Rotterdam

Growing up in Queensbury, Pete Blackbird spent much of his youth, like many kids, in the mall.

He developed a fascination with malls, especially after seeing a dying one on vacation in Maine with his family. So for his 19th birthday, his friend Brian Florence created a website for him, deadmalls.com, where he could post photos and stories about the half-empty shopping centers that fascinated him.

That was 1999 and, as malls have struggled, the site has flourished. Today there are profiles of more than 400 malls in 45 states, as well as some in Canada, China and New Zealand.

Blackbird is surprised how the website has taken off. He and Florence now both live in Glens Falls, where they continue to run the site as well as one that reflects Brian's interest in unusual soda brands, sodafinder.com.

When the site started, Blackbird thought he'd have a place to post pictures of the malls he visited, and maybe a few people from the area would be interested.

"I figured there would be a few people in a finite area," he said. "I just wanted leads so I could go to dying malls, take pictures and put them on the website."

He'd started with Capital Region sites like Mohawk Mall, Northway Mall and Latham Circle. When he attended Cazenovia College, he found several in the Syracuse area.

Now he travels every year to find new ones.

"I put 40,000 to 50,000 miles a year on my car trying to get to all these places," he said. "We have people email us what they know about malls, send us pictures."

During the 17 years he has been doing this, Blackbird said, malls have struggled more. One recent article predicted two-thirds of American malls would close in the next decade.

Blackbird can't envision it. He worries where teenagers would go to spend time with their peers.

"You can't just hang out at Wal-Mart or meet your friends at Target," he said. "I don't know where it goes from here."

He has opinions, sure, but he laughs at the idea that he's any kind of expert, though the website has been mentioned in dozens of news stories from The New York Times to Florida Today to CNN Money.

And one Turkish company, Soysal, actually flew him there in 2008 to look at Turkish malls, give a speech and tell staff what he thought.

"American suburban malls are kind of throwaway structures," he said. "They are flimsy, they are cheap, and they are hard to renovate."

He was fascinated to see the Turkish malls, which were four stories high with marble used in construction.

He is asked if a dead mall can be revived. The question takes on greater meaning since he's talking inside Via Port Rotterdam, the former Rotterdam Square Mall that a Turkish company is trying to revive with a family entertainment center and planned aquarium.

"The people who fail at bringing malls back are the ones who try to bring it back to their former glory," he said.

To do it right, he said, the mall has to be remade.

"Clifton Country Mall was a great example when they took the roof off the place," he said. Now Clifton Park Center, a small portion of the indoor mall still exists but much of it is now outward-facing retail.

He is curious to see if the attempt to revive the Rotterdam mall is successful. He is carrying a bag with New Balance sneakers he bought at a deep discount at the Sears there, which is closing.

"I think they've got a really unique idea," he said of the mall's new owners. "This is like an experiment in my own backyard. Sears, J.C. Penney, that's the past."

Not everyone has been happy to see their mall depicted on the website. He's had people threaten to sue, and he had one person who had acquired the Irondequoit Mall in Rochester try to talk him into taking the mall off the site, claiming the mall was being turned around. He pointed out that the mall, despite a name change, was still mostly empty. The new owner claimed that there was a new "vibe."

Blackbird wasn't sold. The mall remains on the website, but no longer exists. It's really, most sincerely, dead.

Asked what value his site provides, Blackbird is initially unsure it has any.

"I don't know of its value," he said. "I like the fact it brings a sense of community to people. I want to see the shopping mall to continue on. I like to see people have a place to go to congregate and enjoying themselves."

tobrien@timesunion.com • 518-454-5092 • @timobrientu