Vancouver Mall will temporarily close starting Thursday due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. The mall had already been on reduced hours, and some of its biggest retailers temporarily shut their doors earlier this week.
According to Vancouver Mall General Manager Tracy Peters, the mall’s parent company, Centennial Real Estate, made the decision Tuesday to temporarily shutter all of the malls in its portfolio.
There is currently no estimated date for when the malls will reopen, she said.
The mall will be open Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., following the reduced schedule that it had previously adopted.
The large “anchor” retailers with outside-facing entrances are able to set their own hours independent from the rest of the mall, Peters said, so they still have the option to remain open when the mall closes. However, as of late Tuesday afternoon, all but one of those anchors had already announced that they would be temporarily shuttered as part of nationwide closures enacted by their parent companies.
Movie theater company AMC said it would close all of its theaters nationwide for at least six to 12 weeks, starting Tuesday. The company said it would pause its “A-List” subscription program while the theaters are closed, and no payments or billing will occur.
Macy’s announced that all of its stores would be closed starting at the end of the day Tuesday and continue through March 31. The company’s e-commerce sites will remain active.
H&M closed all of its stores starting Tuesday, continuing through April 2, and Gold’s Gym announced late Monday that it would close its locations nationwide.
The last anchor, JCPenney, was still operating late Tuesday. A store employee said the staff did not know what the mall’s closure would mean for the store’s operations.
American Eagle, Bath & Body Works and Men’s Warehouse had also temporarily shuttered by Tuesday, along with many of the mall’s hair and nail salon offerings.
Several entertainment-focused businesses like Lazer Blasters, PlayLIVE Nation and Reality Factory VR had also closed, and the mall had already shuttered several of its own public spaces including the kids play area, the Vancouver Mall Lounge and the seating area in the food court.
Many mall retailers remained open as of Tuesday, although some of them had limited their operations — Outback Steakhouse, for example, was serving only to-go orders due to a statewide restriction on dine-in restaurant operations, and Old Navy remained open but on reduced hours to match the mall’s abridged schedule.
