MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Hmm, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea staging the cow-milking contest in front of Victoria’s Secret like that. Well, yeah, Harry Grandon II said with both a wince and a grin, but it did bring people out to the mall. Grandon, who spent 40 years bringing people out to the mall, is retiring today. He’s served as general manager of the Morgantown Mall since 1998.
After working for a time as an actuary and broker, the St. Albans native and WVU graduate entered the mall business in 1979. That’s when he took a job as promotions director the Mountaineer Mall, on Green Bag Road.
Other jobs in promotion and management followed at malls in Minnesota, Texas, New Mexico and Pennsylvania — where the aforementioned bovines bumped up against intimate apparel during one particularly memorable agriculture fair. Park City Center, in fact, is in the heart of south-central Pennsylvania’s agricultural community. Amish country, too.
“We still had hitching posts in the parking lot for the families who rode their wagons in,” he said.
Udder-oops
The spacious mall, Grandon said, couldn’t have been better suited for its demographic. It was literally large enough, he said, to bring in massive farm equipment and then follow that up with lines of boats for summer shows, with specially built, marina-like displays. Then came the cow-milking contest.
No one was thinking about the proximity to Victoria’s Secret, he said. It’s just that this particular corridor worked out. Udders and all other unflattering imagery aside, the complaints generated weren’t over perceived sexism or chauvinism, Grandon said. They were organic, in nature. Cow pies, you know, he said.
“But that’s what malls did back then,” Grandon said. “They hosted these big events.”
Your town, as he notes, may not have had a convention center. However, he said, there’s more than a good chance it had a mall. At least one that was an easy drive to get to — with plenty of stores, plenty of free parking and plenty of activities on the weekend, aside from shopping.
Malls, revisited and reinvented
The last new mall built in the U.S. was in 2006, according to Smithsonian.com. But while malls are dying daily — or have been long-deceased — others are hanging on. And, as Grandon said, what goes around really does come around, in terms of retail.
“Malls are getting back to the way we used to do things, with all the concerts and all the events.”
Now, he said, many are being reimagined as community centers, in hopes of taking the place of the very thing they were accused of killing during their golden age. Morgantown Mall, which has been part of the region’s retail landscape since 1990, is testament to that, Grandon said. The 550,000-square-foot mall currently houses some 65 merchants, he said. It lost its two anchor stores, Belk and Sears, last year.
The space formerly occupied by Sears, though, is expected to bloom into a completely different existence, according to Ohio-based Washington Prime Group, Morgantown Mall’s parent company.
Full occupancy
Plans are underway to transform that area into a green space, which would be a venue for events such as an outdoor concert series, movie nights or a craft beer festival, the company said. In the meantime, Grandon won’t be transforming himself in retirement. He and his wife Linda are staying in Morgantown. Their grown daughter, Dana, also calls the University City home.
“No need to be anywhere else,” he said.
He will be missed at the mall, his boss at Washington Prime Group said.
“Harry is one of the most talented managers I’ve ever had the pleasure and honor to work with,” said Kristie Miller, the company’s regional vice president of property management. “His caring for people and commitment to the community is second to none,” she said.
In the meantime, there are Rotary Club activities and all those community boards on which he serves. And WVU tailgating, too.
“I’ll be occupied,” he said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better professional experience.”
Wednesday, he was both occupied and nurturing at Morgantown Mall. During a walk through its corridors, he could be spied picking up stray trash and smoothing out floor mats. After all, it’s his mall.
