Mall Rats Photo: Jason E. Kaplan Foot traffic has plunged during the pandemic at Portland s Lloyd Center Mall
Driven by bankruptcies, redundancies and the rise of e-commerce, the retail sector has been in flux for years. COVID-19 accelerated the shift. Oregon’s malls can either reinvent themselves to stay vital or they can fail.
It is a late Tuesday afternoon and the foot traffic in Washington Square Mall in the Portland suburbs looks brisk by COVID-19 restrictions standards. Families with strollers and small children in tow, groups of teens just dismissed from distance learning and older couples stroll the wide halls, dropping their masks to sip a drink or lick an ice cream cone.
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SUGAR MOUNTAIN â A major hotel development planned to be built next to Lowes Foods in the Village of Sugar Mountain is gradually making progress toward becoming a reality.
Earlier this year, Village of Sugar Mountain Village Manager Sue Phillips and Village Attorney Four Eggers met with representatives of Commercial Realty Advisors, a Winston-Salem-based developer, to discuss the possibility of developing a four-story, 118-room Marriott hotel on a parcel of land that is currently owned by Norvell Properties.
â[We] had a preliminary meeting with them and went through what our ordinance requirements were, as far as what our height restrictions and architectural standards are,â Phillips said. âTheyâre projected that if they go through with it, it would generate approximately $17 million for our tax base.â