A sign that says “Please Enter to the Right”on a door pointing to…a brick wall and some windows. Do they want us to climb through the windows? Knock down their wall? Around the corner is a patio enclosed with shrubs…Should we jump over the shrubs and patio tables and people eating and enter there?

It’s probably not good business to trick your customers into thinking there’s an entrance somewhere when there’s not.

This is a picture of the Northway Mall in Pittsburgh, PA.

Over the past year, they have ripped out a movie theatre, 5-6 storefronts, and the entire interior enclosure that connected the stores on the north side to the south side of the mall. They replaced it with what you see in the above picture: Concrete and woodchips.

We think this was pretty stupid in a few regards:

1. Loss of Lease Income from the stores that were ripped out
2. Pittsburgh is cold and rainy 75% of the year, which means going outside to get from one side of the mall to the other side of the mall is enough to make a lot of people not shop there.
3. Giant patches of woodchips do nothing more than encourage kids to start kicking and throwing woodchips at you while you walk by
4. Abundance of bad drivers now even more confused on how to drive and where to park.
5. Did I mention it’s always cold in Pittsburgh and the last thing you want to do is go outside to get from one end of the mall to the other side?

This is by far one of the stupidest remodeling projects and business ideas we’ve seen in a long time. How could this be considered an improvement? We don’t even want to know what was spent to do this. I’m sure they could use someStrategic Philanthropy too.