The expansion of Pyramid Mall — which brings Best Buy, The Home Depot and Dick’s Sporting Goods to Ithaca — will delight mall patrons who were often forced to travel elsewhere to satisfy their shopping needs.
“This will be great for the entire community because people can shop within the county instead of going elsewhere,” said mall general manager Jim Tull ’74.
Best Buy, currently under construction, will open this November, according to Tull.
Demolition work has begun for Dick’s Sporting Goods, expected to open in March 2002. Construction has not yet begun for The Home Depot, which will open “sometime next year,” Tull said.
Upon completion, The Home Depot will become the largest store in the mall, about twice the size of Sears. Best Buy and Dick’s Sporting Goods will be “big box” stores, smaller than a department store but bigger than most of Pyramid’s current retailers.
Tull noted that these stores had a desire to break into the Tompkins County market and space was available for them after JC Penney’s closed in May.
Consumer Driven
Shoppers and mall representatives alike believe that the mall will benefit the consumer.
“I like the new changes because there will be more competition and I will get more choices for shopping,” said Brad Yu grad.
Due to the expansion, mall shoppers will also find a bigger selection of merchandise at Pyramid Mall.
“Right now we don’t have the full range of merchandise that customers want, and we found that people sometimes travel to Syracuse to get what they need,” Tull said.
Yu is aware of the occasional but necessary trip to Syracuse. “I have a friend who lives in Dryden, who had to drive to Syracuse to go to the Home Depot,” Yu said. “But now he won’t have to go there anymore.”
To accommodate the new stores, the mall will eventually expand the parking lot. However, some potential shoppers worry about increased traffic congestion and the effects on local businesses.
“I’m a little concerned that the new stores might cause traffic congestion and they might dig into the market for Ithaca’s smaller shops,” said Stephen Harasim ’03.
Nevertheless, the new stores will give people the opportunity to get almost anything they want, Harasim said.
Archived article by Peter Lin