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Shopping Centers Today -> February 2002
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WASH. MALL OFFERS PLACE TO REMEMBER SEPT. 11
By Debra Hazel
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| Customers pause from their shopping at Everett (Wash.) Mall to reflect on the attacks. |
Just about the last thing any shopping center wants during the holidays is a quiet place. Yet Everett (Wash.) Mall, some 35 miles north of Seattle, created just that with its “Our Community Reflects” space, a vacant storefront converted into a refuge where shoppers can rest, reflect on the events of Sept. 11 and reconnect with their community.
The 1,500-square-foot room, which opened Nov. 3, has a long, narrow “reflecting pond” about seven inches deep running down the middle, with seating all around. Eighty-foot-long “writing” walls along both sides, blank at first, were quickly covered with drawings, verses and adornments. As the canvases filled, the staff would turn them over; when those sides were covered, they would store and replace them. Signs reading “We the People” and providing information about the room are the only other decoration. The back wall is covered with tiny lights symbolizing the human spirit, and Native American music plays in the background.
“People walk in and just gasp,” said Patricia Curran Railton, CMD, director of specialty leasing for locally based Kennedy-Wilson Properties Northwest. In its first 16 days of operation, the reflection room received between 10,000 and 11,000 visitors.
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Several companies and organizations helped put the room together, which is free to the public. Contractors donated building materials and labor, while Kinko’s printed the program listing the donor organizations. American Red Cross volunteers, mall employees and walkers, community organizations and others staffed the center, answering questions and keeping an eye on the property. In all, Railton estimates, the value of the donated time and materials exceeded $8,000.
The room was not in the mall’s budget, but marketing and other mall staff contributed their time to make it a reality. “It just started to evolve,” Railton said.
At press time, Everett Mall said it hoped to keep the room open at least through the first quarter of this year, and perhaps until Sept. 11. A time capsule to be opened in 25 years and containing some of the writings will be donated to the Snohomish County Museum and Historical Association. At that point, the postings will serve history, but for now their purpose is to heal. Railton observed, “It was the best thing for the community.”
 | Current Issue November 2008 |