Mall Demolition

The Cottonwood Creek Mall was built in Wasilla just over 20 years ago. The Mat-Su valley had finally hit it big time. This was about at the same time as their first traffic light. No need for a trip to Anchorage to shop. The mall was a anchored with Gottschalks department store and a large grocery store. Fast forward 15-20 years and throw in a Wal-mart and Fred Meyer in the area as competition, and the grocery and department store are out of business. A few specialty stores can't maintain enough rent revenue to keep the Mall afloat. So this week a demolition crew (mostly this monstrous claw thingy) started tearing the mall down. It was coming down so fast, I figured I had to blip it before it was all gone. This relatively young building is reduced to ruble to make way for a Target store. Thank god they're coming. I just don't have enough Chinese manufactured crap to fill my house with.

Here's a panorama of the other side of the mall.

Here's a larger perspective shot of the destructo machine.

Edit: The panorama is a 1MB file so when you use the zoom function, it looks pixelated until fully loaded, then it sharpens to it's full glory.