Towson Town Center has become the center of a familiar cycle: a national retailer announces a closure, social media blames crime or disorder, and headlines frame the mall’s struggles as evidence of Towson’s decline. But the broader reality is more complex. Experts predict that nearly 87% of remaining indoor malls could close within the next 10 years as consumer habits shift toward online shopping, mixed-use developments, and smaller retail footprints. Towson Town Center is not immune to these national trends.

The store closures happening here are part of sweeping downsizing efforts affecting hundreds of locations nationwide. Retailers are adapting to shrinking mall traffic and changing shopping behavior, meaning more empty storefronts are likely in 2026 and beyond.

This does not necessarily mean Towson Town Center is uniquely failing; rather, the traditional indoor mall model itself is rapidly losing viability across the country.

Tommy Bahama closed late December 2025 as part of new strategy to convert all mall stores to an outdoor retail/restaurant model which was not an option at Towson Town Center. Tommy Bahama has 145 stores nationwide with only 50 stores remaining in malls.

Banana Republic exited Towson at the end of January 2026 as part of plans announced by Gap Inc. in 2025 to close about 350 Gap and Banana Republic stores in North America.

Apple announced that its Towson location, the company’s first unionized store in the country, would close in June, citing declining conditions at the Towson Town Center. Meanwhile, Eric Brown, a lead employee at the store, said that can’t be the real reason. “Financially, we were doing fine; foot traffic, we were doing fine. So there’s no other reason to shut us down than basically bust the union, “ Brown told WMAR

Stoney River Steakhouse announced decision to depart on 4/21/26. The Texas based chain does fairly well nationwide and has not had many recent closures or public financial difficulties. Possible contributing factor could be the 2024 opening of Fogo de Chao which is one of the highest-revenue-per-store steakhouse chains in America.
We could not confirm any U.S. malls where both chains currently coexist in the same shopping center. Most other locations for the two brands are standalone lifestyle-center or suburban sites rather than paired mall tenants.

Perception matters. While publicly available crime statistics do not show any significant rise in crime around the mall, many locals say they do not feel safe visiting Towson Town Center. Local media coverage and online discussions have heavily emphasized crime narratives, reinforcing public fears, despite serious/violent crime being relatively infrequent and the bigger picture data shows crime dropping overall.

Whether people’s fears are fully supported by statistics is almost secondary, because perception often becomes reality for consumers deciding where to spend their time and money. Ultimately, concerns about safety may accelerate the decline of Towson Town Center, but they are likely compounding a transformation already underway in malls nationwide.

All of the nationwide retail trends point to more closures coming and it is pretty easy to predict them based on corporate earnings reports, bankruptcy filings, and chains already shrinking their mall footprint across the country. We can make educated guesses right now about which stores are most likely to leave next, long before the announcement becomes another viral “Towson is dying” story. 

The reality is that many retailers currently operating at Towson Town Center are facing the same pressures impacting malls nationwide: declining in-person shopping, rising operating costs, weaker mall traffic, and a consumer shift toward online spending.

Crime is definitely contributing here both in perception and reality, but when the next closure inevitably happens, it will likely have far more to do with decisions being made at corporate headquarters than the perception of rising crime in Towson.

The stores most at risk are not random and they align closely with national retail contraction. Footwear chains are a prime example. Towson has multiple banners tied to the same category: Champs Sports, Kids Foot Locker, and Finish Line. Nationally, Foot Locker has already announced plans to close hundreds of underperforming mall stores as it consolidates into fewer, higher-performing locations and off-mall concepts. When a mall has overlapping brands competing for the same customer, it becomes an obvious place to cut. It would not be surprising to see at least one of these athletic footwear stores disappear in the next lease cycle.

Specialty apparel is another vulnerable category. Chains like Express and The Children’s Place have been under sustained financial pressure. Express recently went through bankruptcy and is now operating under new ownership that is likely to aggressively evaluate store profitability. The Children’s Place has struggled with declining sales and debt concerns, making its mall footprint a logical target for reduction. These are not Towson-specific problems, they are structural issues facing mall-based apparel nationwide.

Plus-size retailer Torrid represents a particularly clear signal. The company has openly stated it may close up to 180 stores, roughly 30% of its fleet, as leases expire. That kind of public guidance essentially creates a countdown clock for many locations. Torrid probably ranks among the highest-risk tenants based purely on corporate strategy.

Accessory and impulse retailers also face headwinds. Claire’s, long a mall staple, is attempting a reinvention aimed at younger shoppers, but its broader international struggles highlight the fragility of its model. Stores that depend heavily on discretionary foot traffic rather than destination shopping tend to be among the first to close when mall traffic softens.

Even anchor stores are not immune. Macy’s has announced plans to close around 150 underperforming locations as part of its effort to reposition the company. While it is not certain that Towson’s Macy’s will be affected, the broader trend is clear: department stores are shrinking, and malls with rising vacancies face greater scrutiny. Anchors once stabilized malls; now they are part of the same rationalization cycle.

What’s important is that these risks exist independently of local perception. You could remove the “feels unsafe” narrative entirely, and the same list of vulnerable retailers would still emerge. That’s because the underlying drivers are national: e-commerce growth, changing consumer behavior, and retailers shifting away from traditional enclosed malls toward lifestyle centers, standalone stores, and digital channels.

Meanwhile, some stores at Towson are likely to remain stable.

Brands like Sephora, lululemon, Zara, and Bath & Body Works continue to perform strongly in physical retail and are actively investing in stores. Restaurants and experiential tenants, like Cheesecake Factory or entertainment venues also benefit from being destinations in their own right, less dependent on mall-wide traffic.

We cross-referenced Towson Town Center’s stores with verified national retail closure data (2024–2026). Here’s a clean breakdown of which stores currently in Towson Towson Center have been actively closing multiple mall locations elsewhere in the last 2 years (not just a single closure, but part of broader downsizing or restructuring).

These brands are not collapsing, but are actively trimming mall locations:

(These are part of the broader retail contraction trend but not at “mass closure” scale.)

Examples:

Sources: Seeking Alpha, Business Insider, The Sun, Capital One Shopping
Wall Street Journal, WMAR