Patsy Anderson-Dunn has her hands all over the Mendenhall Mall — literally.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
As her parents started building the mall in 1977, they insisted that she leave a handprint in each corner of the foundation. As the mall continued to expand, she kept laying her hand in the foundation — even traveling home from college in 1991 to put a handprint in the final addition.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Now, she has her hands firmly engaged in running the mall and breathing new life into the space. But, the journey back to mall owner was not one she expected.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Anderson-Dunn, who splits her time between Juneau and Oregon, where she is the chief financial officer for a construction company, didn’t plan on becoming a mall owner in the spring of 2020, having left the business when her family sold the mall 14 years prior.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
At the time, the economy was in a coma due to COVID-19. Federal, state and local officials were urging all Americans to stay home as much as possible.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
However, as the pandemic was beginning, the mall’s owner at the time called and said “we’re done.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“That happened in April, we signed the papers in May and we got up here in June,” Anderson-Dunn said in a Monday morning phone interview.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Anderson-Dunn, who describes herself as a “mall rat,” said she was disappointed to see that the occupancy rate had fallen to 28%, and several maintenance items needed to be addressed on her first walk-through in early June of 2020.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“I hyperventilated a little and thought ‘where do we go from here?’” she said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
<\/a>Holiday decorations at the Mendenhall Mall on Nov. 24. (Dana Zigmund\/Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
[Small businesses still struggling due to pandemic’s effect on travel]<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Keeping it local<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Today, the mall is 98% occupied and full of locally owned businesses, including several that left other locations to relocate in the Mendenhall Mall.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t