It's too bad, but Shadow Lake truly has never quite lived up to expectations. The mall portion of Shadow Lake (not the perimeter grocery store and restaurants) now feels like it's in a death spiral. It opened right before the economy tanked in the mid 2000's and has endured the struggles of retail in the internet age. Even from the start, high profile bays were filled with things like Dollar Stores (which you know wasn't their intent). It's also suffered from the opening of the Gretna outlet malls which took several stores and attention from the mall. There are still bays that have never really been filled. There are parcels of land that have never been developed.debradomayer wrote:I was out there last month and counted 9 empty storefronts on the "main" street, not including the Gordmans building. That's quite a few!
On another note, I've often heard complaints that the stores they did put in were too small. Almost "mini-me" versions of their counterparts at places like Westroads and Oak View. My wife has often complained about going there only to be told, "we don't have that here, but it's in stock at oak view." She heard that enough to the point where she simply doesn't shop at Shadow Lake anymore.
It's too bad, but Shadow Lake was and is a truly underwhelming project. I'm not even sure Shadow Lake can be saved at this point in terms of being a large scale shopping destination. May as well get rid of at least half of that center strip. They may never fill it, not with the development going in on 84th Street.