Strome Business Minute With Dr. Jeff Tanner

I’m Jeff Tanner, Dean of the Strome College of Business at Old Dominion University and this is a Strome Business Minute. Norfolk mall MacArthur Center will lose three more stores by the end of the month, J Crew, Fossil and Brighton. This mall is actually a good traffic mall during the year but the holiday season didn’t seem to go well as the mall was empty just before Christmas. The broader question being debated is whether there is a future for malls while the local question is what to do with MacArthur. What some call the death of traditional retail is really just normal comings and goings as fashion tastes change and companies fail to keep up. That’s my sense of all three – they have problems in merchandise mix rather than how they market. But that doesn’t answer the question of what to do with the mall. To learn more, visit odu.edu/business. This Strome Business Minute is presented by the Strome College of Business at Old Dominion University.