[FONT=Verdana]Exterior walls of Coliseum Mall in Hampton, VA will begin to come down a week from Today as contractors start the first significant demolition in a planned transformation of the decades-old mall.

The changes are part of owner Mall Properties' plan to overhaul the site from a traditional mall design to the "Peninsula Town Center" with outdoor walkways between shops and businesses. Part of the project will be paid for using special taxing districts, approved by Hampton City Council, on the mall site. All work on the site is expected to be completed by spring 2009, mall manager Raymond Tripp said.

Mall Properties has said retail competition has taken much of the mall's retail traffic, necessitating the drastic changes. Tripp said that by the end of August, he expects the occupancy of the mall's space to be about 50 percent. That would mark a 10 percent drop from earlier this year.

There are a few key dates for shoppers to be aware of as they're tracking changes at the site:

On Monday, Aug. 28, workers are scheduled to start pulling down the outside walls of the former Dillard's;

Before Christmas, work will begin on constructing a pad site for a new J.C. Penney building and a new parking garage. Both will be on the Cunningham Drive side of the property;

Soon after Christmas, specialty stores inside the mall will close and demolition of the mall's interior will begin.

Once the demolition starts on the old Dillard's buildings, the rest of the mall will remain open until after Christmas, Tripp said.

And through almost all the changes, several stores will remain open: Hecht's (soon to be Macy's), J.C. Penney, Burlington Coat Factory, and the three freestanding restaurants along Coliseum Drive, Steak & Ale, Bennigan's and Outback Steakhouse.

"Even though all this demolition is going on, I've got an operating mall," Tripp said.

At least one entrance from every major road surrounding the mall will stay open throughout construction. Birmingham, Ala.-based Hoar Construction, which handles major projects all over the country, is working as the general contractor on the job.

By the time all work is complete, only the current Hecht's building will be incorporated into the new town center layout. Every other part of the mall building will have been demolished, replaced by a series of freestanding buildings in a layout connected by new roads, park spaces and sidewalks.

The new J.C. Penney, which will be about half the size of the current building and sit near the corner of Coliseum and Cunningham drives, should open in the fall of 2007. The size reduction follows a company-wide trend.

Tripp said negotiations are still ongoing as to what stores that are currently in the mall will make the transition to the town center. Many of the currently operating stores are locally owned, and some likely won't be incorporated into the new mix.

"We'd like to include some of the locals," Tripp said. "We'd like to upgrade the tenant mix. We're going to try to have retail for all demographics."

Tripp pointed to Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, as an example of what Peninsula Town Center will look like. Easton was designed and is managed by the architect working on the Coliseum project, Steiner + Associates.

The site has public spaces, including fountains and stages, where performances take place. Peninsula Town Center will have the same.

"It may not be the exact tenant make-up," Tripp said. "But we're aiming to recreate that. The whole concept is to create an experience."[/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]