Lakeside Mall growth bucks national trend
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Two models walk past Aerie's Offline store at Lakeside Mall. Photo: Courtesy of Lakeside Mall
Lakeside Shopping Center is set to celebrate its first holiday season in at least seven years where the New Orleans-area shopping center won't have any additional space available for lease.
Why it matters: It's a stark contrast to other local shopping centers that are struggling to stay afloat.
The big picture: The slow, painful death of the American mall has been charted for years.
- At their height, according to statistics from CapitalOne, the U.S. boasted about 25,000 malls in 1986, but that number's been dropping ever since.
- About 1,170 malls closed annually between 2017 and 2022, up from 581 closing annually between 1986 and 2017.
- Only around 1,200 remain.
Yes, but: The pandemic helped somewhat to revive mall interest, according to Axios' Erica Pandey.
- "The malls caught COVID when the population caught COVID, and those that were fit and strong made it through," says Michael Brown, a partner in consulting firm Kearney's Consumer Products and Retail Practice. "There's a long future for the malls who are doing it right." Go deeper.
Zoom in: Lakeside, which celebrated its 65th year in 2025, is one of the lucky ones, and that's by design, marketing director Erin Graham tells Axios New Orleans.
- "Our goal has always been to try to find exclusive retailers, those larger retailers you can't find in this region, and bring them here," Graham explains.
- Lakeside, Graham says, pulls in day-shoppers from a 55-mile radius, which is much larger than the industry standard of 25 miles for a super-regional mall. "The reason is we provide them with retailers they can't find anywhere else locally," Graham adds.
Case in point: Just this year, Lakeside celebrated the first Louisiana openings for Alo, Mango and Garage.
- Anthropologie opens a new store there this Black Friday, too, as it closes its longtime location at Canal Place downtown.
Between the lines: A lot of Lakeside's success is because the massive property, which stretches from Veterans Memorial to 17th Street and from Causeway to Severn in Metairie, combines various kinds of shopping experiences, Graham says.
- Millennials especially "like to come in and touch and feel and try on the clothes, try on the shoes," Graham says. "You see this younger group of people who enjoy walking the mall, making a day of it, shopping and going to dinner. It's a trend you see, and it's starting to come back."
What's next: Holiday shoppers can expect retailer kiosks for temporary tenants scattered throughout a fully-leased mall.
- Plus, Graham says, "we're always trying to find ways so it's not just a place for shopping. It's a community space."