It?s Saturday at Arundel Mills ? and the competition is fierce for a parking space.
Cars slowly prowl the lot, causing bottlenecks in the aisles. Drivers eye the mall doors, waiting to stalk an exiting shopper. Vehicles converge from all sides when a space opens, like sharks who have detected blood in the water.
It?s survival of the fittest, but some can?t hack it.
“He?s stopped the car in the middle of the road, gotten out and gone inside to wait for me while I find a spot to park,” Glennis Maisttison, of Hanover, said of her husband.
“It?s so terrible, I just can?t take it,” Lon Maisttison added.
“It seems like the whole state of Maryland is here,” another driver said.
Peggy Boettcher, a Jessup resident, said her family makes a point of coming to the mall during non-peak times because of the parking issue.
“We do not come here on the weekends,” she said.
Andie Stretmater, manager of
DuClaw Brewing Co., said the crowded parking lot makes employees late for work. Brian McMahon, assistant manager of Remomo Café Italia, said it inconveniences customers. Both said the mall should expand the parking lot.
The mall, which opened in 2000, has more than 200 tenants, including stores, restaurants, a 24-screen movie theater and other entertainment venues.
It has 7,000 parking spaces, said Gene Condon, vice president and general manager of the shopping center.
The fact that a lot of those spaces are taken at any given moment results from Arundel Mills? popularity, he said. People are “excited to be here. They find the stores and prices and the entertainment they are looking for.”
He would not say how many people visit the shopping center in a typical day or week ? or even month or year.
Mall management tracks how many parking spaces are used, and even where and when.
For example, spots are usually available between Burlington Coat Factory and the food court, Condon said, and the area between the food court and Modell?s Sporting Goods is the last to fill up.
The mall is seeing an increase in the number of people walking and biking to get there, Condon said, and the number is expected to rise as more people move closer.
For those who don?t have that luxury, get used to the situation.
There are no plans to expand the number of parking spaces, Condon said.
He explained that the mall doesn?t have parking in some places where people expect it because of environmentally sensitive areas.
Some people want to park right in front of the door, he said.
Customer Ahmad Ali of Burtonsville agreed; he sees no problem.
“People are lazy to not park a little further away and walk,” he said.
