Columbia Mall: Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania on DeadMalls.com

COLUMBIA MALL: BLOOMSBURG, PA

Aaron Sica's Commentary

Posted May 3, 2011 (user submitted November 1, 2009)

The Columbia Mall is in a small town called Buckhorn, just outside Bloomsburg, PA. It opened in fall 1988 amid much fanfare, as the nearest mall was 1/2 hour away. Sears and JCPenney, which had stores in downtown Bloomsburg, closed their downtown stores to come to the new mall.

To this day, they remain....But that's just about the only positive in this mall. It once had everything that a mall shopper is looking for - a bookstore (Friar Tuck), an arcade (Boardwalk Blvd), and many clothing stores. For the hungry person, there was Arby's, a McDonald's, Auntie Anne's, a pizza shop, and even a full-serve restaurant.

Today, all of the above stores are gone, with the exception of Auntie Anne's and the pizza shop. Over half the stores are vacant.

Erica Nevin's Commentary

Posted May 3, 2011 (user submitted March 22, 2010)

I have been a student at Bloomsburg University for 4 years now and I have seen the Columbia Mall wither away quickly. The only modern stores for customers in the high school/college age range are Victoria's Secret and GAP. They had a DEB and a Claire's but they have, along with the majority of the stores once residing there, pulled out of the mall. It seems that there are more empty stores than existing stores in this mall and I think it would be best for the town to just close it down and build something more profitable in its space.

Chris' Commentary

Posted May 3, 2011 (user submitted September 22, 2010)

This mall is on a downward spiral of closing. Just recently, Gap left, Auntie Anne's(the only place to get any food or drink), and many other stores have closed. It is a "dead" mall and you should feature it...

The sad thing is this mall could be great and it was at one time years ago. It is near our major University, only a few miles from the college. It is starting to look like a flea market. The anchor stores are still there, Sears, Jcpenney and Bon Ton but the selection of clothes is bad.

Nicholas Lutz's Commentary:

User submitted April 2022

I visited Columbia Mall at the beginning of March to document what I had heard to be an essentially dead mall still open to the public. What I found was shocking and the emptiest mall I have visited in my travels. There were halls and halls of empty and decaying storefronts with labelscars of what once was and "For Lease" signs in the windows. Buckets tried to catch the water leaking through the roof behind those very signs. Many of the storefronts had fallen apart with dying plants throughout, leaks, and collapsing ceilings and drywall. The locked and dark, yet still furnished management office had a sign on the door dated August 2019 telling anyone with concerns or questions to call one of three phone numbers listed. The ventilation system and many of the lights had been turned off, leaving the cold space mostly lit by just the skylights and a few recessed path lights. It felt almost as if I was in an alternate dimension as mall walkers got their steps in around me like nothing was wrong, and people shopped on the other side of the glass walling off the still open anchor spaces.

While I was there, there were four businesses still operating out of the space. At the end of March 2022, that fell to three. The final interior tenant, a children's bounce house party space called Bloom Bounce, left the mall at the end of March. Currently, three shopping businesses still operate out of the anchor spaces which have been walled off from the interior. That was closed for good in April 2022. The three businesses are an EFO Furniture Outlet and Planet Fitness which have split the former Sears space and a Dunham's Sports operating out of the former Ames on the opposite end. The Sears had a merchandise pick-up door on the side which is now an employee entrance for EFO. A few storefronts which had been walled off are used by the VA, which has outside access next to the former JC Penney. Some others in the Sears wing were converted to some sort of offices in the hopes of leasing space. Because the "offices" had interior locked doors with no glass and used the former exterior employee backdoors as the entrances, it is unknown if any of these were occupied upon the interior closing. All entrances are now sealed with closed signs on the doors.

Aaron Sica's Commentary

Erica Nevin's Commentary

Chris' Commentary

Monica Favia’s Commentary:

Nicholas Lutz's Commentary: