Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Shopping Centers/Anchors and tenants

Prior discussions
This essay emerged from prior discussions at: Tenant listing, Anchor and Tenant Lists, and Anchors and tenants. Skeezix1000 14:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Plaudit
I don't know how you got here, but it is great! It prevents gratuitous commercialism and spam in articles of this type. I wish the editors who came up with this would now address themselves to WikiProject Business and Economics and WikiProject Ski. Promotion, spam and commercialism are the order of the day there. Student7 (talk) 12:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

This needs re-discussion
Since specific large tenants (ones that would generally be considered an "anchor") are often a major factor in the nature and success of a given shopping center, it should be disclosed. I'm not talking about inline stores, but a shopping center having a Nordstrom and a Neiman Marcus is a different animal than one that has a Burlington and Marshalls as its two biggest stores. The concept behind a the enclosed shopping mall is that the "anchor" stores, preferably at least two at distinct ends of the mall, are what bring people to that mall, and what drive the sales of the smaller "inline" tenants. The changes in those anchor stores over the course of the centers history is also an important story in how the center moved up or down in its scale. The square footage of its anchor tenants relative to its inline space is also an important point to make. Picking two nearby and similarly sized malls as an example, Monmouth Mall is 1.5 million square feet with 4 anchors and 121 inline stores, while the Freehold Raceway Mall is a 1.67 million square foot mall with 5 distinct anchor buildings (one is currently split so their are six anchor 'slots') and 175 stores. See? In 170k sq ft, they cram in an additional anchor building and 54 more stores. Why? Because the Monmouth Malls 4 anchors are 159k sq ft, 202k sq ft, 264k sq ft, and 288k sqft (total anchor square footage: 913k sq ft; thus 587sq ft for inlines), while Freeholds five are 145k (actually split in two), 100k, 148k, 163k, and 140k (total: 696k for anchors, and 974k for inlines). Describing this information serves a much greater encyclopedic purpose than providing advertising for the malls current anchor tenants.

Likewise, the conversion of Abraham & Straus at Monmouth (upper middle, like a Lord & Taylor) into a Stern's (Lower Middle), and eventually a Boscov's (distinctly lower, though full-line) says a lot about the changing demographics of both the malls customers and the region it serves. Further, to pick something pretty far away, the conversion of space at Exton Square Mall from a JC Penney into a Round 1 entertainment center also says important things about the changing role of the mall in society, and how well given malls are adapting to those changes. Greenmanedlion, (talk) 11:35, 4 April 2017

In line tenants
Malls have changed dramatically since this consensus has been reached, it makes sense to me that a clear indicator of a malls vibrancy would be to include more than just anchor retailers but a up to several additional name brand tenants in a separate sentence. Thoughts? Stupidcupid6 (talk) 00:09, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Such laundry lists of tenants never appear to add anything to the article, nor can I see how such a list would demonstrate the "vibrancy" of a mall, even with sourcing that goes beyond a mall directory. Alansohn (talk) 12:51, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I beg to differ a malls vibrancy is almost entirely determined by the inline tenants they house. A mall can still have anchors but be a "dead mall" without inline stores which is pretty significant to note. Stupidcupid6 (talk) 16:57, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * If it's a dead mall and that claim can be backed up with reliable and verifiable sources, I agree that those details should be included. Alansohn (talk) 11:43, 26 September 2023 (UTC)