Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

King of Prussia Mall flooded again . . . with business

The torrential rains that flooded the King of Prussia Mall nearly two months ago dampened holiday spirits yesterday, but only among a specific subgroup of Black Friday shoppers - premium-ice-cream consumers.

The torrential rains that flooded the King of Prussia Mall nearly two months ago dampened holiday spirits yesterday, but only among a specific subgroup of Black Friday shoppers - premium-ice-cream consumers.

It's true. The Häagen-Dazs store has yet to reopen.

But that was the exception. Nearly all of the 100 stores affected by the rain, including dozens of locations to treat your sweet tooth, were open and prepared for yesterday's onslaught of bleary-eyed bargain hunters.

"It's so over," Kathy Smith, the mall's marketing manager, said of the Sept. 30-Oct. 1 flood that forced the temporary closure of Lord & Taylor and dozens of other stores on the first floor, including about 25 that were still renovating a couple weeks ago.

The food court, hit hardest because it dips below the first floor, reopened on Thanksgiving. Only four stores were closed yesterday, including Express, a popular clothing store, where the windows were covered with white plastic.

"It's not something that we would ever wish to happen, but when something of this nature does happen and you can't control it, you try to make lemonade out of it," Smith said. "A lot of stores have had the opportunity to update their stores before the holiday season."

Build-A-Bear Workshop, for instance, built a new store in which kids can make stuffed animals.

"They were actually one that suffered more damage than others because of their location, and they were the first to say they're starting over and putting in a fresh, new concept," Smith said. "It looks great."

The flood, which Smith euphemistically called "The Incident," didn't put a dent in October's mall traffic or hurt yesterday's turnout, she said.

"Shoppers came out really early this year," she said. "There were plenty of people here at 4 o'clock."

The number of shoppers entering the mall yesterday between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. was between 20 percent and 25 percent more than last year, according to the mall's electronic "people-counters," Smith said.

"There's no good time for such a thing to happen, but certainly it could have been worse," she said of the flood. "It could have happened today."

Not that an inch or two of water would have stopped yesterday's Black Friday die-hards, who were jacked up on Starbucks lattes and cans of Monster energy drinks handed out from a pickup truck in the parking lot.

"It's been a really good day," Smith said. "It's everything we could have hoped for, so far."