The high-end, “special trip” malls are doing the best. Upper income people are doing better than ever and they still want to buy luxury goods like Louis Vuitton bags in person.

It’s the lower and mid-tier malls that are struggling. The middle class is getting squeezed and people are happy to shift their spending to online shopping in search of deals.

I agree that Newport seems to be doing fairly well for itself. And I think the fact that it’s in a walkable area with good transit access is a big part of that.

But it will be interesting to see what happens if/when Newport loses its anchor tenants (Sears, JCPenny, & Macy’s). Those anchor tenants occupy huge spaces that are hard to re-lease.

Vacant anchor spaces are a huge financial drag on a mall and if that happens at Newport it will probably spur the complete redevelopment of the mall into a more modern mixed used concept.