CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
Shoppers describe ‘slightly dystopian’ experience in Boca
Angelo Rosario, 4, of Pompano Beach, plays hopscotch along the floor tiles as he walks through Town Center at Boca Raton with, from center left; his grandmother, Christine Candelaria, of Fort Lauderdale, his aunt, Brianna, Candelaria, of Fort Lauderdale, and his mother, Danielle Rosario, of Pompano Beach, on Wednesday. The family spent the day getting their nails done and having lunch in Boca Raton on Tuesday. “We're all for reopening, please!” Christine Candelaria said. “This is all government control.” Though the mall itself is open, more than half of the stores and restaurants remained closed as of Wednesday afternoon. More stores are expected to open in coming days. Other shopping centers also will reopen soon. The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens will reopen Friday, and The Mall at Wellington Green will reopen Monday.
BOCA RATON — Town Center at Boca Raton shoppers stepped into a mall Wednesday morning that looked much different from the way it did a few months ago.
The mall opened for the first time since early March, offering limited hours from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Solo shoppers and small groups of about two to four people walked through the largely empty walkways.
Inside the entrance doors, two boxes of masks sat on a table for anyone without one as they walked in. Guests peered into dark doors. Employees inside Louis Vuitton and Forever 21 wrapped handbags and hung clothes on display racks inside the closed stores, preparing to open at a later date.
Seating areas throughout the mall had few people sitting to rest. Purple stickers on the floor with white arrows showed guests which way to walk and reminded them to stay 6 feet apart. Roped off and dark, the play area for kids was empty too.
Lisa Deandrea, of Boca Raton, arrived right as the mall opened with one task in mind.
“My fiance’s birthday is in two days, and I didn’t think about a birthday present two months ago,” she said. “Now I’m panicked. Amazon can’t help me. He ended up with Skechers because that’s what was open.”
Surprised by the number of stores closed, Deandrea plans to come back when more open.
“It looks safe. It smells clean,” she said with a laugh.
Colleen Wagner, a spokeswoman for Simon, which owns the mall, said it doesn’t know about each individual store’s opening plan. But customers can visit the mall’s store directory online, at simon.com/mall/town-center-atboca-raton, to check which stores are open and their adjusted hours.
As of Wednesday, the Apple store, Macy’s, Bath & Body Works, Express and Foot Locker were some of the closed stores. According to the mall’s store directory, about 20 stores were open.
The Palm Beach Outlets was
one of the first shopping destinations to reopen in Palm Beach County on Monday. Other shopping centers also are set to reopen in the region. They include The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens, which will reopen Friday, and The Mall at Wellington Green will reopen Monday.
Gigi Medina, the general manager at Anne Fontaine, waited to welcome customers just after 11:30 at the Town Center. Medina said this particular mall is typically slow until noon and picks up in the afternoon until it closes.
Medina said she and one other employee at the Anne Fontaine store were the only two who returned to work so far. The rest of the employees were furloughed and won’t return
to work until business picks up.
“Some are kind of cabin fever crazy. Most will be curious to see what’s happening, what stores are open. I don’t expect it to be the same business as before. We’ll see slowly,” Medina said as a customer walked into the store.
Jennifer Gelfand, of Boca Raton, said she was disappointed when she entered the mall. She brought bags of items to return from home, but those stores were closed.
Her trip lasted a total of about 10 minutes.
“It’s usually pretty crowded, so seeing it empty is a little bizarre,” Gelfand said. “But I expected it with what’s going on now.”
Vinay Bhola traveled to the mall from Coral Springs. Bhola snapped a photo of a touchscreen map kiosk that displayed the message, “Welcome back. We missed you.”
Bhola said he spent the first hour of the reopening observing how different the familiar place was. He noticed the signs still hanging on doors with closure announcements from March and watched how shoppers interacted with the mall, which he described as “slightly dystopian.”
Bhola works in advertising and retail marketing, which is partly what drew him to the Town Center mall. Some of his clients in retail are afraid to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic. By going to this mall, Bhola hoped to make an appealing case for reopening to his clients.
“You still have stores that are just confused on what’s the best direction,” Bhola said.
Around noon, Bhola continued his trip around the mall with a bag from Billabong in hand.
His one purchase? Hand sanitizer.