Indiana Mall — Local services in White Township

Disclaimer: This review is 90% nostalgia and 10% unbiased feedback.

My wife and I traveled from Warren, PA (about 2.5 hours north) because I found out this mall is a "sister" to our own, long demolished, hometown version. The trip was a bit of a lark to surprise my wife, but I was just as interested in seeing it, and the results were worth it.

It is truly amazing to see the features seemingly transplanted through space and time and presented in their 80s aesthetic glory. Yellow and orange tile benches, flooding skylights, (mostly) functional fountains, leafy shrubbery, trashcans, weight-scales, and gumball machines galore.

Beyond the surface similarities, the mall is a functioning facsimile of the bygone era as well. Claire's, JC Penney's, GNC, Kay's, Auntie Anne's, and a Nail Salon are all present. Some of the endcap stores have been vacated or replaced with contemporary versions, but there is a smattering of arcade-adjacent options available. Mall Security patrols the mall, there is a dedicated office, and the bathrooms are in great shape & stocked. The employees in each store were courteous, knowledgeable, and genuine in a way that seemed more present than what is common in the present.

The rise of Amazon and online shopping has brought a lot more choices for consumers, but I can't help miss our old mall and the human element that has been lost. We were very happy to see it still...

The lack of stores that are open has ruined this mall. It seems that the only thing worth going to is Capri Pizza and I wonder how long they can survive with nothing else being open near them. On any random visit, you'd be hard pressed to see more than 20 people during your shopping trip in the entire mall. Most of the retailers that are left are in serious financial troubles, such as Sears/Kmart, JCPenney and BonTon. Kmart is slated to close in a few months and that leaves one fork of the layout to be almost entirely empty aside from Capri and a Hair Salon.

It doesn't look like there's any incentive to open a store in this mall as there's very little maintenance and upkeep. Not much has changed in the last 10+ years that wasn't done by store owners.

For me, it's a better option to drive to Greensburg and go to a mall with stores that are open and have full stock of inventory than to chance a trip to this mall where the stores are either closed or full of empty...

It's a small mall with hardly any open businesses. I only go there for Bath and Body works and Kohls, which isn't accessible from the mall, so I end up not even going into the mall when I go to Kohls. The mall gives off the vibe of "we'll be outta business in a couple years." -update- I actually went to this mall searching for very specific last minute gifts and found them! Maybe I was a little to quick to dismiss it? I still don't like the JCP, but I did find something there. They sent me to Kay Jewelers in search of something else on the list. Kays didn't have it, but they sent me to Luxemburgs and they had what I was searching for. It's rare in this day and age for businesses to direct you to their competitors. I personally really appreciate comradery among businesses and people and think it really shows just how decent you are. So because of that I updated my...