What's going on with shopping in downtown Baltimore?
On Monday, I wrote about some significant retailers abandoning The Harborplace and The Gallery shopping complex in downtown Baltimore. J. Crew, Aveda, Origins, White House Black Market. Some other retailers are leaving for the hipper Harbor East area. Moving in recently are less caliber stores. We're talking "A Dollar" and "News Stand," which despite its name has very few newspapers and no magazines.
Management blamed the problem on the economy and retailers choosing to downsize. And to be fair, almost every retailer, except Wal-Mart, is suffering. But retailers in most cases are choosing to close the underperforming stores. So it still begs the question if the stores would have stayed if people were shopping at the complex in the first place?
Several readers, after seeing the story, also questioned whether crime is a problem.
So all you Baltimore shop-a-holics, where do you shop downtown, or do you still head to the suburbs to make your purchases? What do you think needs to be done to improve the Harborplace and the Gallery?
