Ode To The Roseburg Valley Mall

     This isn't an ode in the traditional literary sense. But ode...a sad sense of nostalgia...seemed the appropriate word to use when describing the rise and decline of the Roseburg Valley Mall.
     The mall opened in the late 1970s at the busy intersection of Garden Valley Boulevard and Stewart Parkway. I don't remember what was there before. Probably an open field. I never went to the opening day at the mall, but my father and sister did. I remember them telling me the mall was packed with people in the corridors.
     The mall had sign-up sheets for people to sign, for stores they would like to see in the mall, but hadn't made the decision yet to settle in the mall. My sister told me the Hickory Farms sheet had a lot of signatures. Not as many signatures for Sees Candies. I guess that meant we would have to continue going to Valley River Center in Eugene whenever my father wanted to indulge in his favorite candy store. Hickory Farms never located in the mall, except to offer a holiday store during the Christmas season.
     At least there was an Orange Julius, a favorite place that my father remembered from California. I never did order an Orange Julius with a raw egg added to the drink. Just as well. Orange Julius no longer offers a raw egg as an option.
     As for me, the most glaring discrepancy in the mall was the lack of a pet store. However, they did have a Waldenbooks. If I wanted to get a Hardy Boys book, I wouldn't have to travel to a B. Dalton in Eugene or Portland, or order them through the mail anymore. The mall had a hobby store where I could check out the model railroad merchandise. The Roseburg Valley Mall had something for everyone.
     Weisfelds and Zales jewelers were conveniently located across from each other at the crossroads inside the mall. There was no food court, but the few restaurants inside the mall each had their own seating areas. Skippers Seafood & Chowder House was strategically located inside the front entrance of the mall. Orange Julius was at the crossroads, and Taco Time had a restaurant with an atrium window dining room at the back entrance of the mall.
     When I worked as a Roseburg-based reporter for different television stations, I would often venture to the Roseburg Valley Mall to do holiday-related shopping stories. Unfortunately, the mall security guards/janitors were less than cordial with me. A man with a television camera was obviously looking for a controversial story. Never mind all of the free publicity that a television news story could provide the local merchants. Mall security often attempted to give me the bum's rush.
     If I couldn't take pictures or talk with people inside the mall corridors, then I would try to take pictures inside a store. Some stories cited corporate policy against news media, but occasionally I would find a locally-owned store that would welcome me inside their business.
     Occasionally, the mall management would grant me permission to take pictures inside the mall. The one stipulation was that I was prohibited from taking exterior pictures of Kaybee Toy & Hobby. That restriction always seemed strange to me, until years later when the news broke that the management of Kaybee were selling/dealing drugs out of the store. NOW it made sense why the store didn't want anyone taking pictures outside their business. This incident only reinforced my belief that anyone who tries to bar the media from accessing a public site definitely has something to hide.
     I think the Roseburg Valley Mall had more than 30 stores inside the mall when it first opened. Today, I can only think of two anchor stores and four others stores that were there on opening day and are still in business: Rite-Aid (formerly Pay Less); Macy's (formerly the Bon Marche', formerly the Bon); Radio Shack; Hallmark; Orange Julius; and Regis Hairstylists.
     In its early days, the interior of the Roseburg Valley Mall was more attractive than it is now. The corridors had plants in the middle and comfortable seats around the plants. Today, the hollow corridors seem empty and uninviting with a few uncomfortable round stool-like chairs in the middle of the corridor.
     The mall needs to decide what kind of image it wants to convey to the community. Is it a mall or a shopping center? Since Sears has left the mall, three outside-entrance stores have replaced the anchor store. It's not going to help the traffic flow of inside merchants, if more and more stores have outside entrances that bypass the mall's corridors.
     The mall has made some improvements since new owners have recently taken over. Instead of a bland brown exterior wallscape, some of the businesses now have different colored outside facades. But inside improvements must take place as well. Bring back some plants. Perhaps even think outside of the box. Invite the Umpqua Model Railroaders to build a permanent enclosed railroad display in the middle of one of the corridors. Nothing brings in children, and consequently their parents, quicker than a model railroad display. Invite a pet store or local exotic bird breeder to build a large cage in the middle of the corridor, and bring in an exotic bird; free rent and free advertising for the pet store in exchange for an "attraction" that brings people into the mall.
     I wish the Roseburg Valley Mall well in its future endeavors. I'm sad to say there are no longer any stores in the mall that I need to patronize. I'm not a teen-ager looking for clothes and I already have a cell phone. (Oops, I forgot. Some of the cell phone companies have already exited the mall.) If my mother didn't shop at the shoe store inside the mall, I wouldn't visit the mall at all. Please give me a reason to want to return to the Roseburg Valley Mall!