A Day In 33,000 Lives -- Alderwood Mall Resonates To Feet Of Walkers, Shoppers, Watchers

Once upon a time, in the days before Nintendo, the area now known as Alderwood Mall was a splotch of gravel roads and vacant land.

"Even 44th was a two-lane, gravel road," remembers 20-year Lynnwood resident Bob Noack, finance officer for the city.

These days, for many, Alderwood Mall is Lynnwood.

Like other shopping malls, it is a center of life, an answer to progress' call for ultimate accessibility, variety and social interaction. Where else can you buy a national bestseller, grab a quick bite with friends, get your eyes checked, compare prices on cassette decks and have a Renoir print framed in one afternoon?

Owned by the Youngstown, Ohio-based Edward J. DeBartolo Corp., the nation's largest shopping-center developer, Alderwood opened in 1979 without the frills: one story high, no extraordinary architecture, no ice rinks or movie theaters (although theaters have popped up in nearby strip centers).

The same anchor stores that helped launch the mall - The Bon Marche, J.C. Penney, Lamonts, Nordstrom, Sears - have not changed. There are 135 specialty stores, five middle-of-the-aisle kiosk businesses, a sparkling fountain and several oddly shaped sculptures for children to climb on.

Here - and reportedly for sale - is Alderwood Mall. And here is a look at life at Alderwood Mall.

On a weekday morning at 7 a.m., the sounds of a sweeper scouring the parking lot greet arriving mall employees.

Inside, store managers and assistant managers flip on their radios to break the silence. Music to do paperwork by.

At 8 a.m., many of them walk over to one of the mall's caffeine centers, Starbucks or La Chatel. Both spots open early, to jump-start drowsy mall workers.

Half an hour later, security guards unlock Alderwood's doors even though stores won't open until 9:30. But already there is a group of sneaker-clad people shuffling outside. Soon, the mall will be overrun with them.

The Walkers.

Most are in their 60s and 70s. They walk for medical reasons. They do it here because it never rains or snows inside the mall.

"Last time I made an address list," said Marge Gonyea, who more or less coordinates one of two groups of mall walkers, "there were about 50 of us. And of those, I think five are ministers. Mostly retired."

It has become a social thing. You can't keep passing the same faces day after day on the concourse without saying hello. Exercise is just the preamble to a another morning of coffee with former strangers who now send each other cards when they're sick.

The group walks the mall's 0.7-mile course in clusters. Gonyea does a round every 12 minutes. Some do two, three, maybe four rounds. They are all passed at least once by a young woman in full athletic gear who makes it from Musicland to the Wherehouse and back again in just seven minutes. The men all notice her.

"And when she pushes her two kids in the stroller, she makes all the alcoves in nine minutes," said walker Liz Young.

It was on a day like this one in July 1989 that Gladys Rhinehart's husband suffered a fatal heart attack, right in front of Nordstrom after a morning's walk. The Rhineharts were among the first to join the group, and Gladys said she was buoyed by her new friends' support. "To me, they're like another family," she said. Nordstrom sent flowers.

Alderwood starts its engines. A woman stands in the window of Casual Corner, dressing a mannequin. Clerks sort unpacked boxes of folded clothes on the floor of Eddie Bauer. A worker at the Original Cookie Co. stacks cookie sheets while shopkeepers appear like color slides in the windows of Ben Bridge jewelers.

The people will come in waves, 33,000 of them on an average day, to comb the mall's 1.2 million square feet of space. They come from Lynnwood and Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace, from Marysville, Woodinville and Redmond. On weekends they come from as far away as Tacoma and British Columbia.

"If you can't find it here, just forget it," said Marie McKinney of Everett, who came to Alderwood one recent day accompanied by two young friends, Amanda and Alysha Cordray.

"We were thinking of going to the zoo, but it was too cold. But I was thinking that it's almost as interesting as the zoo, because you can watch the people."

Teen-agers from Lynnwood High School across the street hang out here after school - and sometimes during - and visit classmates who work in the mall.

Executives from the nearby Fischer Building meet for lunch in the bustling food court, where they choose between Chinese and Japanese, hamburgers and hot dogs, yogurt and Orange Julius. People on lunch breaks rush in from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., picking out their targets like heat-seeking missiles. Whole families show up around dinnertime.

When they come, they pick their spot from among Alderwood's 4,800 parking spaces and enter the mall's controlled, air-conditioned, sales-driven climate. The average customer, according to the most recent figures, is a white female born around 1958.

Alderwood management won't release annual sales figures, but it's a sure bet that the mall and its retail stepsisters account for a sizable portion of Lynnwood's $10 million in revenue. Nationally, consumer spending comprises two thirds of GNP, and Alderwood Mall is to Lynnwood what casinos are to Las Vegas.

"I basically live here," said Lynn Haner, Alderwood's assistant manager and marketing director. On her desk is a cup of Starbucks coffee; behind her, a bag from Bartell's Drugs. "We have everything but a supermarket. And that's right across the street."

The mannequin models station themselves along the concourse. People walk past, sometimes noticing, sometimes not, sometimes not thinking about it until they've walked a few hundred feet down the flowing artery of shoppers, past clothes stores, card shops, bouquets of pay phones.

"Daddy, that lady moved."

"No she didn't. That's just a plastic model."

"Jamie, look! Are they breathing?"

"Ooh, that's gotta be hard."

"Daddy, those are real girls."

The families walk along in pods, some with the pleasantness of a Norman Rockwell painting, others with the dulled senses of characters from an Alaska Airlines commercial.

"Yes, do you have these in size 7 1/2? These ones here. Yes, I know, my son has pretty small feet."

"These are on sale, right? Yes, my sister told me about them; she bought some for her little boy."

"How do they feel, honey? OK? Excuse me, do you have them in black? Can you special-order them? Oh, well, that's all right."

"Thanks anyway."

The merchants cooperate, send shoppers to other stores where they might find what they're looking for, keep an eye out for shoplifting. Each month they all meet with Alderwood's board of directors to hear updates on mall plans. Every February, they attend a banquet where some receive "Aldy" awards for high sales or customer service.

"You don't try to be enemies in a mall," said Hubert Llewelyn, manager of Battery 1 Stop. Llewelyn spends about 14 hours a day, six days a week, at the mall.

A young man strolls up and looked Llewelyn in the eye.

"What do you need?" Llewelyn asked.

"What I need," the young man said, "is a bathroom."

"That's something I get asked every day," he said.

As the day ends, a maintenance worker pushes a large plastic wagon, emptying the trash bins. What's it like working in a mall?

"Hectic," he said, continuing his route but still talking. He picks up a wad of gum from a mall water fountain. "Kind of eye-opening. Makes you wonder how people live at home. Kids come in with their football shoes and put 'em up on the seats, and then they look at you funny when you tell 'em to take 'em off."

Closing hour approaches. 9:30 p.m. In another hour or so the water fountain will automatically shut down. "Attention, shoppers: Alderwood Mall is now closed," a voice says over the PA system. "We hope you enjoyed shopping, and have a good evening."

The lines of last-minute cookie eaters and coffee drinkers dwindle. Display tables at store entrances are drawn inside. Rollaway gates are yanked down and locked.

Shopper No. 33,000 walks out the door, and the building is closed. Somewhere in the distance a vacuum cleaner whirs. In the other direction, day's-end conversation comes from the food court, where workers at Orange Julius are cleaning up shop.

"Once everyone clears out, the place becomes a ghost town," said an Alderwood security guard. "You can actually hear the Muzak."

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ALDERWOOD MALL

Location: 3000 184th St. S.W., Lynnwood.

Owner: Edward J. DeBartolo Corp., Youngstown, Ohio.

Opened: 1979.

Anchor stores: Five (Bon Marche, JC Penney, Lamonts, Nordstrom, Sears).

Specialty shops: 135.

Annual sales: Unavailable.

Retail area: 1.2 million square feet.

Parking spaces: 4,800.

Average number of shoppers: 33,000 a day.

Average customer: White female, 33.4 years old.

Employees: About 2,000; about 4,000 during Christmas season.

Concourse walking distance: 7/10 mile.