The Proper People, who spoke with MilMag for this story but didn’t provide their full names for fear of legal action, came to the same conclusion as Marcoux. More than 2 million people have watched that. Another YouTube channel – The Proper People, an East Coast-based duo who make their living exploring and recording abandoned spots – uploaded a 26-minute HD video last September showing what’s left inside. Marcoux says break-ins became more popular after that. In December 2017, YouTuber Casey Neistat got permission to turn Northridge into a “Winter Wonderland” for kids from the Milwaukee Boys and Girls Club. THE MALL WAS mostly ignored for a decade, except for “urban explorers.” Today, the only business in operation at Northridge proper is a Menards in the space of a former anchor. The struggling mall quietly passed away in 2003. And they all added shopping options that kept suburban consumers closer to home. Menomonee Falls added 4,000 people, Mequon’s population has increased by more than 50% and Grafton’s nearly doubled. While the city’s population has fallen since the early ’70s, the northern suburbs have grown. He’s quick to point out that “There were no big box stores in Mequon” when the mall opened. Marcoux says it was the northern suburbs that killed Northridge. Fewer and fewer trendy stores could be found there. But then anchor tenants started faltering. IN OCTOBER 1987, 15 years after the mall opened, Northridge’s occupation rate was a strong-ish 90%. The city has lost its faith and its patience. The Wisconsin-based attorney for Black Spruce did not respond to numerous requests to be interviewed for this story. But while negotiations were ongoing, he was ghosted like a bad Tinder date. Unsurprisingly, that plan never took shape.īill Penzey, the CEO of Tosa-based Penzeys Spices, tried to purchase the mall to set up a new hub for his spice retailer. “That was a function of the ownership not keeping the mall in a safe fashion.”īlack Spruce has said it wanted to turn the building into a kind of expo facility for Asian companies to market their wares to American companies. “They created a public nuisance,” Marcoux says. The district attorney was conducting an investigation in July, but nothing has been heard about it since then. His family said the shock was delivered when he closed the door panel of a vandalized electrical box. It’s suing the city, claiming that Northridge still has potential and is not a public nuisance – even after a handyman contractor hired by Black Spruce, 37-year-old father-of-six Victor Diaz, died on July 22 after being electrocuted by a damaged transformer outside the mall. The current owner of the mall, Black Spruce Enterprise Group, disagrees. The 975,000-square-foot building is in such a state of disrepair that it’s become a danger to the public, and it probably would cost more to repair than to demolish, according to City Development Commissioner Rocky Marcoux. The city has raze orders, yet to be enforced, nailed to the boarded-up entrances. Mold grows and stale water rests where moviegoers once munched popcorn and watched blockbusters like Jaws in the mall’s heyday or Scream in 1996 – not long before the theater shut down. Waste accumulates in the massive, vacant parking lot. Shattered glass covers most of the floor. The shopping center, nearly 50 years old but dormant for the last 17, is covered in graffiti. The death toll shouldn’t rise above one.īut a nebulous, name-changing, promise-unfulfilling Chinese company with unclear intentions is keeping the ventilator plugged in. Photo by Rachel Semanski The city wants to pull the plug.
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