Syracuse, N.Y. – Destiny USA, the largest mall in New York, has a ton of empty space.
The Syracuse shopping mall is the largest mall in New York and one of the largest in the country. But it has lost some of its largest stores, including Best Buy, Sports Authority and three of its four department stores (J.C. Penney, Lord & Taylor and Bon-Ton).
How can Destiny’s owners replace them?
Destiny’s operator, Pyramid Management Group, scored a win recently when Hobby Lobby, one of the largest arts-and-crafts retailers in the country, signed a lease to go into the mall in March 2022. And Destiny’s director of marketing, Nikita Jankowski, said the mall hopes to announce soon another new large tenant.
But traditional retailers are increasingly hard for malls to lure as e-tailers like Amazon grow and consumer preference shifts toward open-air shopping plazas.
Instead, mall operators around the country, hit by similar market forces, have gotten creative in finding new and different tenants.
Destiny is going to need some of that kind of creativity to dig out of its financial hole. The appraised value of the mall has fallen from $700 million in 2014 to just $203 million in 2020. Pyramid is trying to restructure its $715 million in debt on the property.
Pyramid hasn’t been talking about its crisis. But we spoke with retail experts and Destiny’s peers around the country to see how malls are filling their empty space.
Here are 8 good ideas.
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