HALIFAX—The announcement of a $55-million revitalization for Dartmouth’s Mic Mac Mall this week is exciting news at a time when retail is struggling, says a Halifax business professor.

“It tells us that malls are still alive. Malls for decades now have become almost community centres where people like to congregate and meet and besides shopping, do some recreation, you know like walks, et cetera,” said Ed McHugh, a business professor at the Nova Scotia Community College.

“I think what it shows is the concept of face-to-face shopping in a mall setting still can be a pretty good way to go.”

On Wednesday, real-estate company Ivanhoé Cambridge announced the renovation of the busy Dartmouth shopping centre. The project will include numerous upgrades and a new retail offering with the Linen Chest.

“I’m surprised that they’re doing a major renovation because my sense of the place was it wasn’t feeling run down to me. However, on the other hand when you walk into the Halifax Shopping Centre there’s a marked difference in the quality of the experience there after their recent renovations,” McHugh said.

“They did a superb job. I think this is a bit of the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ because when you think about it and break shoppers down into segments, their biggest competitor is the Halifax Shopping Centre.”

McHugh said the recent refresh of the Halifax Shopping Centre and the upcoming revitalization of Mic Mac Mall come at an interesting time, as the continued growth of online shopping keeps cutting into retail profits. Last year, major Wall Street firm Credit Suisse predicted that 20 to 25 per cent of all malls in the U.S. will close by the year 2022. There’s even a website, deadmalls.com, dedicated to the stories of dead and dying malls.

“Retail is struggling … The trend that’s really bugging retail is the trend where people go online, look for a product, kind of figure out what they want, then go to the store, try it on, touch it, feel it, and then go back home and order it online,” McHugh said.

“You have to come back at it with good face-to-face service and keep your prices reasonable, and the real one way you do combat it is with good customer service. That will win it for you, but the problem with that is increased staff and increased costs, and so they’re in for a battle.”

McHugh said that although many neighbourhood malls are facing significant challenges in today’s retail landscape, regional malls like Mic Mac Mall, the Halifax Shopping Centre — and further afield, Square One in Mississauga, Ont., and the West Edmonton Mall — continue to thrive.

“Those malls are still doing fine. The good news is that (Ivanhoé Cambridge) is a smart company, so they’ve obviously done their research and have looked ahead and figured that the Mic Mac Mall is viable and it’s got a good future,” he said.

“Otherwise they certainly wouldn’t be doing this, so I think it’s quite exciting. So many stories these days are about cutbacks and job losses and the use of artificial intelligence, et cetera, to take jobs out of the market. So I think this news is absolutely great for us here.”

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Yvette d’Entremont is a Halifax-based reporter covering health, environment and education. Follow her on Twitter: @ydentremont

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