Holly Ballasteros Eventually they just stop working, only to become a costly repair. When this happens, get an electrician to put in different lighting. 💡💡💡
I worked at this mall, in the food court, in the 90's. I was 16. It's sad to see it like this but we all saw it coming. At least it doesn't smell like mothballs, like the Marquette mall in Michigan City, Indiana. We stopped there to check it out a few years ago. The smell was overwhelming and had almost no stores open. It was bad. It was dark and creepy.
From the late 70's to the late 80's it was a very happening mall. Spent a lot of time at Orchards. I went back there once and for the last time in the mid nineties. Man how it had gone down hill in just a few short years!
I remember when this mall was built. I used to go there when I was a teenager. It was nice then. Now they should just demolish it and plant another orchard there.
A major mall and some big box retail problem is a disappearing middle class with disposable income. Largest growing group in the US is the working poor who are a paycheck away from homelessness or already in Section 8 housing. HEAP helps keep the heat on. Lifeline cellphone plans(contrary to popular belief not Obamaphones🙄program dates back to Reagen) Most live on value menu, food pantries to eat. Shopping is not their priority, it's survival on a daily basis.
@@christinacope562:Spot on Christina, this mall a mirror image of Elyria's Midway mall also with high poverty rates and crime surrounding it.Your right except for dollar stores other retailers cannot survive no money to support any malls strip or enclosed small or large.
As someone who is a local. This mall has been dead for 7+ years. The target store down the street closed not long after the purchase of this mall. No retail market can survive here
My wife and I left the Benton Harbor/St. Joseph area 4 years ago. We still have family living there. The lack of higher paying jobs and the decline of the community were major reasons. The area has been declining for decades. I believe that its almost to the point of no return. Benton Harbor used to be the Whirlpool Manufacturing Center. There was good money here at one time. But when Whirlpool moved its manufacturing overseas they killed the town. Whirlpool still has it Offices and Call centers here, but its a shadow of what used to be. Crime, drugs, poverty run rampant. Anyone or anything that trys to make a successful attempt to turn things around is quickly squashed by the thugs, drugs, and crime. Even the city officials are corrupt. Funnelling funds into their own pockets. The school district in Benton Harbor is failing. Half the schools are operating while the other half are vacant and rotting away. Just driving through what used to be Downtown Benton Harbor and you get a sense that everyone has just given up. You can see a shadow of what it used to be. Its sad really. There are people there that want to do better, but leaving it hard when there is no money and a sense of "why bother".
Nah, leave it abandoned and rotting...a great metaphor for the cancer that is "American consumerism". Amazon is winning because we became disgusted with our own opulence and grandiose designs to buy cheap Chinese imported goods. We'd rather have all our cheap crap mailed to us now, then we don't have to show our fat faces struggling to walk these giant malls.
@@aaronslaughter4984 The loss of Whirlpool manufacturing operations hurt Benton Harbor significantly. As did the loss of Clark, Bendix, Heath, Ausco... The simple fact is that manufacturing in the area was untenable with labor stoppages you could time with a watch. Benton Harbor currently could not function as a viable city without the unnecessary benevolent involvement of a for profit corporation in a dumpster fire, corruption riddled, failure of a city.
I just watched a huge piece of my childhood died right before my eyes. Once a week every week during the summer I went with Grandma to JCPenney's while she got her hair done. Grandpa would take me to the Eatery where most days I got to see Muhammad Ali. Then I would go into the arcade and play video games. I had two little friends that their parents owned the arcade. Some days when Grandma was babysitting them I got to play in the arcade with the owner's daughters.
I visited this mall scores of times as family lived in Michigan. In the '80s and even early '90s it was a great place, top stores, food, all of it, great bookstores and even an arcade. After a long absence, dropped by in 2005 and stunned to see how it had fallen. Just sad to see a great mall fall apart like this after so many great memories.
As soon as that thug element starts trouble and any kind of violent crime occurs, the retailers flee as well as the shoppers and residents around the mall, they are replaced with lower income who can't sustain a big mall like this once was, many many malls have met this fate
The previous owners had an opportunity to open up a section of the mall for Fourwinds Casino slots and a few tables. Rumor had it that the City was willing to rezone for it. However, from what I understand, JoAnne Fabrics had clauses in their contract that disallowed things like Tattoo shops, Lingerie shops, Movie theaters, and Casinos thus basically helping to kill off any potential opportunites from these avenues.
Yes, JoAnns may be a good store as a stand alone, but corporate clauses are crap, Slackers only was avle to go in because they signed their contract before joanns
On this day 16 years ago, 9-30-03, I first visited Benton Harbor, Michigan, and my apologies to the property owner of 2522 Woodley Drive where Woodley turns into Townline Rd. for trespassing into the yard to get across the trees and bushes and onto the eastbound lanes of I-94 just so I could take a picture of a Speed Limit 70 Trucks 55 sign.
I went here in 2004 and even then it was probably half full at the most. What was most surprising is that it had THREE bookstores at the time. One of them was a discount book outlet in the Slackers space, which at the time still had signage from its original tenant, Lerner New York. Subway and Great Steak were the only restaurants in the food court, and the former Walgreens (now Jo-Ann's) had been vacant over a decade. I'm amazed at how shopworn the mall looks in your video. York Steak House was actually just off the JCPenney wing. The space was later Bonanza, then Ponderosa. It sat empty for over 15 years and later became a couple other short-lived restaurants.
Just turn it into a prison, It sounds like the town needs one. However even in Prison the lights don't buzz like that. Sorry but that alone is enough to shut it down!
The Orchards Mall symbolizes the entire experience of living in Michigan. First the stupid politicians rezone something scenic and beautiful into something that sucks life out of the city’s core. Then the decline begins. First it declines a little, and you adjust. Then it declines a little more, and you adjust. Finally one day you realize you live in a pit, and the world has passed you by, so you just defend what you’ve got, and live in the past. Sure the Orchards Mall is gonna come back.. sure it is. It's Pure Michigan.
This is beyond sad! I was just there in December and I couldn’t believe my eyes😱, it use to be really nice back in the day! Was glad to go back home!😔😔😔😔
Going to the Mall was a big thing when I was a teen. I think the malls are disintegrating due to online shopping. You have Amazon, etc. Stuff gets delivered to your door. Rent is high for store owners and the increased prices go to the customers. You can't save a mall and bring in new stores if there are no customers. Then with the economy as it is, high crime I think reduces customers to go to a mall.
This mall in particular was dying long before online shopping became a thing. And the new owners really haven't done anything at all to breathe any life into it.
When you go to the mall, you are usually the only one there, walking by vacant stores. You feel like you're in one of those movies where you are the last survivor on Earth after some mass destruction event.
To be fair, the mall is just a symptom of the larger problem: Benton Harbor has been bleeding people for decades. It's not just the mall that's empty...it's the whole town.
@@nekronus_dubz the whole town is not empty. That is in fact incorrect. A population of 9,800 is not empty. So therefore the statement is incorrect. How about you do some research on staying the hell out of my replies. To save yourself the embarrassment of wasting my time. 🖕🏽✌🏽
I remember in the mid to late 90's we use to come here all the time when I was a kid. I remember seeing Santa here and going to KB toys and FYI... its a shame what it has become.
I don't understand why the mall owner would give 3 years free rent only to leave it in disrepair to want them to leave. That makes no sense but 3 years free rent definitely was nice on the owners.
I live in a town called coloma just a little ways away from Benton harbor and I've been going to this mall all my life as a kid it wasnt too bad but now it's only has a few stores open the rainbow clothing store shown in this vid is now closed the only remaining store are the slackers arcade the bath and body works and a few thrift type shops and that's all
I can't believe how noisy those lights are... what the heck? Just a constant buzzing throughout the whole video. There has to be some kind of overload situation..
I am surprised this mall is still open man that food court when we were there 2 years ago was silly looking i remember in 2005 we went here and it was on and poppin
I used to go to that mall in the early 2000s. I live a town over and the mall isn't gonna live much longer. Hopefully they can get a superstore of some sort on there, or it's all over for my former favorite mall.
You did not encounter any security guards. You must be lucky. Some others who film these malls, dying or otherwise, would run the risk of encountering mall security.
3 things killed this mall (and many others like it). 1)the internet , 2)diminished industrial/economic base, 3)lack of any sufficient alternative customer base. Even during "The Great Recession" the University Park Mall in Mishawaka was quite busy, (seriously, most of the time you wouldn't have known there WAS a recession) probably due to having their own version of factor #3-close proximity to a major university. (Notre Dame)
That hair weave in the parking lot is nasty! And I couldn't take the noise of the lights. I would have to wear noise cancelling headphones or ear plugs in there.
I went there recently and now they dont have the bouncy castles and theres just dead birds everywhere in the parking lot and a whole bunch of stores closed and the only stand out place there was the arcade it looks so much worse now.
Man that looked pretty cool, Things are gone too soon ;( Im also reading the comments about people going and working there, but I love the feeling it gives off.
I helped open a shoe store in the mall before the mall opened. It didn’t take long for the community to ruin it so people from St. Joe wouldn’t shop the mall. It was only built to keep Whirlpool World Headquarters, Battle Creek did the same thing with Lakeview Square to try and keep Kellogg’s World Headquarters
My wifes dad ran the Buster Brown(?) Shoe store and her mom ran the Ice Cream shop in the Food Court back in the day. She has found memories of the mall in its prime.
My local mall just built a 4 story parking structure to accommodate the ever growing influx of shoppers and it’s a luxury mall with Gucci, Balenciaga, Chanel etc with also the typical stuff like H&M and Zara.
Those lights were installed to ensure no one would stay and shop in the mall. No wonder the stores were unstaffed, you couldnt spend more than a few minutes with that buzzing
markymarkmark48 when your other shopping choice is TJ Maxx, Meijer, and Walmart in the area it use to be a decent place. But JC Penny went downhill with the mall. The next town with multiple clothing stores are about 20-30min away. You shop where you can.
My boyfriend and I love this place because we just like to walk by Doctor Zzzs mattress store and watch the worker guy play world of warcraft on his computer. It's the most exciting part of this mall.
This video is hard to watch. I grew up in nearby St. Joe. I remember my grandparents taking me to Ponderosa that was attached to the mall in the early 90s, which was then always followed up to a trip to KB Toys. Used to have a pet store in the corner next to JC Penneys also, and a great arcade near the food court. Sad to see its current state. Very fond memories of this mall in the late 80s to mid 90s. 💔
Lol I like how half of yall talking about bh and not even from there talking about its sad........... but scared to even drive thru there. Trying helping instead of complaining about some stuff that ppl have been plotting against since forever
Such a shame. Thirty years ago malls were de facto town squares. We got to see more of our neighbors on the other side of the development several times throughout the year while shopping at the mall. Finding out whether or not an item of clothing fit or not was determined right on the spot. Imagine that. Now, irony is noted, we're reduced to peering into our screens, pointing, clicking and waiting for our purchases to arrive.
Folks, most malls are getting like this. I work all over the states and have yet to hit a mall ( sometimes I get Sunday off) that isn't watching retailers leave.
I grew up in Benton harbor and in the 80’s and 90’s the mall was the place to go especially my favorite was the arcade area #sweetmemories and in the food court there was this cookie shop were they baked fresh cookies to order which came in purple bags and they were delicious the chocolate chip cookies were the best😋and it was a spot that sold pretty good sliced pepperoni pizza as well😋
@@TheRealCaptainFreedom You just catch a glimpse of it at the extreme left of the picture, from about 6:17 to 6:20 in the middle of the mall aisle. Like the guy videoing was oblivious to there being a car there. It's white.
That Red Lobster manager's name was Bruce Chisholm. He was a good man and he had a family. It sucks to hear people talk about it so casually now.
John Adorjan wow rude
@@Tillyguts I know. Then I saw another video of his and it's a Masterpiece so I feel bad about this.
Yes. You’re right. Rest in Peace, Bruce.
tlivengood51 I am from Benton Harbor and I worked at the Red Lobster when the murder happened. back in 1995. Bruce was a good man. So sad !
Anyone know why he was murdered?
Those aren't LED lights. Those are old High Intensity Discharge Metal Halide lights. The old ballasts will do that over time.
Thank you. I was going to say this. Whenever you hear 'buzzing' lights it means the ballast is getting old. LEDs don't use ballasts.
Nice to know. I can’t turn the lights on in my room for this reason. it’s too loud.
Oh thank God I thought they were made put in place by Satan.
Holly Ballasteros Eventually they just stop working, only to become a costly repair. When this happens, get an electrician to put in different lighting. 💡💡💡
Yvelle Bradley yeh i wouldn’t mess with 277v ive been trained on it snd still dont like it. Call the electrician
OHMAGAWD!! Imagine a Mall so dead and so dirty...you got *"TUMBLEWEAVES"* @2:18 wiggin out in the Parking Lot???
@MEXICANMOOSE1976 -- I'm straight laughing my ass off at that part.
@@27273100 🤣🤣🤣🔥🔥🔥
Tumbleweaves are a common site in the area!
You can find tumbleweaves pretty much anywhere in Benton Harbor. Pick a parking lot, any parking lot.
Haha! After a good ole chick fight in Walmart, you have your pick of Tumble weaves!
I worked at this mall, in the food court, in the 90's. I was 16. It's sad to see it like this but we all saw it coming. At least it doesn't smell like mothballs, like the Marquette mall in Michigan City, Indiana. We stopped there to check it out a few years ago. The smell was overwhelming and had almost no stores open. It was bad. It was dark and creepy.
Yes the Marquette mall used to be a great place to shop now it just nothing
Did you have a 90s bush back then or was it trimmed
Dark and creepy? You could say at about most of Michigan City, south of the beach XD
From the late 70's to the late 80's it was a very happening mall. Spent a lot of time at Orchards. I went back there once and for the last time in the mid nineties. Man how it had gone down hill in just a few short years!
@@kristanmorrison7281 I remember going there with a friend when I was in junior high. Definitely much better in the late 80’s than it is now.
I remember when this mall was built. I used to go there when I was a teenager. It was nice then. Now they should just demolish it and plant another orchard there.
I agree...
This is so sad
According to Wikipedia, 46% of Benton Harbor's population is below the poverty line. There is no retail that can survive that.
A major mall and some big box retail problem is a disappearing middle class with disposable income. Largest growing group in the US is the working poor who are a paycheck away from homelessness or already in Section 8 housing. HEAP helps keep the heat on. Lifeline cellphone plans(contrary to popular belief not Obamaphones🙄program dates back to Reagen) Most live on value menu, food pantries to eat. Shopping is not their priority, it's survival on a daily basis.
@@christinacope562:Spot on Christina, this mall a mirror image of Elyria's Midway mall also with high poverty rates and crime surrounding it.Your right except for dollar stores other retailers cannot survive no money to support any malls strip or enclosed small or large.
As someone who is a local. This mall has been dead for 7+ years. The target store down the street closed not long after the purchase of this mall. No retail market can survive here
My wife and I left the Benton Harbor/St. Joseph area 4 years ago. We still have family living there.
The lack of higher paying jobs and the decline of the community were major reasons. The area has been declining for decades. I believe that its almost to the point of no return. Benton Harbor used to be the Whirlpool Manufacturing Center. There was good money here at one time. But when Whirlpool moved its manufacturing overseas they killed the town. Whirlpool still has it Offices and Call centers here, but its a shadow of what used to be. Crime, drugs, poverty run rampant. Anyone or anything that trys to make a successful attempt to turn things around is quickly squashed by the thugs, drugs, and crime. Even the city officials are corrupt. Funnelling funds into their own pockets. The school district in Benton Harbor is failing. Half the schools are operating while the other half are vacant and rotting away. Just driving through what used to be Downtown Benton Harbor and you get a sense that everyone has just given up. You can see a shadow of what it used to be. Its sad really. There are people there that want to do better, but leaving it hard when there is no money and a sense of "why bother".
You would be right, but st joe is right there. And st joe is rich af.
The place is literally called "slackers" and you're surprised no one is working there? 😂
I had some fun times there
@@FusionGamerLit me too :/
Tear it down and put the orchard back. . . at least it's a plan that would "Bear fruit."
Nah, leave it abandoned and rotting...a great metaphor for the cancer that is "American consumerism". Amazon is winning because we became disgusted with our own opulence and grandiose designs to buy cheap Chinese imported goods. We'd rather have all our cheap crap mailed to us now, then we don't have to show our fat faces struggling to walk these giant malls.
@@bernlin2000 Benton Harbor doesn't need a reminder of how bad Whirlpool has gutted that city. Mind you that their world headquarters.
@@aaronslaughter4984 The loss of Whirlpool manufacturing operations hurt Benton Harbor significantly. As did the loss of Clark, Bendix, Heath, Ausco... The simple fact is that manufacturing in the area was untenable with labor stoppages you could time with a watch. Benton Harbor currently could not function as a viable city without the unnecessary benevolent involvement of a for profit corporation in a dumpster fire, corruption riddled, failure of a city.
Chris Ducat i mean, it’s not entirely amazon’s fault there’s just too many malls being built and too many malls failing by crime
Love it!
The lights in there are speaking.
... kill....
Us....
Oh no a tumble weave in the parking lot! Bad sign!
I’m so relieved I thought it was a dead animal.
Connie Miner *weed, not weave.
Jenny Chapman lol look again that’s DEFINITELY a weave!! 😮
Yup, a tumble weave is a sign to turn around
Tumble weave 😂🤣
This Mall is definitely not coming back.
You're not coming back
Tumble-weaves are always a bad sign
Claudio Diaz 😢😢😢😢😫
No shit
@laurenmlahrman yes it will. Everything dies eventually. Everything.
I just watched a huge piece of my childhood died right before my eyes. Once a week every week during the summer I went with Grandma to JCPenney's while she got her hair done. Grandpa would take me to the Eatery where most days I got to see Muhammad Ali. Then I would go into the arcade and play video games. I had two little friends that their parents owned the arcade. Some days when Grandma was babysitting them I got to play in the arcade with the owner's daughters.
Close to the same thing here except that I never saw Ali in the mall. Visited him a couple times at his house in Berrien though.
Maybe they will do better, there's a real buzz about that mall...
Hahaha
Its electric
😂
and it's not the bees in your bonnet. Seriously, I'd probably be a slacker too, if I had to listen to that for 8 hours every day.
Love the tumble weave just chilling in the parking lot 🤣
All malls will die eventually. Thanks to amazon, ebay and online shopping.
AlexVids you’re right
eBay? What’s that?
Thank you Lord Bezos for turning us into technological zombies. It's sad to see these go but we saw it coming.
Nothing lasts forever
Yeah thoes are not LED lights, they are an older style that has not been replaced
I live in this town and I used to go the mall often for the jc Penny's lol and the candy in those machines hasn't been changed ina few years
This is the NOISIEST dead mall I’ve ever watched! What the heck!
When a bird's ass through a skylight is the most inviting thing a mall has to offer, you know shit's dead.
I visited this mall scores of times as family lived in Michigan. In the '80s and even early '90s it was a great place, top stores, food, all of it, great bookstores and even an arcade. After a long absence, dropped by in 2005 and stunned to see how it had fallen. Just sad to see a great mall fall apart like this after so many great memories.
As soon as that thug element starts trouble and any kind of violent crime occurs, the retailers flee as well as the shoppers and residents around the mall, they are replaced with lower income who can't sustain a big mall like this once was, many many malls have met this fate
I'm a shopper and I dont flee from that
laurenmlahrman The Red Lobster manager got stabbed to death. It’s in the video.
@@TheRealCaptainFreedom that wasn’t at this establishment. That was at his establishment. Nothing or no thugs are doing anything at this mall.
The previous owners had an opportunity to open up a section of the mall for Fourwinds Casino slots and a few tables. Rumor had it that the City was willing to rezone for it. However, from what I understand, JoAnne Fabrics had clauses in their contract that disallowed things like Tattoo shops, Lingerie shops, Movie theaters, and Casinos thus basically helping to kill off any potential opportunites from these avenues.
Yes, JoAnns may be a good store as a stand alone, but corporate clauses are crap, Slackers only was avle to go in because they signed their contract before joanns
Who the hell does Joann think she is putting moral clauses in her name contact?
Joann sounds like a real Karen.
That lady at the end thinking the mall will come back is insane.
On this day 16 years ago, 9-30-03, I first visited Benton Harbor, Michigan, and my apologies to the property owner of 2522 Woodley Drive where Woodley turns into Townline Rd. for trespassing into the yard to get across the trees and bushes and onto the eastbound lanes of I-94 just so I could take a picture of a Speed Limit 70 Trucks 55 sign.
Eccckkk! I can feel the lights crackling & buzzing behind my eyeballs. 😬
2:15 Bro, you found my weave! Thank you! I've been looking everywhere!!!
I went here in 2004 and even then it was probably half full at the most. What was most surprising is that it had THREE bookstores at the time. One of them was a discount book outlet in the Slackers space, which at the time still had signage from its original tenant, Lerner New York. Subway and Great Steak were the only restaurants in the food court, and the former Walgreens (now Jo-Ann's) had been vacant over a decade.
I'm amazed at how shopworn the mall looks in your video.
York Steak House was actually just off the JCPenney wing. The space was later Bonanza, then Ponderosa. It sat empty for over 15 years and later became a couple other short-lived restaurants.
Just turn it into a prison, It sounds like the town needs one. However even in Prison the lights don't buzz like that. Sorry but that alone is enough to shut it down!
Thanks for the tour.
It is not sad, it s the final step of consumerism. An opportunity to start something new. Humanity went wrong and will die to keep on like that.
The Orchards Mall symbolizes the entire experience of living in Michigan. First the stupid politicians rezone something scenic and beautiful into something that sucks life out of the city’s core. Then the decline begins. First it declines a little, and you adjust. Then it declines a little more, and you adjust. Finally one day you realize you live in a pit, and the world has passed you by, so you just defend what you’ve got, and live in the past. Sure the Orchards Mall is gonna come back.. sure it is. It's Pure Michigan.
Well said sir
This is beyond sad! I was just there in December and I couldn’t believe my eyes😱, it use to be really nice back in the day! Was glad to go back home!😔😔😔😔
I can’t believe how noisy those LED lamps are, that’s just not normal.
Not LED. Old metal Halide lights.
That would drive anyone away.
Slackers is still in buisness, i promise you, a cranky old guy runs that store.
Omg! That light noise is making me sick!
brutalictesku it’s actually the transformers. No stores are open to draw power from them. So they are overloaded.
@@yankees29 Wow so you can literally hear the mall dying.
PirateTube TV basically yeah.😂😂
The force ghost voices at the end was a nice touch. Gave me some feels.
I feel sad seeing those empty arcades
wow, as a dawn of the dawn 1978 fan, the vehicles inside gives it that vibe!
Going to the Mall was a big thing when I was a teen. I think the malls are disintegrating due to online shopping. You have Amazon, etc. Stuff gets delivered to your door. Rent is high for store owners and the increased prices go to the customers. You can't save a mall and bring in new stores if there are no customers. Then with the economy as it is, high crime I think reduces customers to go to a mall.
jthoen61 well yeah
This mall in particular was dying long before online shopping became a thing. And the new owners really haven't done anything at all to breathe any life into it.
So many malls across the USA are falling apart as well🤦🏽♀️
Should have left it an apple orchard
I agree with you 100% I used to walk through the apple trees where that mall is now I now live in San Diego California
And your parent's should have left you as a seed. Your point tree hugger?
@@henrycantrell6397 Damn. I mean free apples!.
When you go to the mall, you are usually the only one there, walking by vacant stores. You feel like you're in one of those movies where you are the last survivor on Earth after some mass destruction event.
It's Michigan. It has no chance of coming back.
To be fair, the mall is just a symptom of the larger problem: Benton Harbor has been bleeding people for decades. It's not just the mall that's empty...it's the whole town.
Really, that is not the truth
@@nekronus_dubz your point? Because all I see is there are 9,800+ ppl who have no where to shop. 🤷🏽♀️
@@nekronus_dubz the whole town is not empty. That is in fact incorrect. A population of 9,800 is not empty. So therefore the statement is incorrect. How about you do some research on staying the hell out of my replies. To save yourself the embarrassment of wasting my time. 🖕🏽✌🏽
The mall was a major part of me and nearly everyone's childhood what has destroyed it is the news and people like y'all
I remember in the mid to late 90's we use to come here all the time when I was a kid. I remember seeing Santa here and going to KB toys and FYI... its a shame what it has become.
That noise is the ballast in a florescent light unit. It makes that noise when they get old and ready to pop.
I don't understand why the mall owner would give 3 years free rent only to leave it in disrepair to want them to leave.
That makes no sense but 3 years free rent definitely was nice on the owners.
" Lets go to Benton Harbor and go shopping, it's safe"
-Said no person ever-
It is safe and I’m sure you been shopping here.
Since you on this post, you must have lived right?
I live in a town called coloma just a little ways away from Benton harbor and I've been going to this mall all my life as a kid it wasnt too bad but now it's only has a few stores open the rainbow clothing store shown in this vid is now closed the only remaining store are the slackers arcade the bath and body works and a few thrift type shops and that's all
@laurenmlahrman it's a great theater they just updated their seats not too long ago which was noce
Yes I lived in watervliet and we used to go there a bunch! It's so sad to see because I remember going there when I was super young
Unfortunately this happens when the area has no jobs. You can’t spend to support the retailers if there’re no income to spend.
Another awesome episode RR. Nice work! Thank you.👍🏼🤘🏼😎
I can't believe how noisy those lights are... what the heck? Just a constant buzzing throughout the whole video. There has to be some kind of overload situation..
My store is doing great, stop on by 40s&9s in the mall next time
2:20 Try and capture more wind next time. There wasn't nearly enough wind.
I am surprised this mall is still open man that food court when we were there 2 years ago was silly looking i remember in 2005 we went here and it was on and poppin
I used to go to that mall in the early 2000s. I live a town over and the mall isn't gonna live much longer. Hopefully they can get a superstore of some sort on there, or it's all over for my former favorite mall.
Ayee which town you live in lol I'm also a town over in coloma
@@katelynkatelyn8607 I'm in St.joe
You did not encounter any security guards. You must be lucky. Some others who film these malls, dying or otherwise, would run the risk of encountering mall security.
Lmfao the orchard mall has NO security guards
@@bigboo957 I guess you must be lucky. Still, please do not be mischievous.
@@norbertop.niebres6320 🤣
@@bigboo957 i dunno my man aroundindiana when he filmed there security busted him
@@talesfromthelotuspodcast they used to have a few but not anymore man
3 things killed this mall (and many others like it). 1)the internet , 2)diminished industrial/economic base, 3)lack of any sufficient alternative customer base. Even during "The Great Recession" the University Park Mall in Mishawaka was quite busy, (seriously, most of the time you wouldn't have known there WAS a recession) probably due to having their own version of factor #3-close proximity to a major university. (Notre Dame)
That hair weave in the parking lot is nasty! And I couldn't take the noise of the lights. I would have to wear noise cancelling headphones or ear plugs in there.
I went there recently and now they dont have the bouncy castles and theres just dead birds everywhere in the parking lot and a whole bunch of stores closed and the only stand out place there was the arcade it looks so much worse now.
Jeff should turn dead malls into Amazon shipping centers/warehouses
Wss that a tumbleweave in the parking lot???
IMO it's the noise from the damn lights that drove people away!
Yes!! I commented on another video saying you should do this mall and you did! I live about an hour away from this mall and it’s the worst!
This will all change
ayy who out here representing from ST. JOE, MI?
Stevensville so pretty close
Fuck the bears
This is a sad place
Phoenicius Infinius Infensas St Jo? That is where Kenny Smith is from.
Baroda Michigan
I lived in St. Joseph from '79 to '82. This was a pretty decent mall back then.
Man that looked pretty cool, Things are gone too soon ;( Im also reading the comments about people going and working there, but I love the feeling it gives off.
I helped open a shoe store in the mall before the mall opened. It didn’t take long for the community to ruin it so people from St. Joe wouldn’t shop the mall. It was only built to keep Whirlpool World Headquarters, Battle Creek did the same thing with Lakeview Square to try and keep Kellogg’s World Headquarters
My wifes dad ran the Buster Brown(?) Shoe store and her mom ran the Ice Cream shop in the Food Court back in the day. She has found memories of the mall in its prime.
So very sad, we used to go there all the time. I was there this Summer and could not believe how bad it was in there.
Those lights.... holy cow
Reminds me of North Hills Mall in North Richland Hills, Texas. It died in the mid 2000's, and was torn down at the end of the decade.
The noise from those lights, is enough to keep all spores at bay, and keep all vermin away!
My local mall just built a 4 story parking structure to accommodate the ever growing influx of shoppers and it’s a luxury mall with Gucci, Balenciaga, Chanel etc with also the typical stuff like H&M and Zara.
Those lights were installed to ensure no one would stay and shop in the mall. No wonder the stores were unstaffed, you couldnt spend more than a few minutes with that buzzing
Tell me about it. I keep a bottle of ibuprofen next to my desk working there now.
Does the place really buzz that loudly?? The sound would drive me away!
It's been doing that for a few years now I believe
I remember back when there was an Arcade where Jo-ann fabrics. It had two incarnations.
How sad, but if nobody has shopped there for years, it can never make a comeback. Since when has JC Penny been an attraction anyway?
markymarkmark48 when your other shopping choice is TJ Maxx, Meijer, and Walmart in the area it use to be a decent place. But JC Penny went downhill with the mall. The next town with multiple clothing stores are about 20-30min away. You shop where you can.
My boyfriend and I love this place because we just like to walk by Doctor Zzzs mattress store and watch the worker guy play world of warcraft on his computer. It's the most exciting part of this mall.
The town needs to come together and save it . Let’s go!
Could it be that there are so many dead malls because everyone's addicted to their phones and would rather stay inside?
Sorry, I didn’t hear you. I was watching the video on my phone.
This damned worthless technology is bringing the country down...
Ass...
This video is hard to watch. I grew up in nearby St. Joe. I remember my grandparents taking me to Ponderosa that was attached to the mall in the early 90s, which was then always followed up to a trip to KB Toys. Used to have a pet store in the corner next to JC Penneys also, and a great arcade near the food court. Sad to see its current state. Very fond memories of this mall in the late 80s to mid 90s. 💔
Who can even afford to shop at malls? The middle class doesn’t exist anymore
kek I just looked up Benton on Wikipedia, those demographics ouch!
yup this is the 2nd worse city in michigan with the first being detroit
@@glenn5517 Detroit ain’t as bad as most people are saying it is. Now Flint and Saginaw? Yeah no thanks.
Lol I like how half of yall talking about bh and not even from there talking about its sad........... but scared to even drive thru there. Trying helping instead of complaining about some stuff that ppl have been plotting against since forever
Yeah like the crap the former governor did when he took over the city and stole city property for the Whirlpool golf course.
Such a shame. Thirty years ago malls were de facto town squares. We got to see more of our neighbors on the other side of the development several times throughout the year while shopping at the mall. Finding out whether or not an item of clothing fit or not was determined right on the spot. Imagine that. Now, irony is noted, we're reduced to peering into our screens, pointing, clicking and waiting for our purchases to arrive.
It is so depressing to see such huge beautiful mall heading towards it's final days.
The annoying drone of the lighting is enough to keep customers away
Folks, most malls are getting like this. I work all over the states and have yet to hit a mall ( sometimes I get Sunday off) that isn't watching retailers leave.
I grew up in Benton harbor and in the 80’s and 90’s the mall was the place to go especially my favorite was the arcade area #sweetmemories and in the food court there was this cookie shop were they baked fresh cookies to order which came in purple bags and they were delicious the chocolate chip cookies were the best😋and it was a spot that sold pretty good sliced pepperoni pizza as well😋
Awesome man. I'm a new subscriber and I do a bit of the same with the malls and retail but lately it's been abandoned places. Excellent video
Who else would have been tempted to steal that giant teddy bear?
It's simply amazing that it was still there in this video. We need an update because it surely has disappeared by now residing in that environment.
I know the wireless repair center guy 😂 so random
Can anyone say DAWN OF THE DEAD ....how about a sequel?
Those lights are unacceptable for anything but college gymnasiums or warehouses
make a skatepark inside
then, other main attraction things
That's a fantastic idea. There's not much to do here in the winter months.
I grew up in the area around the time it really started dying. It sucks to see, I had some great childhood memories there.
Wow. Did you guys do one of Northland mall?
7:33 "Will return" I don't think so, Tim...
You walked right by a TRABANT at 6:17 for God's sake and didn't even pan over to show it! AARRRGGHH!! I'd go to that mall just to look at it!
WTF is a Trabant?
@@TheRealCaptainFreedom East German 2-stroke powered peoples car produced virtually unchanged from 1957 to 1990
youzzername I didn’t see any cars at 6:17, my guy.
@@TheRealCaptainFreedom You just catch a glimpse of it at the extreme left of the picture, from about 6:17 to 6:20 in the middle of the mall aisle. Like the guy videoing was oblivious to there being a car there. It's white.
youzzername cool car tho