My friend Matthew Christopher suggested I make a visit to Triangle Town Mall so that I could follow up his view on it from last year. He was curious to know if I thought the Center would survive the closure of some of its anchor stores in the difficult retail climate that we’ve come to recognize for brick and mortar stores typified by malls.
I arrived at the end of a pleasant Thursday afternoon, at a time when people would be getting off from work to create a little traffic at the Center. What I found that afternoon looked like a patient on life support after several of its limbs and vital organs had been removed. It was unsettlingly quiet, except for about 30 cars in the parking lot across from the entrance to Dillards, one of the 5 original anchor stores.
Although not busy, Dillard’s looked pretty well stocked and staffed. Okay, I thought, this place should have a loyal customer base. I had the same impression with Delk’s, another one of their anchor store. But Sears closed their anchor store in 2021, and as I looked at Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy’s, it became clear that the retail foundations of the Triangle Town Center were indeed shaky..”Everything on SALE”. Fixtures For Sale” Store Closing” “Nothing Held Back” was the messaging on Macy’s indoor entrance from the Mall. Not your bright and welcoming dose of mall optimism.
It wasn’t until I explored the section called Triangle Town Commons that it really sunk in that the Center might be past the point of no return. A stranger with a long gray beard and soiled clothing asked me if I’d like to buy a chicken dinner from him. He held in up in a paper bag as I walked by. I declined. An hour before sunset on a Thursday, that was just about the only food available in a long empty stretch of storefronts and restaurants that used to cater to the movie crowd. The theater has been closed since COVID, I suspect, and the Commons now looks like a ghost town, with just the Farmer’s Indian Restaurant remaining open. No Twisted Fork, no Champ’s no Romano’s….
A Victim of it’s own success?
In 2002, the investment that was made by CBL Properties to build 1 million square feet on 70 acres raised a few eyebrows in the Raleigh business community. The venture was speculative, to say the least, betting on the rapid expansion of the northern fringe of Raleigh around the newly built interchange of the Beltway (I-540) and Route 1 (Capital Boulevard). In hindsight, the investment was too lavish. Luring shi-shi stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Barnes and Noble and Orvis was an overreach, as most of the residential growth along the Beltway consisted of multi-family apartment buildings. Faithful high-end suburban retail shoppers never materialized.
But the Triangle Town Center (TTC) legitimized the Route 1/Beltway location for discount “Big Box” retailers like Walmart, Costco, DSW, Nordstrom Rack, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Marshall’s and Target, who all built stores nearby on the cheap, without waterfalls, atriums, fancy down lights, play attractions for children, and high-end wall finishes. Collectively, development lenders were happy to green light another million square feet of retail for discount retailers within a 5 minute drive of TTC. Within 10 years, most major discounters had glommed onto the area surrounding TTC. Today, the big box stores and strip malls are holding their own, and stores inside of the Mall are in panic mode, holding sales and advertising big discounts in their stores. TTC is being cannibalized by businesses with lower margins and downsized egos.
A Hazy Future
Now under its seventh owner, TTC faces an uncertain fate. It’s prospects as a viable retail destination are growing dimmer. It will take a creative approach to reinvent a million square feet of space that is less than 30 years old, but dated.
Raleigh is one of the fastest growing metro areas in the US, averaging more than a 2% annual population increase. That’s probably reassuring to Summit Properties, USA, the current owner, but there’s a lot of retooling ahead. Maybe there’s a way to reimagine the area to attract high net worth professionals who were supposed to form the customer base of TTC’s high-end stores and restaurants.
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