story and photo by Mike Blain
The Free Press
We set out a little after 6pm on a Tuesday night, forgetting entirely about the I-5 commuter plod that stood between us and the Promised Land. The Mother of All Malls. The Mall to End All Malls. This Supermall of the Great Northwest. As we crept down the controlled on-ramp, we started having second thoughts. "Uh, I have to get up early tomorrow." Red light. "Wait, we can still turn off right here." Green light. "Let's do it tomorrow." Red light.
No, the three of us agreed, it was now or never.
With nothing on our shopping lists but a desire to see the new consumer temple that draws thousands of worshipers each day, we burrowed headlong into bumper-to-bumper I-5 traffic. We wanted to see the place that draws the skeptical and the born-again, the heathen and the true believers, who come to pay their tithe and get a glimpse of shopping heaven.
It's a 64-mile round-trip from the University District. The mall is on Supermall Rd. off the Supermall exit on Superhighway 167 in SuperAuburn. We could see the behemoth rising up from what used to be fertile farmland before we saw the exit sign. In addition to offering developers plenty of elbow room to put in a sea of asphalt and yellow stripes as far as the eye can see, the location is perfect for maximizing the distance shoppers must travel from Seattle, Tacoma or the Eastside.
We pulled into the largely empty parking lot, following a car with Ohio plates carrying two women. And we thought we'd driven a long way to get to the Supermall.
Approaching the Nordstrom Rack entrance, we decided we weren't quite ready to kneel at the altar. We started circling, sizing up the discount mega-mall, looking for a chink in the temple's armor. I felt like Luke Skywalker approaching the Death Star. Up close, you couldn't see how large the place really was, but you sensed it. The Supermall is so big it creates it's own gravity, pulling shoppers in and then spitting them out with plastic bags full of stuff they just gotta have.
Rounding a corner, we saw the entrance we knew we had to use. Facing southeast we could see Mt. Rainier hovering above all, glowing orange from the setting sun. Turning around 180 degrees, we gazed upon a faux Mt. Rainier, lurking over a set of doors leading straight into the belly of the beast. Noting the not-so-pearly gates, we entered the Supermall of the Great Northwest.
What we saw first surprised us. No Orange Julius or Mrs. Field's cookie shops (yet), no fountains, no sullen teens sitting on benches. Situated just inside the Mt. Rainier entrance is a recycling display sponsored by King County. Perusing the booths touting bathroom tiles made from recycled glass and parkas made from recycled plastic bottles, we thought it was ironic such a display would be in a place that feeds people's addiction to brand new products. But maybe it was more than an ode to recycling. Maybe it was part of the mall's whole presentation. There was a subliminal message coming across here: "It's okay harried shopper. Yeah, you just drove that smog-producer for 40 minutes and walked through a fake Mt. Rainier to buy some overpackaged crap you can get at the same price in your own neighborhood, but if you just recycle those cans and bottles when you get home, everything's gonna be okay."
What struck us the most about the Supermall was the lack of anything that strikes you the most. It's your basic mall, just bigger. A totally banal collection of one-story structures that appear as if their construction was inspired by continental drift as much as anything else. Little tilt-up concrete wharehouse buildings from all over the Kent Valley just drifted here and mashed together to form this commercial mountain range.
It's a little less glitzy than your run of the mill mall - all part of that "discount" and "outlet" image that is belied by the prices on most items. Many of the stores have plain concrete floors, as if the lack of carpeting or floor tile will fool people into thinking things are cheaper.
The mall touted its huge array of stores and unbeatable prices in the advertising blitz leading up to its opening. Promises of discounts of 30 to 70 percent off on all merchandise helped to lure an estimated 500,000 shoppers to the mall in the three days after it opened on Aug. 25,. It has drawn around 100,000 people on weekend days since then.
But, as a Sept. 22 Seattle Times story pointed out, most of the prices at the mall aren't any cheaper than prices for the exact same items at other malls. Of 16 items randomly selected by the paper - from a Eureka Wind River four-person tent, to a Barbie Pink n' Pretty House - only four were actually cheaper at the Supermall, and only one exceeded the 30 percent savings rate.
The mall's response? "There's no price guarantee and we never alluded to a price guarantee," Supermall representative Sheila Lynch told the Times. But, the paper points out, "some ads specifically say that 'every item' is at least 30 percent off," and just saying "30 to 70 percent off" provides no reference point for savings anyway.
So, if the Supermall is a long drive for most people, nothing special to look at or walk through, and offers no consistent savings over any other malls, then what's so super about it?
"You got me," one employee of Seattle's Best Coffee told us, as we partook in some caffeine communion. Body of Biscotti broken for you, blood of Java shed for you . . . The espresso whiz told us things were pretty slow that day because the Puyallup Fair had just opened, but it was crazy on weekends. We asked if they had to duel it out with Starbucks for customers and found out the mall had courted Starbucks, but the company refused to open a shop there because it didn't want to be associated with a "discount" mall.
Sipping the holy brew, we were drawn like moths to a flame toward the Incredible Universe store. The anchor of the mall, the store peppers its ads with the bizarre slogan: "There's intelligent life out here." Hmmm, maybe, maybe not, but it seems like an odd phrase for trying to sell more computers or TVs.
Things started getting downright Orwellian as we approached the entrance. Signs told us we could not enter unless we were members. We were told that in order for us to enter, one of us had to show a piece of I.D. with a name and address and become a member, and the other two could enter as "guests." We assured them we weren't going to buy anything. We asked if they gave the names to mailing lists. No, we were told, it only helped the store to keep track of "bonus points" at checkout time, which add up with each purchase until you can get some free gizmos. Couldn't they do that with just the name, and no address.
One of us caved in and showed some I.D. and we entered the Universe. If the mall was the temple, this was the inner sanctum. Huge "0 percent interest" banners beckoned from gymnasium height ceilings. There was a "rotunda" with a stage, a karaoke booth, even a McDonalds inside the store.
This is where credit card sinners come to be absolved. Enter the "Financial Center" area and confess all. "Forgive me, Incredible Universe, for I have sinned. I have three 90-day lates and one bankruptcy on my credit report." Just say 12 hail MasterCards, three Our VISAS and sign on the dotted line, my child.
Stickers saying "incredible" in small letters and "BUY" in huge letters were everywhere, so if you looked down an aisle of TVs, it all screamed "BUY, BUY, BUY, BUY, BUY!" A poster touted the"Astronomical Advantages of Incredible Credit." Another bizarre advertising slogan, considering the astronomical 23 percent interest rate on Incredible Universe credit cards after the 0 percent phase runs out.
We meandered, lost each other several times in the cavernous store and noted that you could buy Macs for the same or less in Seattle.
As we went to leave, a store security guard looked us all up and down. He stopped me, noted my camera - a vintage Pentax not even sold in the store - and demanded: "Where's your green dot?" I told him I didn't have one. Suspicious, he spoke into his walkie-talkie: "He doesn't have a green dot." Big Brother had singled me out.
By now the mall was near closing time. We decided we'd had enough.
I returned by myself to the Supermall on a Sunday the next week. By chance, it was "Buy Nothing Day," a nascent anti-shopping crusade modeled on events such as "Bike-to-Work" day. I don't think the word really got out in Auburn. This time the mall parking lots were packed. A security guard with a Canadian mounty style hat cruised around in a white Supermall pickup. Hey pardner, this parking lot ain't big enough for the two of us . . .
I went back to the Incredible Universe to pilfer one of their "BUY" stickers and had to go through the whole membership rigamarole again. This time I was stuck with using my I.D. I asked about mailing lists again, and was assured they didn't give the names out. I persisted. "But do you guys use the addresses for your own mailing lists?" Again, I was told no.
As she finished typing into the computer and handed me my membership card, she said "I made sure to enter 'no' at the bottom." Huh? "So you guys do use the addresses for mailings, otherwise you wouldn't have to specify 'no'?" Well, she explained, they didn't use it for mailings, only those things that already come in the mail that say "current resident." So it would come with my name on it instead, except it wouldn't come with my name on it because she made sure to enter "no." Doublespeak doesn't get much better than that.
All the Incredible Universe employees have a tag with a first name and a name in quotes. "Singe" scanned my card and gave me a green dot for my camera. I asked about the name. She said that during employee training, workers were given nicknames based on their most embarrassing moment, among other criteria. She said she had once accidentally set her hair on fire.
I did a quick tour, snagged a "BUY" sticker, showed my green dot and left.
The Supermall seems to be crawling with security guards. These acolytes criss-cross the inside of the mall, watching for shady looking characters, keeping an eye out for any "signs of gang activity" and cleaning up spilled Cokes. One guard told me he's had to deal with all the "normal mall stuff: a couple of cars stolen, keys locked in cars. Lost children. Lots of lost children." Apparently they were too young to read or missed the signs saying "It's impossible to get lost at the Supermall. Just follow the oval in either direction."
I went into the Levi's Outlet store and watched an employee adjust rows of jeans a half-inch this direction, a quarter-inch that, trying to look busy. I asked him about a sign that called on customers to limit their purchases of jeans to six pair. He explained that German and Japanese shoppers like to come in and buy Levi's in bulk, and then ship them overseas where they can get up to $150 a pair.
I wandered back out to the parking lot, thinking that a trip to the Supermall is like stumbling upon some 700 Club look-alikes when channel surfing. The bluster and pomp is fascinating for a few minutes. Then it's just boring. Heading back to Seattle, I wondered if the Incredible Universe had painlessly tagged me on the way out and would map my progress home as a moving red blip on a huge electronic map of Puget Sound.
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Contents on this page were published in the October/November, 1995 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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Copyright © 1995 WFP Collective, Inc.