Lack of pizzazz rings death knell for US mall

Concord, New Hampshire

ON a crisp Friday evening in late October, Shannon Rich, 33, is standing in a dying American mall. Three customers wander the aisles in a Sears the size of two football fields. The Radio- Shack is empty. A woman selling smartphone cases watches Homeland on a laptop.

"It's the quietest mall I've ever been to," says Ms Rich, who works for an education consulting firm and has been coming to the Steeplegate Mall here in Concord, New Hampshire, since she was a kid. "It bums me out."

Built 24 years ago by a former subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corp, Steeplegate is one of about 300 US malls facing a choice between reinv…