NORFOLK, Va. — Downtown Norfolk businesses are worried about MacArthur Center.
The mall got off to a rough start in 2019 between the announcement that Nordstrom was closing and Thursday's shooting.
"The mall is definitely the hub of downtown Norfolk we want it to do well," said David Bass, owner of MacArthur Pharmacy. "It bothers you a little bit, you want the mall to do well, you want more and more people to come downtown, to make things better for everybody."
However, the truth is fewer people are coming to the mall. Peter Freda, the owner of Granby Street Pizza, said it’s not a Norfolk thing, it’s a nationwide epidemic.
"Times are changing, a lot of people don’t shop in the mall anymore. Unfortunately, it’s a very nice mall but times have changed,” said Freda.
Freda says Macarthur Center has created a spike in pizza orders, something he’d like to maintain
"We do [well] during ice skating season. When they have the ice-skating rink going, they’ll have parties and stuff,” said Freda.
Over at Saint Germain, server Katherine Bigelow said every downtown business is rooting for the mall to succeed. Fewer shoppers at the mall mean fewer people walking up and down Granby Street and less food and drink being ordered at their bar.
"People want to go out and do day activities. They want to stay out into the night and when everyone is spending money and being happy, they want to keep that going. So everyone is in the positive flow; so something negative like that could definitely trickle down and affect us all,” said Bigelow.
Bass said he’d like to see MacArthur Center reinvent itself. He is holding out hope that it can still be that downtown hub like it was designed.
"I don’t know if they want to reach out to independents like, say us, other people down Granby Street, different places where they might try to go with more local people in the mall rather than reach out to the big box store,” said Bass.