Economy's Latest Victim: One Less Hour At The Mall

By Samantha Abernethy in Miscellaneous on Feb 20, 2009 4:20PM

Six malls in the Chicago area will be dropping an hour from their weekday schedules, due to what the company calls "changing consumer demands." The malls will be open at 10:30 a.m. and close at 8:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. The malls affected are--

• Chicago Ridge Mall in Chicago Ridge
• Old Orchard in Skokie
• Southlake in Merrillville, Ind.
• Fox Valley in Aurora
• Hawthorne Shopping Center in Vernon Hills
• Louis Joliet Shopping Center in Joliet

Lincoln Mall in Matteson is also in trouble. Last week it nearly lost power due to unpaid electric bills and though the mall is in a financial and legal tangle, developers are clinging to some hope to rebuild it.

Instead of thinking about what these things mean financially for retail employees and the future of brick-and-mortar sales on the whole, let's just visit a simpler time when malls were the center of the teen universe, with "Canadian pop sensation" Robin Sparkles.