My wife and I had a date night tonight without the kids. In need of some new clothes, we ventured out to The Streets at Southpoint, our area's largest shopping mall. We were shocked, shocked, at how much of a ghost town it was on a Friday night. Some of the stores were already closed we we arrived after dinner (around 7:00 pm), and in those which were opened, we were often the only shoppers in sight.

I know that the pandemic has done a number on retail stores in general, but it was truly surprising how deserted the whole place felt. Prior to Covid, the mall would have been a wall-to-wall sea of people on a Friday night. I can't help but imagine that places like this are on borrowed time. My wife and I wondered aloud what would happen if it goes under; do you bulldoze the building and sell the land? What could you possibly do with a building that gigantic, and in that odd of a configuration? I guess time will tell. It's crazy to think that my kids will grow up in a world where going to the mall is likely never a thing that you do.