F  L  A  U  N  T

Few images sum up the post-Amazon America better than the various photo galleries of abandoned shopping malls that get shared and re-shared online every few months. An eerie cavalcade of dead plants, smashed windows, water-stained ceiling tiles, broken mannequins, and moldering signs for big box retailers like JCPenney and Montgomery Ward.

The shuttering of malls feels almost inevitable, especially in the wake of an ongoing pandemic that forced so many of us to do our shopping online. According to one estimate, nearly a third of enclosed shopping malls in America will be closed by 2030.

And even while they remain open, the malls are a shadow of their former glory. As reported by the New York Times last year, in the 1,000 enclosed malls in America that the real estate analytics group Green Street tracks, “there are about 750 vacant anchor boxes — vast spaces that once housed chains like Sears, Nordstrom and Macy’s.”

To see this in practice, look no further than Lloyd Center in Portland, Oregon. The big stores that were anchors for this once-bustling shopping mall have pulled up stakes over the past seven years, leaving only a handful of national chains like Barnes & Noble and Forever21, a few locally-owned shops, and the famed ice rink where future reality TV personality Tonya Harding first learned to skate. As recently as late last year, Lloyd Center’s owners were set to foreclose on the property and close it forever.

But a curious thing happened on the way to demolition. Seattle-based property management group Urban Renaissance Group took over operation of Lloyd Center and started a campaign to entice small local businesses to take over some of the vacant shops with cheap rent and low overhead. And, in keeping with Portland’s status as a mecca for indie innovation, the first group of folks to take advantage of this opportunity are a gaggle of scrappy, artful folk looking to turn the mall into a new cultural hub.

Leading this influx is Musique Plastique, an independent record store and label with an emphasis on forward-thinking dance music and avant-pop owned by Tony Remple. After the pandemic forced the abandonment of the shop’s first physical location, Remple shifted to online sales as he waited for the coronavirus to loosen its grip on the world. When the notion of renting space in Lloyd Center came across his desk, it felt like a strangely perfect fit.

“The concept of the modern mall evokes images of corporate sheen and chain stores, including (when they were still a viable “big business” entity) record shops,” Remple says, “and I loved the idea of bringing an independent version of that into this space.”

The result is a wonderful touch of cognitive dissonance for visitors to the mall. Situated mere feet from the ice rink in a location that once housed a Lids outlet, Musique Plastique is a slightly startling presence with its racks of LPs, vintage Bauhaus poster hanging on the wall, and, in a window overlooking a bank of gumball machines and a photo booth, a DJ set up where Remple’s co-lessee, internet radio station Intro To Rhythm, swaps in selectors during business hours.

“We were kind of riffing one day like, ‘This would be funny,’” says ITR co-founder Dane Overton. “‘Even if it doesn’t work out and we’re only there for a month, it would be hilarious, fun, and funny.’ Now that we’ve been here, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is actually really cool.’ We thought this place was going to be very monocultural and completely abandoned. It’s really surprising to find out that it isn’t. There’s all types of people coming through here of all age groups. It actually has a lot of potential.”

Remple and Overton are clearly not alone in seeing the possibilities of Lloyd Center as other tenants are about to follow their lead. Dreem Street, creators of handmade t-shirts and wearables, are set to open a boutique, and funny book purveyors Floating World Comics is about to relocate there. Musician Carly Barton also has designs on opening a space that will be part retail space, part sound art gallery.

“I’m telling all of my punk friends who make weird stuff and want to do any sort of community space stuff, now’s the time,” Barton says. This move by Portland’s underground art and indie retail community comes at the perfect time, too. Nostalgia for malls and mall culture is reaching a fever pitch thanks to ’80s-set streaming shows like Stranger Things, GLOW, and Physical, and Billie Eilish paying homage to her adolescent hang, the Glendale Galleria, in the video she made for “Therefore I Am.”

The crew of people looking to revitalize Lloyd Center also feels like a low-key, DIY version of what is happening at New York’s Chinatown Mall where artful furnishings dealer Superhouse, and art galleries Tif Sigfrids and Brackett Creek Exhibitions have opened up shop in recent months.

“The Chinatown Mall is an interesting space because it’s hard to find,” says Tessa Granowski, co-founder of Brackett Creek, the gallery which will soon be joining Dreem Street in its Lloyd Center storefront. “People, if they weren’t planning on finding it, feel very accomplished and interested because they’re like, ‘Wow, I found this thing and it’s my secret.’ They end up spending a lot more time in it because they don’t expect to see art up there.”

That feeling of a pleasant surprise was prevalent among the ice skaters and teens who stumbled upon the recent launch party for Musique Plastique and Intro To Rhythm at Lloyd Center. For the patrons of the shop flipping through import house 12”s or sipping boba tea from the upstairs food cart, the prevalent mood was of bemusement and celebration. Though shows and parties have returned to life in Portland over the past year, this felt like an oasis — a hub for community away from the elements and a respite from the deluge of bad news clogging our social media feeds.

“Jason Leivian [of Floating World Comics] said recently that the mall is either post-apocalyptic or pre-utopian, and that we get to decide,” says Remple. “I love this and I couldn’t agree more.”