PLATTSBURGH — Not every business in the North Country survived the COVID-19 pandemic and the Northern border restrictions that accompanied it. Those that did survive, however, were relieved to tell the tale five years later.
Champlain Centre Mall, Plattsburgh’s shopping center since 1987, was one that came out on the other end still standing, and five years later, seems to have rebounded well.
“(COVID) really weeded out the ones (malls) that were going to survive, vs. not,” Lisa Getty, Champlain Centre Mall’s general manager, said.
“People are always saying ‘malls are dead, malls are dead, malls are dead,’ and it’s like, well, yeah, the bad ones are.”
“All signs are pointing to the strength of the market and people supporting not just this mall, but places, in general, throughout this area and beyond,” she said.
“I think people are getting back to going out shopping in-person, eating at restaurants, all the things that kind of stopped for so long.”
The rebound surely comes as a relief after experiencing the early days of COVID when many, including Getty, wondered if they’d have a job when the pandemic finally ended.
Getty specifically referred to March 2020 and several months after that as “the dark days.”
“Because they were literally (and figuratively) dark,” Getty said, referring to the mall having to close its doors at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic this time five years ago.
“We would still come in — the management team — to kind of maintain the property, so to speak, even though everything (was closed).
“It was so weird to be in here when it was dark and no music playing … Those were weird days.”
Last week marked five years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Days after that announcement was, for the North Country and the rest of the world, the beginning of regular mask wearing, six-foot social distancing and Zoom calls at home with no end in sight.
In New York, many businesses, especially malls like Champlain Centre, were forced to close their doors until the state figured out a safe reopening plan, which didn’t come until months later and was implemented in four phases.
Malls had to wait a little longer than most businesses did but their reopening came in July of 2020 and even then, the guidelines severely limited staff and patrons in stores and required masking at all times. Additionally, food courts weren’t permitted to open until that following month with even stricter guidelines.
Getty said the months-long closure was “devastating” and inevitably resulted in losing businesses like a couple hair salons and with the U.S.-Canadian border shut down, an estimated one-third of customers.
Border restrictions were eventually lifted in the spring of 2022 after months of back and forth between the United States and Canada and casual traffic resumed throughout the year. For some stores though, it was too late.
Getty said one of the mall’s anchor stores, Best Buy, which closed in the fall of 2021 but was replaced by Ross Dress for Less in 2023, depended heavily on that Canadian customer base pre-COVID.
“It was really a test for everyone, I think, of our patience,” Getty recalled.
Despite the financial hardship COVID had on the mall, however, it still celebrated many successes during that time.
In November of 2020, the mall welcomed Ollie’s, a new anchor store, and Five Below in February of 2021. There has been turnover in the mall’s stores since but Getty said those that left were almost always immediately replaced.
“Instead of looking at the retailers that weren’t able to stay or didn’t make it, we focused on: ‘OK, where are we now? Who’s doing well now? Who would suit this market now?’ So from a leasing point of view, I think we’ve done really well with that.”
As of now, the mall has a 90% occupancy, and Getty said the community should expect more additions in the coming months. She said their new management company, Pacific Retail Capital Partners, which took over last year, has a lot to do with the mall’s exciting days ahead.
“What we’re already seeing now and then, what you’re going to see over the next year, is very encouraging as far as the success of the mall and the support that we have in the market,” Getty said.
CHAMBER IMPACT
Across the county, as businesses like Champlain Centre struggled with financial hardships and navigated the state’s convoluted and ever-changing reopening plan, the North Country Chamber of Commerce was working hard to help.
“We knew it was going to be an immense impact,” North Country Chamber of Commerce President Garry Douglas said.
“We had been through this with the Air Force Base closure (in 1995), in the sense of a massive unexpected thing happening to our business community and needing to come through and come out the other side OK.
“I don’t mind saying it was a kind of time when a strong chamber is grateful for the strength that it has built up, so it’s capable of doing the things it then needs to do.”
For the chamber as a whole, it was a time for introspection. Douglas said he immediately knew they had to help.
“I convened my Executive Committee, and the message was really the following: ‘we’re probably going to have some awful looking finances at the end of this year, that needs to be OK. We’ll work our way back out of it if we need to. We’ve got to stand up and help our business community through this and do more, not less, far more, and do things that we never imagined we would be doing on a scale we never imagined.’”
So the chamber got to work.
In the early days of COVID, with so much fear, uncertainty and changing regulations from the state, the chamber became a source of guidance for many businesses in the community.
“One of the greatest things that our business members and the community in general would need is information they would be hungry for, what’s going on? What’s happening? What does this mean? Do I have to comply with this? What do I have to do? What is it I’m supposed to be doing? How do I do this?” Douglas said.
“And that’s when we started what we call the Daily Dose. We never had an email newsletter.”
The Daily Dose newsletter went out to 5,000 recipients in the North Country and updated them five days a week on important COVID information from the state, Douglas said
Douglas said health departments and local officials would regularly read it to stay up to date. Now, the Daily Dose is still going strong but it’s down to two days a week.
Douglas said the newsletter has been a good way of getting information out about topics that are relevant at any given time. Right now, tariffs are a big one.
Throughout 2020, the chamber also hosted a number of informational webinars for its members to take advantage of. The webinars mostly focused on relevant issues businesses were dealing with.
“We did programs on the PPP program and SBA emergency loan program, what members needed to know, and walked them through that.
“I think the most valuable thing we did was we must have done about 30 webinars on how to safely reopen. Reopening started in this category, and then that category with rules up front as to how to reopen, how restaurants have to have distancing between tables and all these new kinds of things, for example. and so we did a whole series of webinars, sector by sector. So they were really specialized, barbers and hairdressers, manufacturers, offices, accommodations, restaurants, etc.”
Looking back, Douglas said he is proud of the way the chamber and the business community met the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic this time five years ago. He plans to continue to be there for businesses for all current and future challenges the same way.
“We’ve gotten good at this sort of thing,” he said.
“We’re being the source of information and guidance and response and advocacy and information again. and I think that’s the value of a strong chamber and that’s why it’s important for an area to have a strong chamber and to keep it strong, because you can’t go out and get one when the crisis comes and you need it.”