Revamping the mall: The Centre of Tallahassee

[Metro Jacksonville]

Revamping the mall: The Centre of Tallahassee



Tallahassee Mall was once the city's premier enclosed regional mall. By the 2000s, it was well on its way to becoming a dead mall. Now it has a new interesting look. Will it work and can it serve as an example for other struggling shopping centers across the country?

Read More: https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2018-apr-revamping-the-mall-the-centre-of-tallahassee

[Charles Hunter]

Interesting concept. Maybe Regency should take notes.
When were the pictures taken? Not a whole lot of people around.

[thelakelander]

Took the pics this past Saturday around 12noon. I don't know how it will work out. The mix is pretty weird. The Music Alley/enclosed mall/food hall combination is something to keep an eye on. I'm not sure how those parts will work long term. On the other hand, the power center component should be fine.

[remc86007]

The food hall pics were taken at noon?? That's not a sustainable amount of people...

Having gone to law school in Tally while this was under construction, I'll share what I perceived:

1) No one I went to lawschool with had heard about the renovations when I mentioned it. When I told them about it, their reaction was generally: oh, isn't that over by the sketchy movie theater?

2) My wife and I tried to go to the Italian restaurant one night soon after it "opened"...and it was closed.

3) I had one friend that went ice skating there the one year they had it and said it was cool. I'm pretty sure the ice rink didn't return in 2017 for some reason.

4) The concert venue doesn't have any events scheduled.

5) The location is (in Tallahassee terms) pretty removed from where students go regularly and is just not a "hip" part of town.

6) The improvements are largely not visible from Monroe (the main road in front of the mall). It still just looks like a dying mall.

7) Some locals I knew were over-hyped by the initial development discussions. They believed this was going to be the Tallahassee St. Johns Town Center...Haha

[thelakelander]

I was in Tallahassee when the AMC first opened. It was the premier spot in town for movies. It quickly put the dirty triplex across the street out of business from what I recall. So it's considered sketchy now?  I used to eat at the Morrison's Cafeteria in the old mall a lot. Outside of Morrison's, Barnes & Noble and the AMC, there wasn't really much of a reason for me to go out that way back then.

[marcuscnelson]

What does residential look like around this area? I'd wager a decent bit of SJTC's success is from the massive amount of people living around it, and that number is only increasing today.

As far as the issues on visible improvements, it sounds like just taking the time to make some visual changes (repaved roads, big new signage, maybe some up-front repainting) would do this good.

[KenFSU]

I was in Tallahassee when the AMC first opened. It was the premier spot in town for movies. It quickly put the dirty triplex across the street out of business from what I recall. So it's considered sketchy now?  I used to eat at the Morrison's Cafeteria in the old mall a lot. Outside of Morrison's, Barnes & Noble and the AMC, there wasn't really much of a reason for me to go out that way back then.

Don't forget Garfields!

The food wasn't great, but they had free beer if you bought food.

AMC was definitely the best theater in Tallahassee. Governor's Square was a dump. I loved that Tallahassee Mall Barnes N' Noble too, and I believe it far outlived the other location across town.

[KenFSU]

P.S. Just stumbled upon this fascinating 25-page 2005 Urban Planet discussion on the two malls in Tallahassee.

Pretty interesting read, particularly if you're familiar with the facilities.

I see you in there a few times, Ennis.

https://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/topic/11158-malls/

[thelakelander]

I remember that thread. I started the Florida forum on Urban Planet when that site split from Skyscrapercity.com and Skyscraperpage.com. My forum name was thelakelander there as well. Metjax.com (forerunner to MJ and short for Metro Jacksonville) grew out of UP's Jax subforum. After we launched Metjax.com, I was banned off the site by a crazy moderator, who also changed my name to biblocatt.

[KenFSU]

I remember that thread. I started the Florida forum on Urban Planet when that site split from Skyscrapercity.com and Skyscraperpage.com. My forum name was thelakelander there as well. Metjax.com (forerunner to MJ and short for Metro Jacksonville) grew out of UP's Jax subforum. After we launched Metjax.com, I was banned off the site by a crazy moderator, who also changed my name to biblocatt.

Wait wait wait.

What monstrous act did you commit to get banned from Urban Planet?

And why "biblocatt"??

Just Google'd the term, and this forum thread is the only evidence that biblocatt is even a term.

Feel like this demands more information

[thelakelander]

There was an administrator of the site from North Carolina that went by the screen name of Metroboi. Insane dude that would ban and troll anyone who did not agree with him. He eventually banned a few Jax people over a silly discussion about politics and development in Jax vs Charlotte. I spoke up about it as a moderator and he decided he'd ban me too and change my name after-the-fact to Biblocatt. I never understood that whole thing or really cared but I guess he felt that was his way of winning. Around the same time, I got with the banned Jax members (Jim and Riversidegator) and we launched MetJax.com.  Anyway, with us gone and not consistently feeding the Jax subforum with new info, all of its members migrated over to MetJax.com after a month or two. Later, they realized how much poison Metroboi was and they finally kicked him off the site. Years later, they asked me to sign back up but MetroJacksonville.com had been launched by that time.  With that said, it was cool to see MetroJacksonville.com and UrbanTallahassee.com essentially grow out of that Florida forum.

[KenFSU]

There was an administrator of the site from North Carolina that went by the screen name of Metroboi. Insane dude that would ban and troll anyone who did not agree with him. He eventually banned a few Jax people over a silly discussion about politics and development in Jax vs Charlotte. I spoke up about it as a moderator and he decided he'd ban me too and change my name after-the-fact to Biblocatt. I never understood that whole thing or really cared but I guess he felt that was his way of winning. Around the same time, I got with the banned Jax members (Jim and Riversidegator) and we launched MetJax.com.  Anyway, with us gone and not consistently feeding the Jax subforum with new info, all of its members migrated over to MetJax.com after a month or two. Later, they realized how much poison Metroboi was and they finally kicked him off the site. Years later, they asked me to sign back up but MetroJacksonville.com had been launched by that time.  With that said, it was cool to see MetroJacksonville.com and UrbanTallahassee.com essentially grow out of that Florida forum.

This all sounds vaguely familiar

[Charles Hunter]

Hmmm, not the Crazy Moderator that came to mind ...

[I-10east]

Here's a pretty recent youtube video about this mall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGmrYt-fSpA&t=3s