The '80s.
Fat wallets, fast cars, flashy clothes.
It was a time when the economy was booming, credit cards were being maxed out, and indoor malls were thriving because of it.
A good example of this is the 1982 cult classic movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the quintessential "teen movie" about high schoolers in California's San Fernando Valley.
Many of the scenes were shot at the famous Sherman Oaks Galleria, a breeding ground throughout the decade for mall rats, arcade junkies, food court loiters and air-headed valley girls.
In fact, the Galleria became synonymous with the 'Valley Girl' label and its lingo like "Grody to the max", "Like, totally fer sure" and "Gag me with a spoon."
It was the mall era and many of these stereotypical characters, from soda sipping teenagers to suit-and-tie Yuppies, were found packing enclosed shopping centres across North America, not just the iconic Galleria.
In 1987, the Humboldt Mall officially opened its doors and although it's not nearly close to the category of big malls like ones in Edmonton or Minneapolis, it's a byproduct of a time before online shopping, before increased competition from foreign conglomerates, before massive strip centres with large, flashy storefronts.
It's a memory.
The decline of enclosed malls began in the 1990s with a dipping economy and the dawn of the Internet. Pretty soon, shopping centres that once played host to congested parking lots and high foot traffic were vacant, many falling into a derelict mess known as "dead malls."Empty food courts, dilapidated signs, common areas riddled with dust bunnies.
Not a person in sight, the valley girls, arcade junkies, Yuppies and mall rats becoming a faded emblem of a different time, as much as the Maytag Man, the Wendy's "Where's the beef" lady and even Mayor McCheese and the rest of the McDonaldland folks.
Yet despite the golden era of enclosed shopping malls being a distant memory, many people around Humboldt still remember what was for them, the age of youth consumerism.
Amanda Compagna remembered the former occupant of the vacant drug store at the west end of the mall.
"I remember going into Bi-Rite Drugs to buy my dad a birthday gift. My sister and I were trying to be so secretive, buying this two-drawer filing cabinet for him," Compagna recalled.
"We managed to get it into the shopping cart and were going to pay for it, not knowing that my dad was also in the store - we thought he was elsewhere. Well, I crashed the cart right into him. So much for keeping the secret!"
And then there was Boomer's music store.
"I'm sure many people my age remember buying their first cassette tape from Boomer at Top Forty record store. And his red checkered tile floor," said Humboldt resident Kristen Kunz, emphasizing that Boomer was the trendy music kingpin of Humboldt during that era.
"Everyone knew Boomer."
Compagna added to that, who remembered going into Boomer's store as a kid.
"I remember buying cassette tapes there," she said. "He took such pride in his shop, always had great memorabilia in there, tons of postersanything that a music lover could possibly want."
Store owner "Boomer", who wanted to be referenced by his nickname ("That's what everyone around here knows me by anyways," he laughed), was flattered by the nostalgic memories people have of his record store.
Top Forty records moved to the mall when it first opened in 1987, although Boomer had originally opened the store in the Geschaft centre two years prior.
A self-proclaimed music fanatic, the die-hard Led Zeppelin fan's record store was a staple of the mall for over 10 years.
"The mall was like a big family when it first opened. All us tenants were good friends, we hung out all the time."
Adrienne Ries, whose mother co-owned Towne Jewellers, echoed the exact same thought.
"My mom always said that the store owners were like one giant family back then," Ries said, and then remembered the mall's maintenance man from back then for his friendly demeanor.
"His name was Metro, he was awesome," she said.
But the years wore on and Boomer said it was around 1992 when the mall went into decline.
"It got stagnant - people were moving out and tenants weren't coming back in."
By 1998, Boomer had moved his store to Main Street, and soon sold it to Greg Bay, where it became Center Stage Music.
As for the redevelopment of the mall, Boomer, now retired, is skeptical, although he acknowledges the change can be exciting.
"I can't see it working in the long run," he said. "[Stromiga] is going to have to pump millions into it, plus nobody wants to go door to door shopping outside."
Mike Yager, owner of Spotlight Sport and Corporate Wear at the mall, agreed that it was in the '90s when the mall started losing its customer base. Yager's tenure with the Humboldt Mall dates back to when it first opened, as he worked at the Desk and Disk office store in his late teens before moving on to become an assistant manager, and later regional manager, of Met Mart, which became SAAN Store, at the mall.
"When the mall first opened, it was nuts. It was so exciting. I remember the days of Moonlight Madness when it really actually was madness," he chuckled whimsically.
"Back in the day, Boomer, the manager of the hardware store and I would sit out on the patio- well, it was just seats where the kiddie rides currently are- and we'd have our morning coffee, chat and shoot the breeze. It was awesome, we'd spend so much time doing that."
Yager looks off and smiles.
"Yah, those were the days. The mall is different now though," he went on, explaining that when he was running the SAAN store at the mall, their business was thriving.
"We had a café in the store, so people always came in for donuts, coffee, sandwiches. It was great, and during the month of December, we'd have fresh turkey cooking in the oven so the aroma would waft throughout the mall," he smiled. "Yah, we were always busy."
Despite this, knowing of SAAN's corporate struggles and sensing a foreboding end to the store, Yager left and opened up Spotlight in 2007, in a vacant spot once occupied by a Subway years prior.
As for his thoughts on the redevelopment, Yager and fiancé Shannon Beaurivage, who helps run Spotlight, admitted they had reservations at first.
"We didn't know where we'd fit in as a store," Beaurivage said. "We're not retail, we're a destination location, and we didn't know what Stromiga was planning to do or how we'd fit into it."
Yager said that when construction on the front part of the mall begins this summer, their store will have to move inside temporarily, in a space beside The Source.
"[Stromiga] has been really great about the whole thing," Yager said. "They've offered to help us out in any way they can and [owner Ron Benjamin] came by, toured our store and explained the break down of everything."
"He was really genuine," Beaurivage pipes in. "It's clear he cares about all us tenants and wants to do whatever is possible during the construction to make sure everything goes smoothly for us."
While Yager and Beaurivage have fond memories of the mall ("I think I even worked at Smitty's as a teenager for a bit!" Beaurivage said), they think the changes are a positive and will breathe new life into the plaza.
Although the Humboldt Mall still has an 82 per cent occupancy rate, the former Bi-Rite Drugs location and a vacant spot at the other end of the corridor have remained empty for over 10 years.
"The thing is that small malls don't work anymore," said Ron Benjamin, general manager for Stromiga Real Estate Development, the company that is redeveloping the Humboldt Mall.
"Big malls like the West Edmonton Mall, Chinook Centre, Midtown Plaza still work because they have many options," Benjamin explained. "Everyone has different interests so when people go to those malls, they can split up and go to the stores of their choosing, meet up at the food court, catch a movie afterwards. There's a lot going on at those types of malls. But smaller indoor malls don't work in that capacity anymore."
Another issue with smaller plazas like the Humboldt Mall is visibility; Benjamin says the stores don't receive the publicity they should because they're enclosed.
"Visibility is a big part of malls that small. All the stores end up becoming destination stores," he said, meaning people will go to the mall for one store as opposed to going there to hang out or browse around.
Ironic, because that's one of the concerns some Humboldt residents have with the indoor shopping plaza becoming exterior store fronts: that, especially in colder weather, people will dart in and out of one store as opposed to visiting all of them.
"Not true," Benjamin anticipates. "Once they're at a location, they'll go into more than one store. Weather won't have anything to do with it."
Benjamin refers to the city of Edmonton as an example.
"Edmonton gets the same cold weather as Humboldt does and their storefronts are thriving. They have both kinds of malls; large, indoor and exterior strip centres. Both can do equally as well but Humboldt doesn't have the population to have a big shopping indoor shopping mall," he said.
Besides, Benjamin said, "People already treat the mall like a strip centre anyways," going into one store instead of a bunch.
So if Humboldt residents only have the option of outdoor store fronts, does that mean people, like seniors, will have less options to choose from?
"There are definitely other places to hang out in Humboldt," Benjamin said. "You have a world-class recreational facility [the Uniplex] that honestly rivals other ones in big cities. It can put most rec centres to shame," he said. "There are lots of activities to do there."Benjamin said that although large storefronts have taken up trend in recent years, the idea of strip malls has been around for decades.
But, small strip malls and indoor plazas have fallen out of favour; in the 1990s and 2000s, no enclosed shopping malls were built in Canada, he said.
Still, Benjamin is quick to point out that the Humboldt Mall is in excellent condition compared to other indoor malls on the decline.
"It's very nicely maintained," he said. "Its physical condition is great, it's clean. It's just not making money anymore."
When the Humboldt Mall's redevelopment begins this summer, one thing that will be made-over is the parking lot, specifically redoing its traffic patterns by designating entrance and exit points with better signage.
However, as for expanding the lot, Benjamin said it won't be necessary.
"There will be enough parking for everything. Stores peak at different hours," he said, hypothesizing that grocery stores are typically busiest on weekends whereas a restaurant, which Benjamin envisions for one of the pad sites, would attract the most people in the evenings.
Even so, Benjamin said a packed parking lot isn't necessarily a bad thing.
"That's a problem I'd like to have," he laughed. "It means people are actually coming to the businesses."
The redevelopment will demolish 30,000 square feet at the back of the mall, in order to build townhouses, and will add less than 10,000 square feet on the front.
"We'll be adding less square footage than we're taking away," he said, debunking thoughts that the overhaul will encroach on the parking lot's space.
One possibility that could be added to the pad site at the parking lot's west end is a bank, although Benjamin and his team at Stromiga haven't settled on this.
He also stated that since announcing its redevelopment, Stromiga has already received an offer from a big international tenant, however Benjamin said that deal is still in the early stages and isn't finalized yet.
Another final change for the mall?
Its name.
Stromiga plans on modernizing the title to something along the lines of "Humboldt Centre" or a similar name that is contemporary, plus, he said, keeping the "mall" in the title would be misleading.
"It's not really going to be a mall anymore, so we'd have to change it, and we're open to suggestions from the public. We haven't decided on anything yet," Benjamin said.
With all the changes coming to the mall, Stromiga anticipates that they'll be for the better.
"It's absolutely a win-win situation for everyone; for the tenants, the customers, the city here. Everyone will benefit from this and we're very excited to take on this project."
Out with the old, in with the new.
Like, totally, fer sure.
