Signs outside the American Eagle store in the Chautauqua Mall indicate the store is closing its doors later this week.

It’s just the latest mall-based big-box retailer to find trouble in this age of online shopping. American Eagle suspended stock dividends for the third quarter, saying it was going to take a big hit on clothing it was marking down to clear out excess inventory. The company lost $42 million in the second quarter of 2022 while revenue declined another $838 million in the third quarter. Fourth quarter and full 2022 financial results haven’t been released yet.

The store closings aren’t anything new for American Eagle, either. In January 2021, the company announced a planned closure of between 200 and 250 locations between 2021 and 2023, many of them coming in mall-based locations.

Chautauqua Mall has already been pivoting away from big-box retailers when Sears and Bon Ton collapsed. In their wake have come restaurants and a Planet Fitness as well as discount retailer Ollie’s. The loss of American Eagle is just another sign that shopping is changing — and those who insist on clinging to the old way of doing things are going to be sorely disappointed.

Enter the Kohan Retail Investment Group, a group headquartered in Great Neck, N.Y. and led by Mike Kohan which has purchased the Chautauqua Mall from Washington Prime Group. The investment group purchases distressed assets and works to re-purpose them. According to its website, “We believe the future of these large indoor spaces will be more of a hybrid of entertainment, food, and retail than the past model where retail reigned supreme. With the closing of many large anchor stores around the country in the past decade, those large spaces offer unique opportunities for venues of all different types: galas, expos, concerts, arcades, miniature golf, and others have found their homes at some of these spaces at our malls.”

The Chautauqua Mall was struggling to keep tenants before the COVID-19 pandemic and its temporary closure by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The uncertainty brought on by Washington Prime Group’s bankruptcy didn’t help matters any. Only time will tell if Kohan — who is also struggling to breathe new life into the McKinley Mall in Buffalo — has what it takes to bring more activity to the Chautauqua Mall.