Malls Aren’t Dead: How Indie Shops & Asian Brands Sparked a U.S. Mall Revival
Suburban malls are back, and they're different than you remember them.
⏰ Thu, Jul 10, 2025 @ 5:30 PM PST
🐟 Published from Seattle, WA, USA
🔨 Built by Chase Burns Broderick
I was going to write about the impacts of last Sunday’s Labubu drop, but there isn’t a lot to report. What’s on my mind, instead, is a sort of accidental story I stumbled on while on a quick trip down to Portland, Oregon.
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Lloyd Center Mall: My favorite brokedown palace
A textbook liminal space. | Lloyd Center Mall (Tue, Jul 8, 2025)
📍 Lloyd Center Mall: 2201 Lloyd Center, Portland, OR, 97232
🔨 Built in 1960 as an open-air mall
⛸️ Tonya Harding learned to skate at its ice rink, which is still used today
My ex, who is from Portland, talked a lot about Lloyd Center Mall (hi Marc), but I’d never been to Lloyd Center before this week, when I came to visit Floating World Comics. The longtime Portland comics and art toy store used to be in Old China Town, but they moved to Lloyd Center a few years ago.
Floating World Comics’ owner, Jason Leivian, wrote this about the move—I think it’s beautiful, so here’s a few paragraphs:
Walking into the Lloyd Center for the first time in many years I was surprised by all the natural sunlight bathing the first floor. Had that giant skylight ceiling always been there? The mid-century architecture functioned like a comfortable airport. The foot traffic was chill, but purposeful. I’ve never thought of a mall as calming and soothing, but the energy was fresh and relaxing. A friend remarked that it felt so peaceful that they “expected a deer to walk by.”
It all started to click: the free parking, easy access to transit, central location, a historic space turned blank canvas to be shaped by Portlanders looking to build community. It would be a big project, a bigger task than simply moving my shop, but the potential was too exciting to ignore. I decided: I am moving my shop to the Lloyd Center.
That shopping mall carries so many memories for Portland. I haven’t talked to anyone who didn’t work there at some point, or have some story about the place. It’s weird to have nostalgia for an old mall, but really, this is our heritage. We built these spaces, they outlived their original purpose, but they are ours to either let wither, or to reimagine…
When I was there, people stumbled around Lloyd Center in a blissed-out daze. It felt like moving through a museum more than a mall. Without big-biz lights, the sunlight had a different effect on the floor. It’s silly, but it’s palace-like. The comment about it being so still and peaceful a deer might pass felt true, still.
And then, right near the ice skating rink where Tonya Harding learned to skate, I found a claw machine with legit Big Into Energy Labubus:
Kardashians can’t get Labubus, but they’re at the Lloyd Center.
As for my stuff, a simple review: Floating World Comics is maybe the best comics and art toy store I’ve been to in the PNW. It’s relaxed, genuinely local, broad, colorful, diverse; I thought a perfect selection. I walked around gasping.
What I took home: Orgly Slormicorn, right, on top of a Portland Mercury. | Jon Malmstedt of RAMPAGE TOYS
Indie stores thrive in “zombie malls”
The Lloyd Center has picked up local headlines in the years since Floating World Comics came to the spot—Oregon Live highlighted the mall’s ambitions to add housing, shopping, and entertainment venues; Axios highlighted how “indie stores” keep the “zombie mall” alive while redevelopment plans remain in limbo. It’s truly a liminal space; one that’s getting a brand new AEG-backed music venue.
While the Lloyd Center might be a unique example (and maybe a blueprint for other malls), this mall revival is happening across the West Coast, propelled by trendy toy brands like Pop Mart and rising IP like Labubu. Recently highlighted by San Francisco Chronicle, suburban-feeling regional centers that cater to Asian American shoppers and brands, like Stonestown Galleria, are booming.
“Stonestown is a regional center that has got all things to all people. You’ve got a grocery, you’ve got a gym, you’ve got soft goods, you have a lot of food,” said Kazuko Morgan, a retail broker at Cushman & Wakefield. “Everybody I know is going there. The kids from Pac Heights go every weekend. They used to all go to S.F. Centre.”
No longer. San Francisco Centre, the city’s biggest mall, is over half-empty and has lost dozens of retailers in recent years, including Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s.
At Stonestown? H&M is returning… to the exact spot it closed years ago.
Pop Mart’s Pacific Northwest footprint
A similar story is happening up here in Seattle. Pop Mart, which counts the Seattle area as one of its main U.S. markets, just confirmed its pop-up location at Alderwood Mall is now a permanent location. After REI left that same location, local media fretted over what it meant for the mall’s future. This weekend, you can buy up to six Labubus there.
52TOYS’ Atlanta debut
This trend isn’t confined to the West Coast. 52TOYS, another Chinese trendy toy company, planted its first U.S. flag last July in Atlanta and—after weekend-long giveaway lines—added a second store at the Mall of Georgia before Christmas. On Seattle Toy Store, my resale shop, we’ve simultaneously logged a surge in online orders for Baby Three (made by Big Beautiful Toy Company; Dongguan) and Wakuku (made by Letsvan; Shenzhen). Their appeal isn’t stuck to a single region; boxes are leaving for Minneapolis, Miami, Buffalo, Bellingham. Watch for Wakuku to surface as MINISO’s in-house “Labubu alternative” (currently piloting in Indonesia) and for Baby Three’s U.S. rollout via distributor UCC.
The point is:
A clear shift has happened in retail, and many business reporters across the country have been slow—almost ignorant—to wake up to it.
