• BY GABE SEMENZA - GSEMENZA@VICAD.COM
• Originally published November 12, 2009 at 9:42 p.m., updated November 13, 2009 at 8:55 a.m.

Victoria Mall, which opened in 1981, is the only enclosed regional mall within a 90-mile radius.

Renovated in 2005, the 700,000-square-foot building remains home to department, entertainment and other miscellaneous stores.

"The mall is a community center," said John Gibson, a manager with Hull Storey Gibson Companies, the mall's Georgia-based owner. "Smaller cities, I think, are fortunate to have an enclosed mall. Not every town has one. There are only about 1,200 malls in the country, and about 50 are demolished a year."

Victoria Mall still stands. Some interesting facts:

1) Ninety percent of the mall's shop space remains occupied and 97 percent of overall space - include kiosk areas - is leased. "It's about as full as it's ever been," Gibson said. When Hull Storey Gibson Companies purchased the mall, which at the time was in foreclosure, the building had 65 percent shop occupancy.

2) The mall employs 1,400 people, including part-time workers. Of the 77 stores, many local franchise owners operate the chain stores, such as Subway.

3) Gibson estimates the mall received 2.5 million visits in 2008. To track visitors, many stores install "people counters," or laser technology. Harmless lasers mounted at entryways count the number of people who visit each day, helping managers to calculate sales conversion ratios. If ABC Store, for example, receives 100 visitors and benefits by 25 sales, its conversion rate is 25 percent. Managers frown at children, Gibson said, who repeatedly walk into and out of stores, which skews sales conversion figures.

4) The mall has four entertainment and electronics stores, five department stores, seven sporting goods and shoe stores, seven jewelers, seven services-oriented stores, nine restaurants, 13 clothing stores and 16 miscellaneous products stores. "Jewelry has been a weak category across the retail sector," Gibson said. "To have that many jewelry stores - seven - in this downturn is surprising. That shows you how strong your market is."

5) Because tenants lease store space and pay for their own electricity, Gibson can't know the mall's true total monthly bill. Mall ownership pays about $300,000 yearly to heat and cool the corridors, and to light the inside and parking lot. Gibson estimates total electricity costs, including costs incurred by the stores, to be $1.75 million a year. He bases this cost on a formula that figures electricity costs $2.5 per square foot a year.

6) The mall remains open 70 hours a week, 362 days a year, and closes only for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.

7) The mall generated last year about $100 million in sales and through services rendered, such as haircuts and manicures. To accommodate its visitors, its parking lot contains 4,000 parking spaces. While shopping, visitors walk across special carpet designed to last 20 years. Mall ownership likely will replace that carpet next year, Gibson said.

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