. Interior is well occupied yet. Food court is a total disaster but has been for years.

will this be another Lycoming or Columbia mall?

Probably not. Location is very much better, and the mall is valued at a very high dollar number. Sears closure also wasn't unexpected, PREIT had removed them from it's leasing brochure over a year before this announcement.

[mixedday]

I visited the Wyoming Valley Mall this Sunday. While the enclosed part of the mall is not very impressive, the surrounding area is very scenic and the area looks beautiful on a summer day. On my road trip from western NY down to Philly, I made a stop here and felt like I was in Boulder, Colorado with the mountains around the mall. The mall was pretty easy to get to via highway access, and there is a lot of retail nearby. All sides of the mall have some traffic which is good. Basically, it's not like part of the mall is secluded and the mall was a challenge to reach.

The Sears is closing within 7 days, and the Bon Ton is also closing sometime soon.

As I came on a Sunday, I'll say the mall wasn't that busy for a weekend day. One interesting thing that I saw in the mall was the failure of the food court. It appears that PREIT has boxed off some of the food court, with a possible attempt to get a restaurant? Still though, I'm not sure why the food court had just 3 tenants or so and why it performed so poorly, relative to the number of stores in the mall. Maybe a new food court can be built if redevelopment of the mall happens.

Anyways, I'd hope PREIT is able to turn this mall around. A few ideas:

1. Partial de-mall. PREIT could make this hybrid enclosed/outdoor. Fortunately Bon Ton and Sears are in good overall locations and positioned in such that PREIT can transform the mall replacing the two and part of the dead space if desired. It also helps that the mall is a one level mall. From JCPenney to Macy's, it could remain enclosed, while the second of half of the mall (Bon-Ton to Sears), basically demolished and maybe outlets style or promenade shopping.  

I really don't know if macy's could be part of an outlet mall, but the Marketplace Mall in Rochester has JCPenney and Sears, and is transforming to outlet focus - although it's all indoor, and there is a hodge podge of outlet and regular stores.

2. Boscov's. A Boscov's store is 3 miles away from the mall in downtown Wilkes Barre. There is Wilkes university and some nice appeal in Wilkes Barre downtown. Unfortunately, the Boscov's had closed by the time I reached it. One day I would like to go inside. But,  I think there might be more upside for Boscov to move out of downtown and into the mall. On the other hand, PREIT might want Dick's and Target instead, as they are better differentiation from macy's/jcpenney than a Boscov.

3. Dick's, Target, Barnes & Noble, Old Navy big boxes as anchors/junior anchors. A tornado hit the area, and the Dick's and Barnes and Noble are closed until November. A big box center is behind the mall, but from a location point of perspective, the mall still has the best access. While one big box gets traffic from another big box is true, I'd say the mall still has the superior location over the big box center, from what I could tell.

Maybe PREIT can persuade 1-2 of these tenants to move? Any of these stores would be upgrading moving to the mall. The big box center is still behind the mall. Of course, we don't know if lease terms, but it's possible to sublease their existing space to another tenant. e.g. B&N moves to the mall, a Hobby Lobby replaces the B&N.

An interesting thing with the Wilkes Barre-Scranton market is there is no Apple store, and some more upscale bigger draw tenants. The nearest Apple store is in the Lehigh Valley Mall. I don't know if the market can support luxury/upscale, but I'd guess a few of these stores can be attempted if the mall is improved. It would be a feat for PREIT to turn this mall around and bring it to an A property but maybe not impossible. The Wilkes Barre-Scranton-Hazleton Nielsen DMA is #57, which is not too small. Aside from the big box stores, and online shopping as retail competition, does this mall have any larger shopping mall competitors? The Crossings Premium Outlets is in Tannersville, PA but that's about 40 miles away.

Overall, I think this mall has much better potential than York Galleria, another mall that is coincidentally losing both Sears and Bon Ton at the same time.