The struggling Phillipsburg Mall needed a tenant, and Two Rivers Roller Derby needed a home. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

A year ago, the rectangular spaces along the wall were retail displays. Now, they’re essentially lockers -- a place to sit and remove your roller skates after hours of agility drills and contact workouts.

Where there had once been clothing racks and shelves and carpet, there was now a few folding chairs, cones and a taped-off track on the bare concrete floor.

The lights outside the windows had dimmed. The few passersby on a Thursday night had stopped appearing before closing time an hour earlier, when the store across the way turned off its lights and pulled down the gate.

The dozen or so skaters of the Two Rivers Roller Derby team practicing that night were probably the last people inside the Phillipsburg Mall.

They're not a store, but they are the newest tenant of a shopping center beset by vacancies.

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A pair of skates hang in what was once a Old Navy clothing rack on one side of the cavernous storefront that is now a Two Rivers Roller Derby practice track. The skate is signed by Suzy Hotrod, a star of the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league and a Team USA member who did a clinic with Two Rivers in the team's early days. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

“We are just kind of trained to always be looking at new spaces, like: ‘Could I skate there? Could I lay a track there?’ Because space is so hard to come by for derby teams,” said Christine Marto, aka “Apocalypse Frau,” a derby skater and president of Two Rivers’ board of directors. It’s not uncommon, she says, for teams to approach warehouses or airport hangers – anywhere with open space and a flat, smooth floor.

The team has been around for six years and holds its home bouts at the Illick’s Mill ice rink in Bethlehem. But because of the rink’s seasonal schedule, the team never really had a full-fledged home track where it could regularly practice.

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Folding tables propped against a window are stamped property of the Phillipsburg Mall. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Meanwhile, the Phillipsburg Mall has been dealing with an increasing number of vacant stores. The 30-year-old mall near the junction of I-78 and Route 22 lost Sears, one of its original anchors, early last year and Bon-Ton not long after. Friendly's was out by year's end. H&M closed this year. So did the Hallmark store. And Victoria's Secret.

But it was the Old Navy that got the attention of one of Two Rivers’ skaters, Marto said.

That store left the mall last fall, moving to another shopping center nearby. The space it left behind was big, open, flat, with plenty of room to mark a track around the pillars. Two Rivers signed a month-to-month lease and officially announced they were home around mid-May.

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Have you figured it out yet? Our new home is at the Phillipsburg Mall! We’re so excited to have you over for our first Open House. Stay tuned for details! 💙💚✨ Posted by Two Rivers Roller Derby on Sunday, May 19, 2019

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Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com

On Thursday, as a passing family or two peered through the tall windows from inside the mall’s concourse, coach Roxann “Roxxy Fox” Pinguelo led the team through agility and contact drills. They started with 12 laps around the track before splitting up for solo and small-group exercises.

The team has about 20 members hailing from all over the Lehigh Valley, such as “Machine Gun Kelly” Rindock from Emmaus, and Ileana Allevi, aka “Illycrunch,“ an Italian immigrant living in Washington.

There’s hope that being in a visible location will boost interest and their roster. Maybe one day they can even get the mall track up to standards for hosting bouts.

Having it is gratifying, a sign the team is established, said Christine Semonek, aka “Jo Rolling,” of Easton.

“To get this space, I think we can all agree feels like we’ve opened up a huge realm of possibilities for ourselves,” she said without pausing her agility training.

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Christine Semanek, aka "Jo Rolling", of Easton, maneuvers around obstacles during a solo agility drill in front of what used to be retail displays. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

How long can this home last? The mall's owners, Mason Asset Management, based in Great Neck, N.Y., did not respond to requests for comment, but they have been open about exploring alternatives for the mall – including redevelopment.

Under the highlights section of the property's business flyer is a statement that the site "is currently being de-malled." That could mean lots of things. If they're looking for alternatives to retail, well, a roller derby track could be a good fit. But if they're looking to sell or close the mall …

The roller derby team discussed that possibility, Marto said, but they chose to take advantage of the space while it was available.

“This is the first place we’ve really been able to say we have a home base,” she said.

There's no telling the future of the Phillipsburg Mall has in store. But Two Rivers Roller Derby hopes it can call this old storefront home for a long time.

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Christine Marto, aka "Apocalypse Frau", of Nazareth, takes a warmup lap as practice gets underway. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

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Coach Roxann Pinguelo, aka "Roxxy Fox," leads the practice. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

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Skaters push each other on the smooth concrete floor of the former Old Navy store, now completely empty and ideal for use as a roller derby practice track. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

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The roller derby track opens right up to the main mall, where passersby can watch when practices are in session. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

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Skaters bring it in for a cheer at the end of practice. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

(SEE MORE PHOTOS)

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Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveNovakLVL and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.