Here's the plan to redevelop the 862-acre shuttered Willow Grove base in Horsham.
Three decades after two friends spent the day at their local mall to win back their girlfriends in the cult classic film "Mallrats," a couple of Bucks-area residents are setting out on a adventure of their own to relive the nostalgia.
On Saturday, Aug. 30, Mike Fenn and a friend are to embark on a "mall marathon" attempting to visit as many area malls as possible, stretching all the way from Delaware's Christiana Mall to South Jersey's Cherry Hill and Deptford Malls. And, of course, no regional mall tour would be complete without stops at both the Neshaminy and Oxford Valley malls in Bucks County.
Along for the trip will be an action figure of "Mallrats" main character Brodie, played by Jason Lee, Fenn said, which will be photographed at each location to document the marathon. You can follow along their journey throughout the day on Fenn's social media pages at @mikecovers.
Growing up a self-described "video game dork," Fenn, a Delaware County native, was not at the Friday night high school football games. Instead, he and his friends spent their free time roaming the area's various malls, which in the '90s and early 2000s were bustling, often spending entire days in the sprawling buildings.
"We would just go there to spend time," he said. "They have everything you need."
Like many teens of that era, Fenn eventually picked up some of his first jobs at the local malls, working at a Modell's Sporting Goods in the since-closed Granite Run Mall and at a tobacco shop within the smaller McDade Mall, both nearby in Delaware County.
"It's just the relationships that the mall forms with you and other people," Fenn said of what made those early days special. "You get to know your coworkers, you get to know other people working in the mall and you get to make trades."
One staple of those early days for Fenn was the informal trading economy between him and his fellow mall workers, such as trading candy from the tobacco shop in exchange for a free pretzel from the pretzel stand.
Even after moving into Philadelphia and ditching his car in his 20s, Fenn still felt the pull of the mall calling him, which eventually resulted in a few rides into Bucks County to see what the northern suburbs had to offer via the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, aka SEPTA.
"You can take the guy out of the mall," Fenn said, "but you can't take the Mallrat out of him."
"Personally for me its been very depressing to see the malls go from these grand places that were once like a destination for us to the point where we can't spend a whole evening there let alone a whole day."
Lacey Latch is the development reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times and The Intelligencer. She can be reached at [email protected].