Triangle Town Center keeps losing anchors, but experts say shoppers could return
The North Raleigh mall has lost Sears, is losing Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, and its seventh owner won’t respond to questions. But analysts say the site still has commercial promise.
FULL STORY: Triangle Town Center’s Future: Analysts See Promise Despite Decline
Here are key takeaways:
• Saks Fifth Avenue announced March 6 it would close its Triangle Town Center location as part of a round of 12 closures after Saks Global filed for bankruptcy. Macy’s also plans to shut its doors, following Sears.
• Big box stores surrounding the mall — DSW, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Nordstrom Rack — show no apparent dip in traffic, even as the mall itself empties, suggesting the area’s commercial draw hasn’t vanished.
• A UNC Kenan-Flagler professor expects transformation, not abandonment. “I’d expect it to either be more of a hybrid, open-air retail center or maybe transformed into mixed-use,” said Jim Spaeth.
• Location and competition hurt the mall from the start. It opened farther north than most residents lived in the early 2000s, along Capital Boulevard, while North Hills launched a massive walkable retail expansion that continues today.
• Safety incidents fed a reputation that drove tenants away. A 2008 gang brawl left a 15-year-old stabbed; a 2022 accidental shooting killed a 21-year-old in the parking lot. Analysts call the mall’s decline an “outlier” compared to Crabtree Valley and Streets at Southpoint.
• Summit Properties USA, the mall’s seventh owner, did not respond to questions about the property’s future.
The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The full story in the link at top was reported, written and edited entirely by journalists.
