Town Square Port Orchard — Local services in Port Orchard

(TL;DR: new management wants to update the place and try to really get things going, and they're trying pretty darn hard. A work in progress, but they're doing great so far.)

It's a bit of a hidey hole of a mall, most people don't seem to even notice it's here, so shops tend to have some issues getting things going and surviving for too long, but the mall was bought up by a new owner who has seemingly made it their mission to go bananas and go full-throttle on fixing the place up and making it The Place to Be, and they're doing a pretty good job of it so far. Every business in here is run by the people that own said business, so every shop has this feeling of kind of the "American Dream" to it, where most are doing what they're doing because they love X or Y and have always dreamt of owning their own X or Y business, so just about everyone in here seems to be pretty chatty about things they believe in, showing some hefty passion about what it is they do. They're planning events, they hosted a cool Christmas event with Santa, they're remodeling everything, expanding the first floor a bit, and I think the mall has a decent chance of really getting somewhere at a time when people don't really buy in-store things anymore.

Obviously there's no big-name stores in here, they're all small businesses, usually unheard of outside of the building itself. That's both a positive and a negative, as it means you're practically blind on what's offered here, but it means everything here has a more personal touch. My favorite things here as of the time I'm writing this is the Black Ring Spirits (a distillery with a tasting room), Mexican Snack Bar (fully legit Mexican snacks and treats), and The Crossroads (a general store with a great coffee shop), but there's also a bunch of little stores and businesses scattered all around the mall.

Now onto the negatives about the mall: The big one: the parking lot is awful and falling apart. They plan to repave it and redo the parking lines, but it needs it BAD. No indoor map on Google. There's two floors and too many businesses in such a small area that Google Maps can't figure out where anything is, and I can't even fix it because it's too packed. All businesses that AREN'T in the main hall are buried in side hallways, with no chance of being seen or getting customers. I just found there's a fine art store WAY in the back at the end of a hallway that I'm not even sure is open or not, too. The mall is so old that the 1k reviews for it span, like, a decade, including my old review I deleted that gave it a bad review for being an awful decrepit mall full of weird,...

Kind of a weird experience there. I had put my application in on what I thought because of the conversation would have been the smaller office. And it was partially my fault because I realized after I had met up and put in my holding deposit... It was for the larger unit. My background took the normal about four business days. When I had inquired about this after coming home she had explained to me that this unit had already been rented out which didn't really make sense because about 3 hours prior to this that unit was available and someone would have also had to pass their background check. At that point I felt completely upselled because it changed the total by about 400 or so..... On top of this when my background check went through and I was willing to go ahead anyways with this it was when I seen that total increase by so much that I then had informed them very professionally that I would have to have signage as well and apparently signage is not allowed during the upcoming renovation although most of the business is already have signage. There would be no point in renting office space and signing a year lease if I'm unable to have signage other than a non-fixed sign in the office then what would be the point. So I had to inform them that I was not planning on signing the lease and that I would need my holding deposit. At that point I was informed for some reason that normally they do not give the holding deposit back when a tenant does not to go through with their lease. I can someone understand that however there is no conditions ever set forth which is a requirement here in Washington State. Just a horrible experience. You cannot expect someone to sign a lease if you cannot have signage and you need to be transparent on everything from the beginning in which...

Visited New2you they are closed now and Northman's sporting goods is expanding their space for archery and an indoor range for the bow hunters. Correction 11/10/23... There is no city code for an indoor range other than pistol range.... This project was canceled for that reason.... This would have been a benefit to the Kitsap 4H archery club .... Club members currently have to travel to Belfair for these events...... Also note unverified that Kitsap 4H archery is the biggest group...