Font Resize Shooting sprees inside shopping malls aren't unheard of. In the past two years, gunmen entered malls in New York, Washington and Florida.
In each case the gunman was captured or surrendered - but not before one person was fatally shot, eight people were wounded and three employees were held hostage.
If there is anything positive in these episodes, none of the malls went out of business and in fact have flourished, raising hopes for Trolley Square, which has long been a favorite shopping and dining destination for Utahns.
"For about a week, there was really no business. Maybe two weeks max, it really slowed down. But after that, things picked up. People realize it really is something that can happen anywhere," Simon Johnson, who owns the Cigar Shack in the Boynton Beach Mall near West Palm Beach, Fla., said Wednesday.
In December, a man was killed on Christmas Eve after he got into a fight with a suspected gang member and was shot. The shooter then ran from two police officers, firing at them as they chased him through the mall. He was arrested about an hour later.
A year earlier, in November 2005, a man shot six people at a Tacoma, Wash., mall. He barricaded himself in a music store, taking three hostages, after opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle. The gunman gave himself up after a three-hour stand-off with police.
It's unclear how often
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"Obviously, there have been situations where someone uses a gun in the act of committing a crime [to rob a store]. But to the extent that you have someone coming in and shooting people, it's rare. It's extremely rare," IASC spokesman Malachy Kavanaugh said Wednesday.
Kavanaugh said malls that have been the scene of a rampage have a good chance of surviving. Shoppers don't typically hold malls responsible for random violence. And shoppers often have deep connections with malls because they have a long history of shopping and dining at them. It is hard to sever that connection if mall owners are seen to be responding responsibly.
Even so, the road back for Trolley Square isn't assured.
"I'm not sure there is any playbook you can dust off and do A, B and C," Kavanaugh said. "I don't know of any other mall where they've had an incident of this magnitude. It will take everyone - owners, the community, the police, maybe the clergy - to come together to recognize this for what it was and work to heal."
Sandwiched between the Florida and Washington episodes, was an incident at the Hudson Valley Mall near Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Two people were hurt and hundreds of other were terrorized when a gunman charged into the mall and opened fire with an assault rifle. He was captured by two employees of a sports store.
The Tacoma Mall may be proof that time can heal all tragedies. Just 2 percent of the 1.3-million-square-foot structure is vacant and the local school district expects to open an alternative high school next year in space donated by owner Simon Properties, said Tyler Stanek, a commercial realtor at First Western Properties in Tacoma.
Last March, Simon announced that specialty retailer Nordstrom Inc. had agreed to relocate and build a new store at the mall. The store will open next year.
"From what I can tell, the effects weren't far-reaching. It was kind of one of those things where life kind of moved on shortly thereafter. People's view was that it could happen at any mall or any shopping center," Stanek said.
By a twist of fate, Trolley Square was owned until August by Simon, which also owns the West Palm Beach malls. The Indianapolis-based company declined to discuss the shootings at its malls, but it expressed its sympathy to the victims and their families.
"We're just so sorry for everyone involved," spokesman Les Morris said.
Perhaps one reason, the Tacoma and West Palm Beach malls weathered the shootings is because both reopened within two days, a step that several Salt Lake public relations and disaster communications experts said Trolley Square should emulate, and did.
"If it were up to me, I wouldn't keep it closed for an extended period of time. The owners want to do everything they can to avoid hurting the people who work there. If you don't get back to business, it just affects the lives of more people in a negative way," said Joan Mitchell, past president of the Salt Lake chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.
The new owner of Trolley Square, ScanlanKemperBard, hasn't reached out to other mall owners for advice. Right now, the Portland-based company is working to build support for the mall in Salt Lake and getting it fully open by Friday.
"We basically focused on the fact that we really didn't have the experience. We've tried to avoid jumping to preconceived notions about what should be done and have made our best effort to build a constituency in the community," said Tom Bard, principal in ScanlanKemperBard.
Bard said the mall won't fail. He's been gratified by the outpouring of support from Trolley Square merchants, city officials and police and fire departments. He said previously announced plans to renovate and expand the aging structure are moving ahead.
"We expect to submit our construction drawing for the renovation next week. I'm not sure how long it will take to get a building permit. However we are still hopeful we can start in March," Bard said.
pbeebe@sltrib.com
