Thanks for your work on this video. Tripped upon some folks walking through before it closed but had no idea it was gone. Many a quarter was spent at the arcade here :) It is very crazy to see it demolished. Keep up the good work.
I am glad to hear you enjoyed. I wish I had my drone when I was there. I would have flown into the hulk of what was still standing. Shame seeing these structures go away like this.
Another one bites the dust like Cloverleaf 💐 I used to go to this mall quite often back in the days. The arcade in the food court was amazing! all the neon lights, the vibes 🕹️ *chefs kiss* I have some pictures of me near the fountains. Loved visiting the FYE that was there and surprisingly, it lasted some years before the mall’s closing.
I grew up near here, and this mall opened when I was in high school. What's interesting, is that this mall killed a small mall closer into town named Azalea Mall that was torn down in the late 90's/early 2000's. It was weird to see that go, since at one point, a lot of our shopping happened there as it was the closest mall until they built Va Center. I think what ultimately killed it is not having any living integrated into the property.
@@DyingRetail It was small, but it was the kind with a grocery and drug store. You could really go there and get anything. It was amazing at the time. I think it had been the first enclosed mall in Richmond.
I remember visiting it one last time before they closed down. I had no business being there except to reminisce and think back when I was a kid and would get lost in all the malls and the employees would call on the intercom for my parents 😂🤣….but yeah this place and all the malls still around short pump, regency square, chesterfield towne center, clover leaf mall, stony point, just brought so much memories growing up. i hate that the American malls are going away. I always imagined them always being here and full of life, people shopping, being social and just being human. everything is online now.
like I remember visiting this mall as a kid with my parents. I forgot all about it until I one day was reminiscing about these places i been to as a kid but never visited again. i looked it up back in 2017 and had to go see it again. like going to the park. it did bring back some fragmented memories. I remember an employee yelling at me to buy his chicken sandwich it was a chic fil a knock off, i saw a Bitcoin atm, and this place that sold video game franchises. for some reason they only accepted cash cause their system was down. welp its all gone now.
I hadn't seen the mall since it was demolished. Such a sight. I think I said this in your other video, but I think the issues here were Short Pump taking away shoppers as well as the property not being updated. I brought a friend with me who worked in the mall when it first opened and he said the interior was the exact same as it was on opening day. I also think adding a bus route coming from downtown Richmond hurt this property. In my years of researching dead and abandoned malls. I've discovered anytime more public transportation is added, it brings in rough characters, and VCC was no exception to that
I lived near Richmond 2008-2015. I don’t know if I ever went to this mall. However as someone born in 1976 and loved going to the mall as a kid, it’s sad seeing them dead or closed. One of the things is that many stores either shut down or are not found in malls anymore. I remember shoe stores, bookstores, The Gap, Benetton, toy stores, etc. I never thought the malls would die.
Thanks to UniComm Productions for their blessing on using some of their footage from October to share in this video. See their walkthrough right before closing in October 2022 here ruclips.net/video/zKiV8-Va4hI/видео.html
Thank you so much for the acknowledgement! Your video is great, and it is an honor to have my footage used alongside this well shot and quite frankly apocalyptic footage. Keep it up!
@@WhittyPics I had a bit of a mall exploration misadventure in early February which got me extremely sick, so I've been dealing with that...BUT I do have a video I've been slowly working on while I've been gone and about five others that were shot over the first part of this year (as well as a video that was shot during the 'misadventure' so stay tuned!). They're coming! I just haven't been 100% to be able to work on them.
Enjoyed watching your video even though it is sad. Definitely agree with your perspective on why malls are dying. Each mall used to be unique also but once malls became mostly clothing stores and all had the same department stores (and Macys took over all the regional chains) there wasn't as much reason to visit each mall. I love malls and am very sad they are going away. I remember coming to VA Commons for the 1st time and loved the mix of stores it had. I used to go to malls every weekend. Miss those days!!
Or even worse, people would go to the mall and couldn’t find what they wanted or store didn’t want to help people get what they were looking for only to have them start going online and getting what they came for. It’s a lot of different parts in play. Thanks for watching.
Sad to see it die, but I guess the world is moving on. The saturation of malls was definitely a contributing factor. That was the problem with MacArthur Center- it was a mall that should never have been built and everybody said so at the time, but they built it anyway and it never reached capacity even when it was new. Look at Greenbriar, they build 2 major shopping centers literally right across the street- I remember when they opened thinking that it was going to hurt the mall and it did. Oddly enough, shopping malls in Europe are booming. I was floored when I was in Paris and Vienna last year as to just how busy the malls were. But they still like to see a product before they buy it, so brick and mortar is the way to go. I prefer doing it that way as well, but there aren't many places left that sell the things I want to buy, so I'm forced to mail order. I really miss the human interactions, it was always great fun to be around people at the malls. Whatever may become of it, I can guarantee you that the city of Norfolk will grossly mismanage the property at Military Circle and create an economic disaster that they will blame on everything but their own policies.
I actually believe Sears hurt Greenbrier more than anything else. Seems that end of the mall just completely died. It is interesting that the strip malls seem to be doing a lot better.
You’re totally right about the over saturation of malls. The first mall in my area was built in 1969 and modernized three times. It was perfect for the small county I lived in. No one complained. Then they built a mall five times it’s size hoping to attract outside shoppers from NYC. Well it attracted crime in the form of thieves and car jackers. They tore down the old mall and built a small outdoor shops area. The newer mall built in 1997 is less than half full. Two of three anchors closed and lots of low quality store came in. The mall is now in foreclosure because they can’t pull in enough revenue to pay their huge loan and taxes. It shouldn’t have never been built.
Thanks to the bright idea of @sydecarnutz972 I decided I liked his term demallished and had to change the thumbnail.
"Demallished". I think you have a catchy new word there! Good work!
I like that. Look at thumbnail now. That’s a good one.
@@DyingRetail Well, someday if you can monetize it, please give me credit for picking it out for you. LOL 😁
Ha ha! I’ll make sure to do that. I’ll add a thanks in the description as soon as I can.
Breaks my heart. So many good memories here
It felt so surreal standing there and realizing what used to stand where I was standing. Then to see the footage from October really drove it home.
Thanks for your work on this video. Tripped upon some folks walking through before it closed but had no idea it was gone.
Many a quarter was spent at the arcade here :) It is very crazy to see it demolished. Keep up the good work.
I am glad to hear you enjoyed. I wish I had my drone when I was there. I would have flown into the hulk of what was still standing. Shame seeing these structures go away like this.
Another one bites the dust like Cloverleaf 💐 I used to go to this mall quite often back in the days. The arcade in the food court was amazing! all the neon lights, the vibes 🕹️ *chefs kiss* I have some pictures of me near the fountains. Loved visiting the FYE that was there and surprisingly, it lasted some years before the mall’s closing.
I wish I could have gotten in before closing but it wasn’t meant to be. It looked like a nice property.
It's as if every piece of rubble there is a piece of someone's memory... a memory of times gone by from their youth...
That’s an interesting way to look at it.
I grew up near here, and this mall opened when I was in high school. What's interesting, is that this mall killed a small mall closer into town named Azalea Mall that was torn down in the late 90's/early 2000's. It was weird to see that go, since at one point, a lot of our shopping happened there as it was the closest mall until they built Va Center. I think what ultimately killed it is not having any living integrated into the property.
I saw news articles about the old mall you mentioned. Sounded like it was a very busy place at the time.
@@DyingRetail It was small, but it was the kind with a grocery and drug store. You could really go there and get anything. It was amazing at the time. I think it had been the first enclosed mall in Richmond.
Was it a red bricked building? If so, I think I’ve seen articles on it.
@@DyingRetail Not sure about it originally, but when we were going there it was brick and painted different shades of brown.
Probably same place. I find very few buildings that do well after the brick is painted. Depends on what else they add.
I still have an anime wall scroll I bought there in super early 2000s
This is also where I discovered Raiden at the arcade.
Looked nice from videos I have seen before demolition.
I remember visiting it one last time before they closed down. I had no business being there except to reminisce and think back when I was a kid and would get lost in all the malls and the employees would call on the intercom for my parents 😂🤣….but yeah this place and all the malls still around short pump, regency square, chesterfield towne center, clover leaf mall, stony point, just brought so much memories growing up. i hate that the American malls are going away. I always imagined them always being here and full of life, people shopping, being social and just being human. everything is online now.
like I remember visiting this mall as a kid with my parents. I forgot all about it until I one day was reminiscing about these places i been to as a kid but never visited again. i looked it up back in 2017 and had to go see it again. like going to the park. it did bring back some fragmented memories. I remember an employee yelling at me to buy his chicken sandwich it was a chic fil a knock off, i saw a Bitcoin atm, and this place that sold video game franchises. for some reason they only accepted cash cause their system was down. welp its all gone now.
Yes. It’s sad to see for sure!
I hadn't seen the mall since it was demolished. Such a sight. I think I said this in your other video, but I think the issues here were Short Pump taking away shoppers as well as the property not being updated. I brought a friend with me who worked in the mall when it first opened and he said the interior was the exact same as it was on opening day.
I also think adding a bus route coming from downtown Richmond hurt this property. In my years of researching dead and abandoned malls. I've discovered anytime more public transportation is added, it brings in rough characters, and VCC was no exception to that
I was not aware of the transit situation but I've noticed that at some other malls what you described did happen to those places.
I lived near Richmond 2008-2015. I don’t know if I ever went to this mall. However as someone born in 1976 and loved going to the mall as a kid, it’s sad seeing them dead or closed. One of the things is that many stores either shut down or are not found in malls anymore. I remember shoe stores, bookstores, The Gap, Benetton, toy stores, etc. I never thought the malls would die.
Not all are dying but I think overdevelopment off malls didn’t help.
RIP Mall 😔
Yes. Sad to see.
Thanks to UniComm Productions for their blessing on using some of their footage from October to share in this video. See their walkthrough right before closing in October 2022 here ruclips.net/video/zKiV8-Va4hI/видео.html
Thank you so much for the acknowledgement! Your video is great, and it is an honor to have my footage used alongside this well shot and quite frankly apocalyptic footage. Keep it up!
I’m glad you liked the finished product. Got more coming :)
@@UniCommProductions Hey Kristin. Have you posted any new videos lately? I haven't seen you in my feed.
@@WhittyPics I had a bit of a mall exploration misadventure in early February which got me extremely sick, so I've been dealing with that...BUT I do have a video I've been slowly working on while I've been gone and about five others that were shot over the first part of this year (as well as a video that was shot during the 'misadventure' so stay tuned!). They're coming! I just haven't been 100% to be able to work on them.
Can’t wait to see them!!!
Enjoyed watching your video even though it is sad. Definitely agree with your perspective on why malls are dying. Each mall used to be unique also but once malls became mostly clothing stores and all had the same department stores (and Macys took over all the regional chains) there wasn't as much reason to visit each mall. I love malls and am very sad they are going away. I remember coming to VA Commons for the 1st time and loved the mix of stores it had. I used to go to malls every weekend. Miss those days!!
Or even worse, people would go to the mall and couldn’t find what they wanted or store didn’t want to help people get what they were looking for only to have them start going online and getting what they came for. It’s a lot of different parts in play. Thanks for watching.
Sad to see it die, but I guess the world is moving on. The saturation of malls was definitely a contributing factor. That was the problem with MacArthur Center- it was a mall that should never have been built and everybody said so at the time, but they built it anyway and it never reached capacity even when it was new. Look at Greenbriar, they build 2 major shopping centers literally right across the street- I remember when they opened thinking that it was going to hurt the mall and it did.
Oddly enough, shopping malls in Europe are booming. I was floored when I was in Paris and Vienna last year as to just how busy the malls were. But they still like to see a product before they buy it, so brick and mortar is the way to go. I prefer doing it that way as well, but there aren't many places left that sell the things I want to buy, so I'm forced to mail order. I really miss the human interactions, it was always great fun to be around people at the malls.
Whatever may become of it, I can guarantee you that the city of Norfolk will grossly mismanage the property at Military Circle and create an economic disaster that they will blame on everything but their own policies.
I actually believe Sears hurt Greenbrier more than anything else. Seems that end of the mall just completely died. It is interesting that the strip malls seem to be doing a lot better.
I lived in Richmond in 2009 for about a year and this mall was dying then
Goes to show it was the crappy mall management for sure.
So weird to see structures that seem to be sound get demolished.
I know. It’s sad.
@@DyingRetail it really is.
Uh huh
This is all over the country. One of the dying malls opened up 13 years ago and permanently closed down.
Any malls opened within the past 20 years are some of the major ones with issues.
Good video. Sad. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching
You’re totally right about the over saturation of malls. The first mall in my area was built in 1969 and modernized three times. It was perfect for the small county I lived in. No one complained. Then they built a mall five times it’s size hoping to attract outside shoppers from NYC. Well it attracted crime in the form of thieves and car jackers. They tore down the old mall and built a small outdoor shops area. The newer mall built in 1997 is less than half full. Two of three anchors closed and lots of low quality store came in. The mall is now in foreclosure because they can’t pull in enough revenue to pay their huge loan and taxes. It shouldn’t have never been built.
True. Was a way to kill the golden goose unfortunately.
oh great….more town homes.
It would appear so
Deadmallished
Ha ha ha. That works too!