At Hunt Valley Mall yesterday, mothers dressed their toddlers in velvet and bows at Sears Portrait Studio trying to beat the Christmas picture rush. A half-dozen teen-age girls giggled as they tried on the most outrageous spike heels they could find at DSW Shoe Warehouse. And moviegoers flocked to Hoyts Cinema for the latest Harry Potter release.

It seemed the most typical of days at a typical American shopping mall - except for one big difference. Most of the stores in the northern Baltimore County mall have simply disappeared.

The original two-story enclosed portion of the mall, built in 1981, sits locked up and vacant, waiting for redevelopment that never came. The mall is book-ended by big anchor stores - Sears, Roebuck and Co. and DSW at one end and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Burlington Coat Factory and Dick's Sporting Goods at the other - which have thrived as the rest of the mall died. Yesterday, clusters of cars sat parked outside the anchors, but more potholes than cars populated the rest of the vast parking lot.

On Thursday, a local retail developer said it intends to change all that. The Erwin L. Greenberg Commercial Corp. has agreed to purchase the mall for an undisclosed price from Connecticut-based Starwood Ceruzzi, with closing expected within a few weeks.

Greenberg, which plans to demolish the vacant mall space and completely remake the center, says the time is right for a rebirth of a mall blessed with great access to middle- and upper-middle-class shoppers.

Third try

The latest plan for reviving the mall is the third in the past six years, each with a different strategy. When Starwood Ceruzzi bought the mall more than two years ago, it announced plans for a $40 million makeover of new big-box stores, specialty shops and restaurants. It emptied the mall's interior tenants and closed the inside, but never got beyond that.

The previous owner, Equitable Life Assurance Society, had begun remaking Hunt Valley as a value-oriented center in 1996, bringing in Wal-Mart, Burlington, the movie megaplex and free-standing restaurants Carrabba's Italian Grill and Outback Steakhouse. It sold the center before completing the plans.

The mall opened in 1981 with a Bamberger's, later Macy's, department store, food court and a full array of specialty shops but never attracted the expected crowds of shoppers. Surrounded by corporate campuses, it lacked nearby neighborhoods to feed it customers.

The opening of Owings Mills Mall in 1986 and Towson Town Center in 1991 drained more of its business. It lost Macy's in 1992, and other closings followed.

Shopping dreams

Yesterday, shoppers and workers at the anchor stores greeted the announcement of pending new ownership with anticipation.

Some who live in nearby northern Baltimore County neighborhoods said they had given up on the mall, deciding instead to drive farther to Towson Town or White Marsh, and stopping in at Hunt Valley only for the occasional trip to Wal-Mart or Sears.

Some said they're hoping for another anchor department store, while others are pulling for mall-based stores such as Abercrombie & Fitch.

Yet others are hoping for a new, "Main Street"-type design similar to The Avenue at White Marsh.

Erwin L. Greenberg, chairman of Greenberg Commercial, said the firm has not settled on a mall design - whether enclosed or open air - or on a mix of retail tenants.

Whatever the redevelopment brings, "it will be a good thing because the mall was dying," said Claudia Shorter, a retired notary who was looking through the half-price winter coats yesterday at Sears.

Shorter said she worked in Hunt Valley in the late 1980s until about a year ago. In the earlier years, "we could run over on our lunch hour and get our Christmas shopping done. It was a good place to shop."

But then, she said, "stores kept closing, and the mall was looking like it was getting seedy. There was more empty space than stores."

'A sad feeling'

Through all the closings, loyal customers kept coming back to Sears, said Kathy Reuschling, who has worked at the department store for seven years. But "customers do miss the other stores. They'll say, 'How can we get in the mall?' and we'll tell them it's closed up. It gave me a sad feeling when everyone in the mall had to close."

Sears Portrait Studio bustled yesterday with mothers preparing children for Christmas portraits. Karyn Yager dressed her 3-year-old daughter, Drew, in a black velvet dress and fastened a red bow in her hair.

"We don't shop here a lot because this mall is dead. They don't have the stores that Towson Town or White Marsh have," Yager said. But she would come to Hunt Valley more often, she said, if it were redesigned to resemble a "Main Street" layout, such as The Avenue.

No longer a hangout

Donna Lyon and Connie Wotell had stopped in to DSW with their home-schooled, 17-year-old daughters and four of the girls' volleyball team members as part of a special shoe-shopping outing - a reward for winning a Maryland/D.C. volleyball tournament two weeks ago. The girls, ages 15 through 17, pranced around in spiked, ankle-strap shoes in red, black and gold lame.

They had stopped in DSW as part of their day out because "we just love shoes," said Grace Lyon of Phoenix.

But Hunt Valley Mall is no longer a regular hangout for her and her friends.

"When they closed down the mall, I was so bummed out," she said. "It's hard to get your parents to drive you a half-hour away. We go to Towson Town or White Marsh, because they have The Avenue and the mall, and then we can decide what to do."

Her mother added that they would frequent the mall more often if it had specialty stores such as Old Navy, Bath and Body Works and the Limited.

"We all live near here, and this is where we would shop," Donna Lyon said, "but we take our business elsewhere."