An article appeared in the Newark Advocate saying that the Arcade owner wants to restore building..Everyone that lives in Newark especially those that are 50 years old and over can remember going downtown to the Newark Square when they were young and this trip almost always included a trip inside the Arcade mall which is located right off the south side of the square in Newark,Ohio.
I saw this article and I thought of a few ideas for the owner of the mall,Mr.Cotton so I decided to document these in a blog.
The way I have always seen the mall Mr.Cotton is that there is a lot of potential here.But you have to ask the questions to yourself about in what direction should you go to improve both visibility and traffic.So for traffic the first thing that comes to mind is what age group will you be attempting to attract to come down to the mall on a regular basis.Is it the youth you want to attract or the older people from the Newark area.My answer or my idea would be that a combination of age groups should be targeted in order to start driving more traffic down to your mall on a regular basis.And in order to this a lot of changes would have to take place.
My idea to you would be to try and get a couple of great places to eat for the youth.It would be great if a small version of Chipotle could open up but we know that this won't happen so something similar would work and along with a Mexican place to eat would be a standard old fashioned type of soda fountain for histories sake would be great.
Next to draw the youth down you might consider having a store front somewhere near the middle where you could open it up by the way the glass could be slid to the right and to the left so that you get bands to play on either Friday or Saturday nights or sometimes both during the school year.
After this first phase is accomplished the need to add some more stores to attract more older adults down to the mall will be needed.This could be speciality shops of high quality clothing for both men and women and possibly a gift shop for both men and women to purchase really great gifts for the spouses for Christmas and or birthdays and items would be in place for regular use such as great handbags for women and wallets for men.Next it would be great if a few of the areas talented people that make handmade high quality items either out of leather or wood would sort of combine for a shop unless someone wanted to have a shop of their own.
During this time when different improvements were being made a drive should take place as traffic increases to attempt to get a Small version of subway similar like they use at college campuses to locate in the mall.And after this phase gradually starts to bring more and more traffic down to the mall a large restaurant might consider to locate on the Newark square which would further drive traffic to the mall.
Of course the mall web site would be updated to include upcoming events and the stores should have their own sub web site set up separately so that people could purchase online if they wanted to in any of the stores where items are sold.
