©2020 Saratoga Photographer.com
By Jill Nagy
The owners of Aviation Mall in Glens Falls received two pieces of good news in June. They received the go-ahead from the town of Queensbury to expand the mall to include a mixed-use and residential development project and, along with other malls in the area, they received permission to re-open part of the mall as the state moves forward with reopening during the coronavirus pandemic.
As New York state slowly allows businesses look to reopen in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, shopping malls are acclimating to the new rules.
At malls in the Capital Region, stores with exterior entrances can open and many have done so. The malls themselves remain closed, as do stores within its walls that cannot be accessed from outside the mall.
Shoppers can return to the stores with exterior entrances, mostly national brands, while other stores remain closed until June 29. Restaurants and entertainment venues also remain closed, except for those with outdoor dining.
Town Supervisor John Strough said he hopes the zoning changes help the Aviation Mall become a “mall of the future.”
At Aviation Mall, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Target, and Ollie’s Bargain Outlet were part of the first phase of the reopening.
“Over the last several weeks we have worked with hundreds of businesses to ensure a safe and responsible re-opening consistent with the detailed phasing plan released by New York state,” said a statement from the Pyramid Management Group that owns the Aviation Mall and 124 others in the state including Crossgates in Albany.
“Our collective investment of time and money into safely and responsibly re-opening Aviation Mall was considerable … re-opening is key to the survival of these retailers, many of which are locally owned and are now in grave danger of never being able to open their doors.”
The group said “we believe our very large open spaces easily facilitates social distancing and will lessen the density in stand-alone stores … Restaurants and entertainment venues, which comprise a good portion of our facilities, will remain closed until subsequent phases. By design, this will further lessen the density of guests in our centers.
The group said extensive safety protocols put into place over the past two months meet or exceed state, CDC and national health guidelines to protect the health, safety and workers and customers. “And our tenants and their employees are anxious to get back to work.”
“We are ready to open with the health and well-being of our guests, retailers and their employees a top priority.”
At Clifton Park Center, general manager Bob Ristau was delighted to see cars in the parking lot again and shoppers pouring into Boscov’s department store, one of the center’s anchor stores.
Other stores, like Marshall’s and J.C. Penney, are within the state guidelines for reopening but are awaiting instruction from their national headquarters.
“Every store has its own guidelines, especially the nationals,” he said. Generally, stores will designate travel routes, enforce spacing between shoppers, and require shoppers and employees to wear masks. He said the center has a “very minimal” interior and estimated that 90 percent of the businesses at Clifton Center are accessible from outside the mall.
“I think everybody wants to shop,” he said.
At Wilton Mall, Mike Schaefer, senior property manager, said several of that mall’s tenants were considered essential businesses and never closed: BJ’s, Healthy Market and Cafe, and Trustco Bank all remained open during the lockdown.