Somerset Mall Versus Summit Place Mall

When I was young, I used to confuse Somerset Mall and Summit Place Mall, not because they were any bit similar even then, but simply because their names sounded alike.  Nonetheless, as I got older, it became clear that these malls were definitely not confusable.  Somerset Mall grew more and more elegant over the years while Summit Place Mall was a vivid picture of decay. 

At one point, Summit Place Mall was pretty popular.  Yet, when Great Lakes Crossing opened, it quickly became a shell of the mall it once was.  In fact, it was considered a “dead mall” because almost all of its stores had closed.  For a while, JC Penny and Macy’s were essentially the last stores standing but in recent years, even those stores closed.  Driving past the mall is sad; it looks like a ghost town.  My aunt was telling me that she has a dentist in the mall but is forced to drive around in tedious manner because the parking lots of the mall are taped off, making it inconvenient to get anywhere in the complex of Summit Place Mall. 

In a way, Summit Place Mall provides contrast and appreciation for other malls.  Once a well-known and booming shopping center, it was unable to endure the change in economy and competition and began an inevitable decline.  This shows that even once popular malls can fail and that the many other well-known malls in the Metro Detroit area must be doing something right, something more challenging to accomplish than a mall like Summit Place Mall was able to handle.  While this mall declined until its breaking point, other malls flourished, clearly illustrating differences among the Metro Detroit malls. 

Somerset Mall may be have too opposite of a situation to justly compare it to Summit Place Mall, but my childhood confusion made it impossible for me to resist such a comparison.  Somerset Mall stands out in the minds of many as a high class mall, higher class and more elegant than most malls in the Metro Detroit Area.  More bluntly stated, I consider it to be a rich mall.   However, one of my roommates refuses to shop anywhere else because she is so in love with this fancy mall.  She gloats about the fact that it is a three story mall and even has extreme perks such as valet parking.  For many people, like my roommate, this is their favorite shopping destination that they simply cannot get enough of.  Personally, I am slightly out of place in this fancy mall, not that I do not love to shop but I tend to be more of a bargain shopper than one to shop for brand names that cost an arm and a leg.  However, I would not be doing the mall justice, simply conveying my slight bias against it, if I did not more thoroughly describe the luxuries that Somerset Mall offers.  It is truly a beautiful place.  So, I will further describe the contents of the mall in my next blog.