Stephen Stofka's Commentary

The Gallery at Market East is one of many, many urban shopping malls that appeared in urban downtown areas during the late 1970s. What makes it relatively unique, however, is that it's located in Center City Philadelphia, along the traditional retail corridor of Market East--comparable with Minneapolis' Nicolette Mall or Toronto's Eaton Centre. What makes the Gallery different, however, is that unlike other downtown malls in similarly-sized cities, it has been slowly dying for over twenty years.

The mall was built in two phases--the east half (Gallery I) in 1977 and the west half (Gallery II) in the early '80s. The east half was grafted onto the Strawbridge & Clothier at 8th and Market and extended west for a block and a quarter, to 10th. The two main tenants were Strawbridge & Clothier, of course, and Gimbels, which moved into a new four-story building and vacated their previous Philadelphia flagship across the street from S&C, which was promptly torn down (that space remains a parking lot). When it opened, it also killed the Lit Bros. department store across the other street--8th Street--from S&C, due to its lack of mall access. But sandwiched between S&C and Gimbels, the mall did quite well, and the extension west to 11th (Gallery II) soon followed, with its lead tenant a J.C. Penney, in a purpose-built space at 11th and Market on the long-demolished former Frank & Seder site.

I'm not entirely sure when the Gallery started running down, since I remember the J.C. Penney being there from when I was a kid. However, I'll wager that the Gimbels bankruptcy in the mid-'80s was a contributing factor. Even when I was a kid, though, I remember that the topmost level was nearly dead, and my mother favored staying down in the lower levels, where, however, it was still busy.

Eventually a Kmart opened in the former Gimbels. Where Gimbels had four floors of selling space, though, the Kmart only has two. J.C. Penney moved out sometime in the '90s and was replaced by a Burlington Coat Factory. When May and Federated merged in 2005 or so, they decided to close the S&C (by that time known as Strawbridge's) flagship and convert the then-Lord & Taylor in the Wanamaker Building into a Macy's, a definite step down for Market East, since Strawbridge's catered to the Macy's clientele whereas Lord & Taylor catered to a clientele more appropriate for a Bloomingdale's. The S&C building has remained vacant since, and its vacancy is one of the dominant presences on the older part of the Gallery, which is now only 60% occupied, and even then mostly by urban-type stores like City Blue and mom-and-pops, some ubiquitous chains like Radio Shack, GameStop, and fye, and only a few more upscale stores, such as a Bath & Body Works and a Lane Bryant. The atrium near the former Strawbridge's mall anchor and the topmost floor in general are both nearly entirely vacant.

On a bright spot however, in 1989 the Lit Bros. building was renovated into the Mellon Independence Center, which has four floors of offices on top of a two-floor minimall, and very importantly, connected to the Gallery. State offices have moved into the former office levels of Strawbridge & Clothier, and the mall owners, PREIT, are apparently restoring the interior of the former flagship. The mall is directly connected to the 8th Street and 11th Street subway stations as well as Market East station, has connections with the Avenue of the Arts and Penn Center and Suburban Station via the network of underground concourses throughout Center City, is proximate to Independence Mall, and via its connection to the former Reading Terminal, is directly accessible via the Pennsylvania Convention Center and has an entrance across the street from the Reading Terminal Market (itself with a plan to expand), all of which means that although the current condition of the mall is quite poor, in the long run the offerings should come to be on par with what the excellent location seems to imply.

However, since both the interior and exterior of the mall are clearly dated '70s products, a major renovation of the mall itself would likely be needed for the transformation into the place the space is capable of to happen. Although rumors of a renovation have been floating around, the fact that PREIT is cash-strapped does not seem to bode well for it now; through most of 2009 a plan to convert the S&C space into a casino was entertained at length until the State told the proposers to go buzz off, so to speak. The only major plan PREIT can hope to have is thus to drag another regional or national department store (Boscov's? Bon-Ton? Sears? another go with Penney's?) into the vacant S&C space, and the perceived ugliness of the mall and east Market East in general--almost certainly its major detraction at this point--seems to be making the space a tough sell.

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