Melissa Knapke has been coming to Newport on the Levee for as long as she can remember, but lately the once-cutting edge retail center has let her down.

"The mall is starting to look dated, and it just isn't as lively as it used to be,'' the Amberley Village woman said Tuesday as she sipped coffee with a friend.

Even the mall's new owner agrees the mall could use a facelift to restore its lost luster.

"We’re taking on an asset that we think has been very under-managed and neglected,'' said Tom Williams, president and CEO of Downtown-based North American Properties, which purchased the mall late last year for an undisclosed price.

Still, Williams is confident the 380,000-square-foot, town-center-style shopping center can make a comeback with the right mix of food, retail and entertainment.

And the developer has committed a total investment, including the purchase price, of $100 million to put the "new'' back in Newport on the Levee – the theme of a new marketing campaign for the mall adjacent to the Purple People Bridge along the Ohio River.

So far, no new tenants have been announced, and plans to reconfigure the mall's physical format are still in the early stages.

But the need to rethink the mall has become increasingly clear in recent months.

On Jan. 1, Mitchell's Fish Market, a fixture at the mall since it opened in 2001, abruptly shut its doors.

The seafood chain's owners offered no details on why the restaurant closed.

Data obtained by The Enquirer suggests the restaurant may have been hurt by declining foot traffic, which continues to plague malls across America.

Annual parking revenue for Newport on the Levee – perhaps the best indicator of foot traffic at a mall – has plummeted more than 40 percent from its peak in 2013, according to figures from Newport City Manager Tom Fromme's office.

Last year, the mall raked in $2.31 million in parking receipts, compared to about $3.3 million in 2013. It was the lowest figure in more than a decade, even compared to the dip in parking revenues during the Great Recession.

Turning those numbers around won't be easy.

Mall traffic has been in decline across the country for most of the past decade as more and more people shun bricks-and-mortar retail and take their business online.

Mall vacancies up. Foot traffic down.

Mall vacancies have climbed to their highest levels in seven years,according to data from real-estate research firm Reis Inc.

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While no mall is immune, Newport's owners hope to buck the trend by transforming the mall into the city's main public gathering spot as well as a shopping location.

The developer is already working on a so-called "activation'' program, set to launch in March, in which the mall will host two to three community events each week, such as yoga and morning bike rides.

"This isn’t about malls, and this isn’t about shopping. This is about experience and community,'' Williams told The Enquirer.

Knapke and her friend Dawn Freudenberg of Pleasant Ridge represent the developer's target audience.

They both said they'd visit more often if the mall offered more activities and adult-themed entertainment options.

The duo hit the mall earlier this week to bring their school-aged children to the recently opened Dart Rush, a 4,500-square-foot indoor arena for dart games that are like laser tag with Nerf guns.

Dart Rush, on the main floor of the mall's AMC theater building, is popular with teens and adolescents. But for Knapke and Freudenberg, the fun stops when their kids stop playing.

Date night at the mall? "Not really.''

"It's not really a place you would go on a date night,'' Freudenberg said, sipping her drink from the Cosmic Coffee coffeehouse, just outside Dart Rush.

That was the general sentiment expressed by the vast majority of people who responded to a social media campaign earlier this month soliciting ideas for the mall, according to Tim Perry, partner and chief investment officer at North American.

Nearly 90 percent of respondents said they wanted a live music venue, mirroring plans for a concert hall at The Banks – the Newport mall's main rival on the Cincinnati side of the Ohio River.

A majority also wanted a wider variety of dine-in restaurants and quick-casual food options.

Others wanted more special events and activities.

"Give us an experience. Give us something we can enjoy after we take our kids to the (Newport) Aquarium. That's what the community told us,'' Perry said.

Mary Beth Crocker, who has lived in the East Row Historic District just east of the mall since 1993, said she's excited about the new vision for the mall and was one of the first to submit her suggestions.

Her idea to cross-market new activities at the mall with well-established local events, such as the annual East Row Victorian Christmas Tour and Newport Garden Walk yielded a pleasant surprise.

Ideas for the mall? Let's do lunch, developer says

Crocker said she was invited to have lunch with Perry and other North American officials at the mall's Brio Tuscan Grille, where, she said, they "just brainstormed" about the future of the mall.

"They're planning some drastic changes,'' Crocker said. "They're focusing a lot of interest in the front of the area of the mall to make it more beautiful and more pedestrian friendly, and they also want to focus on the river side of the mall because the view from there is so beautiful.''

Perry said it was too early to discuss details of the physical transformations planned at the mall, but he said new construction is slated to begin this summer.

In general, plans call for re-configuring the mall's physical footprint to create more parking and a new network of pedestrian walkways to increase visibility for tenants and access for customers.

The new design would also allow better flow to nearby hotels, apartments and other mixed-use developments, such as the Academy on 4th apartment-and-retail development expected to open across the street from the mall later this year.

"We're creating a porous environment that will be welcoming to anyone who wants to cross the bridge or cross the street,'' Perry said. "Ultimately, this becomes a regional draw that brings community on both sides of the river together.’’

Mall still has strong anchor tenants

In the meantime, the mall still has a lot going for it, Williams said, including strong anchor tenants that draw the lion's share of the estimated 3.5 million in annual attendance.

Those tenants include a massive Barnes & Noble bookstore, the recently remodeled, 20-screen AMC Newport on the Levee theater and the Newport Aquarium, which showcases thousands of fish and marine mammals from around the world.

All three declined to release attendance and revenue figures.

But rest assured, "they still attract a ton of customers,'' Williams said.