Three businesses close their doors at Pine Ridge Mall

Three more businesses left the Pine Ridge Mall in Chubbuck this past week: Orange Julius, Mario’s, and Royal Laundry all closed-up shop by the start of this week.

Mall director Nicole Merrill said both Mario’s and Orange Julius were owned by the same person, who had been asked by the Orange Julius franchise to make some pricey upgrades. He instead opted-out and when he left, the mall purchased the equipment from him in hopes to attract more food retailers to fill those two vacancies soon.

“We’re actually seeing growth in the mall,” Merrill said, recalling this past year’s numbers. “Deseret Book is up, Fanzz is up, Foot Locker is up, Payless is up, Pretzel Maker is up, and even Vanity is setting record numbers since it’s up 30 percent year-to-date.”

Merrill said despite these recent closures, following the announcement just months after Sears would be closing its doors as well, the mall is actually showing more growth since the mall’s new owners took over in December 2013.

“In fact we’ve had an increase in traffic over these past several months. In less than a year, they were able to fill an empty anchor spot that has been vacant for five years, 60,000 square feet, and that’s almost unheard of,” Merrill said.

Of course, she’s talking about the new C-A-L Ranch store that moved in this past year.

“They are setting record numbers within their own company,” she added.

Frank Dodge has owned the retail store Snappy’s within the mall for the past eight years. He said he’s noticed companies come and go throughout the years, but isn’t too worried about his business facing the red.

“The last few years have been hard for a lot of retail stores all over the country,” Dodge said. “I mean, you’re always going to see a store come and go but it’s not as bad as it once was.”

He said it’s cyclical – where most folks are drawn to shop in other communities such as Idaho Falls or even Salt Lake City, he said this is just exasperating the problem.

“I think the people in the community can determine somewhat how well businesses do. If they support the mall, then the mall will do well. If people don’t come to the mall, then you can’t have new stores coming in if people aren’t going to use them,” he added.

Merrill said things are looking up for the future trajectory of Pine Ridge.

She said there are already several companies looking to move in to both the former Sears building and even the lot where the former Carmike Cinemas theater sat for years.

But, we won’t have any spoilers quite yet.