Saturday, January 16, 2016

Westfield Montgomery vacant theater, hair salon closure provide room for expansion; Coach store walled off (Photos)

While a future addition to Westfield Montgomery Mall is planned, and will be a more outdoor-oriented structure, it's interesting to note that the retail center has a significant indoor space that could be converted to larger uses. The old 3-screen movie theater that was shut down after the mall's premium, 16-screen ArcLight Cinemas opened remains walled-off.

Now the hair salon next door has closed (it once was Bubbles, prior to their move) and is also partially walled-off. It's unclear at the moment whether the salon will be divided, or the space merged with the old theater to create an even larger unit. Stay tuned.

In other Westfield Montgomery news, the Coach store on Level 2 suddenly closed and is walled-off, as well.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like that abandoned and boarded-up wing will be demolished like those row houses in Baltimore, to prevent the gangrene from spreading.

Maybe Hogan will contribute some funds to the MoMall demolition.

#DeadMall

Anonymous said...

What plans to expand Westfield? As I understood it, after the downturn in 2008 Westfield abandoned the plans to expand the mall where Ledos and Corner Bakery is now. While not owned by Westfield, the old Ford dealership right next to the mall was supposed to be a mix use project that also got put on hold. For all the construction that happens in MoCo its amazing how much actually doesn't happen.

Anonymous said...

3 screens replaced by 16 screens. So how much business does the new cinema get? Seems like it would need to get at least five times as much as the old one, just to break even. Can they get this kind of business, when folks have 60" TVs and streaming video at home?

Anonymous said...

Did anyone notice the new walkway being built near Sears going towards to overpass (i.e going towards old Ford dealership)? What's that about?

Robert Dyer said...

6:55: They are constructing the new transit center on the lot out near the Interstate.

11:42: A few months back, I reported that the expansion plans are back on. In fact, the transit center was moved to create more space for the mall addition, which will have an outdoor orientation rather than an enclosed mall wing.

Robert Dyer said...

8:20: I haven't seen sales for ArcLight broken out separately, but a Westfield executive had numbers for the whole property. The mall had its most profitable 12 months in its history since ArcLight opened.

Anonymous said...

Moving the Transit Center farther away from the mall? Not exactly "smart growth". Are they trying to discourage Colored and Spanish people from coming?

Anonymous said...

When did Westfield Montgomery become Greenhill Montgomery?

Anonymous said...

Doubtful they'd discourage folks from coming. It's a pretty diverse customer base.

Anonymous said...

No disrespect Robert, but I went through your old posts tagged Westfield Montgomery Mall and also searched the web in general and I don't see anything about the expansion beyond the transit center. There was an interesting study about how to make the area more pedestrian friendly by building an overpass from the Marriott HQ to the transit center, but that's about it.

I remember back in 2007 MoCo planners tied the expansion of the mall with improvements to Westlake which, IMO, really hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, the mall refurbishing has actually been really good to see. Montgomery Mall was getting lapped by Tysons and crossing the river is an absolute joke.

Robert Dyer said...

3:08: Sometimes not all posts will appear when searching.

Here is the link to the recent update I reported from a Westfield executive:

http://robertdyer.blogspot.com/2015/10/westfield-montgomery-mall-has-best-year.html

Anonymous said...

The reason it's hard to search Dyer's archives on Google is his practice of "keyword stuffing". Google and other search engines hate that, and punish sites that do that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyword_stuffing

Robert Dyer said...

5:33: BS. Google pumps up the outlets that pay them money, and downgrades sites like mine that don't give them big bucks. That's all.

Anonymous said...

"The people sitting in the free seats are always the first to boo." LOL

Anonymous said...

So Google's shiny new Fortune 500 obsolete suburban office park was just a ruse to hide their collusion with the MoCo Machine and their lapdogs in the Lamestream Media. LOL

Anonymous said...

I'm the SEO guy at my company and yeah it's not like that, Robert.

Robert Dyer said...

9:53: Do you also believe Twitter doesn't sell "verified" blue checkmarks for $15000?