Shopping centers today, particularly large 40, 50 year old former malls like Fox Valley need to reinvent themselves. Because we were talking earlier that normally you had anchors and big box businesses, a Sears, a Macy's, anything like that, but you guys are really shifting here where you don't need that anymore and you're even developing a big apartment complex. Joey Thurman: Now you're bringing all sorts of different things. But it's really become the new heart of Fox Valley. And now that we're evolving out of COVID, I think it's just going to be exponential in terms of the things that we can do here. Scott Samson: About a month and a half ago. We even held the local high school prom here. We have very popular line dancing activities here. And once again, offering experiences, and amenities, and programming that, it could be cornhole. But in an environment like this and in geography like this, it's always warm and sunny inside a mall, right? And having an indoor park is a great competitive advantage. We worked with a world-class architecture firm and they designed this iconic tree house tower with a spiral staircase, a platform on the top, and on a regular basis we have live music and events in the stage. And what we did is reinvested and reinvented and created a indoor park here, so rather than being called center court now it's center park. It was an open center court where events might be done or kiosks might open. Fox Valley has been around since 1975 and this is the site of a massive just. I'll say mall, right? You don't have these big, open, green spaces where you can actually get on a structure like this. And where are we right now? I have this massive tree type structure. But it's no longer Fox Valley Mall, it's Fox Valley. Scott Samson: No, in the future we're reinventing ourselves, so malls are becoming more experiential and trying to become more 24/7 communities and we're reinventing ourselves not to be a traditional mall like you might find in 1990 or 1980. Now, I said mall, but we're not using the term mall anymore, right? I'm here with Scott Samson, Senior General Manager of the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora. I haven't been in a mall since I was a teenager running around, having security chase me, maybe that happened. You can walk around, multi-use spaces, local vendors, and you can even stop at Furry Babies and get a puppy.
Joey Thurman: I'm at the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora, Illinois, where they're changing how you think of a mall.
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