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Stores Set Records at The Mall At Steamtown

SCRANTON — Store owners in The Mall at Steamtown say business is picking up. Last weekend some of them even broke sales records A partnership with an annu...

SCRANTON -- Store owners in The Mall at Steamtown say business is picking up. Last weekend some of them even broke sales records

A partnership with an annual artisan market helped draw shoppers to the downtown mall who haven't been there in years.

The Mall at Steamtown hosted the annual ScrantonMade Holiday Market last weekend. It drew hundreds of people, who then shopped in the established mall stores.

Store owners say the parking lot was full for the first time in a decade.

The mall's owner says this weekend is a sign of what's to come.

"This weekend was awesome; it was the old Steamtown Mall," said Lisa Smith.

This was the sign of a turnaround tenants of The Mall at Steamtown in Scranton have been waiting for. The downtown mall saw hundreds of shoppers for an annual artisan's market last weekend.

"Some of the guests as I was coming in the parking lot were saying, 'I haven't seen it this way in years,' and it was just a huge, huge success, so it's a preface of things to come," said mall general manager Joe Kenney.

Kenney says the mall's new owner has some big developments in the works, including long-term plans of creating a marketplace setting inside one of the mall's anchor storefronts.

In the short term, they're just concentrating on getting people in the door.

"The new owner is doing things the right way. He's cleaning it up, he's fixing it. He's making it safer for us. And he's going to attract new businesses. They're going to be banging his door down," said Lisa Smith, Phyl Your Bags.

Smith says so far, it's worked. During the ScrantonMade Holiday Market, her store, Phyl Your Bags, set a record for sales.

To draw in more customers closer to Christmas, The Mall at Steamtown plans to utilize some of its empty space. The area in front of the former Bon-Ton will be an ice skating rink.

"I think it will be a domino effect as things open like the movie theater and the restaurants. It will be a domino effect; more people will come to see what's new, what's happening. It was a nice start for the holiday season," said Ed Henderzak.

Henderzak says the store he works for, All About Sports, reopened as traffic began to pick up at the mall last month, a decision they're even more confident in now.

"They haven't seen what he's done. Now they're seeing it and they're going to come back."

The Mall at Steamtown has several attractions, including that ice skating rink, planned for the week before Christmas.

Activity will pick up again in January and a few new tenants plan to open next spring.

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