Let's address the elephant in the room... Why do you think the "affluents" moved? Because of the "riff-raff" that has lived in that part of town for decades, the same low-income riff-raff that caused the demise of Bon Marche with their looting, shoplifting, and other crimes in and around the mall properties. Businesses can't stay in operation if they have to combine those types of financial and customer losses with the lack of decent wage earners in the area to support them. Before there was the "new mall," Cortana was the option for the affluent. But, once Bon Marche imploded, the riff-raff had nowhere else to loiter. As a result, it only took a few years before it began suffering the same fate. Currently on life support, I suspect it, too, will shrivel up and cease to be a retail site as we know it in the near future. These "termites" destroyed the Bon Marche tree from the inside out and moved to the next tree, Cortana. Once they have finished that one off, guess which tree is next? Be prepared in the next few years (maybe a decade?) to start road tripping to Juban Crossing or points further out. And guess what has been enabling this migration for many of them from mall to mall to mall? Mass transit. That's right, you give them free or low cost transportation to/from these meccas and it enables their seedy behaviors. If you doubt this, just look at New Orleans that has busses running everywhere in the city. There are oases of affluent neighborhoods that are surrounded and imprisoned by riff raff 'hoods. Anyone remember the Plaza at Lake Forest in New Orleans East? What was once a shining star of retail in the newly inhabited area of the 80's has been totally razed and the only memory of its existence that remains is a square city block of asphalt, rusty light posts, and weeds growing from the cracks surrounded by vacant retail buildings and section 8 housing.
The seeds of Cortana's downfall were planted in the 60s and 70s. As the main artery through the city changes from Airline/Florida to I-10, a relocation of the center of commerce was inevitable. Through the 90s there were two bookstores in the Mall, Waldenbooks and ??? What was the other store?
