|
The Mall in Columbia is a large regional shopping mall with five anchor department stores (Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor, Sears, Macy's, and JC Penney) and over 200 stores and restaurants. Also containing a 14-screen AMC movie theater, an LL Bean retail store, a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, and a Bank of America, in an outside extension area, the Mall is a societal center for the community and is located in Town Center.
There are several other major shopping centers in the Columbia area, including Snowden Square, Columbia Crossing I and II, Dobbin Center, Gateway Overlook, Ellicott City's Long Gate Shopping Center, and Hanover's Arundel Mills (in neighboring Anne Arundel County).
Columbia's nine "village centers" provide residents with nearby shopping as well, often including supermarkets, gas stations, liquor stores, dry cleaners, restaurants, and hair salons. The village centers are laid out so that individual stores are not visible from the road, unlike traditional strip malls). The arrangement is criticized because it makes it difficult for newcomers and non-residents to know what shopping is available; it is praised for eliminating much of the garishness of roadside America.
The village centers have evolved over time. The Oakland Mills Village Center had a traditional Village Center layout—stores located off a central corridor—until its demolition in the late 1990s. It has since been replaced with a more traditional strip mall. The Kings Contrivance Village Center underwent major construction in 2007 and 2008 when a new Harris Teeter was added to the center, but maintained the original character of stores around a central corridor and plaza. |