To the disappointment of almost no one, Olathe’s Great Mall of the Great Plains is closing after 18 futile years…
If the mall management did nothing right during those years, they announced the closing with an industrial strength excuse.
First, the management excuse, then the translation:
“The decision to close was difficult, but one that was guided by very compelling economic realities. The development began to face struggles soon after it opened in 1997, and has been unable to recover in the intervening years due to a variety of factors, including the economic downturn and changes in customers’ shopping habits.”
The mall opened in 1997.
The national and local economy remained robust until a mild recession in early 2001. But even during those first four years, the mall faced “struggles.”
It faced struggles because the Mall was ill-conceived.
The developers planted their flag far too beyond the population base.
Then came ” the economic downturn.” That downturn occurred in late 2008. Every other major retail development in Kansas City survived it, except the Great Mall.
Then came the “changes in customers’ shopping habits.” Again, those changes, good and bad, affected all retailers everywhere.
Were the developers honest about the Mall, they might have said, “We just f***ed the whole thing up right from the get-go.”
The beauty of free enterprise is that when a private development fails, it disappears. When a public entity fails–e.g. the Kansas City Missouri School District–it just devours more of our money.
That much conceded, maybe the Johnson County commissioners can rescue it. The Great Museum of the Great Plains , anyone?
King Louie, watch out!
Rich Steele is a citizen journalist and head of the NSAAS (Non-Smokers Against Anti-Smoking).
mall was purchased several yearsago by local commercial real estate company…
all these malls are having problems so don’t think it’s just great plains…
too far out…never promoted…unknown how to get there but my
girlfriend said that there were some kids oriented operatings that did well
there.
a better writer would have gone back andseen where the real problems were….
seen who ownedit…who bought it…and seen what the plan for it is.
Im sure whoever owned it took a bath…but theyneeded tax write offs….
the owners were very rich!!!!!!!!
steele…you don’t know shit…that’s why you have no experience in telling
the whole story…
another stupid horribly written article.
go get some lessons on journalism from hearne or Wilson.
YOU are attempting to tell someone how to construct a sentence? Try to read the crap you write — I mostly gave up a long time ago.
Too bad you had to interject a Fox News-esque right wing talking point in the article. What does the KCMO school district have to do with the Great Mall closing…yeah absolutely nothing!
The place was a dump when it opened and it was soon infested with enough “bad elements” that going there was only marginally safer than a fun day out in Mogadishu.