History TroubledProduction / Other

* Fashion Mall, an upscale mall in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida suburb of Plantation, was built in 1988 as an upscale mall that catered its demographics well. However, anchor store Lord & Taylor withdrew from Florida in 2003, while Hurricane Wilma destroyed the other anchor store (Macy's) and part of the mall proper in 2005, causing its tenancy to plummet until it closed in 2006. The first redevelopment plans in 2008-09 were crushed by the recession, and later redevelopment was stalled by a myriad of legal issues, including a developer that field for bankruptcy. Redevelopment may finally begin in 2016.

* Another troubled mall was Eastland Mall, now Eastgate Metroplex, on the east side of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was to have been built in the 1970s, but sat half-finished for years due to a myriad of problems, including a worker falling to his death during construction of a Dillard's department store, and developers who pulled funding. It finally opened in 1984 and was initially successful, but in 1999, anchor store Service Merchandise went out of business, while J. C. Penney closed in 2001 and Mervyns pulled all its Oklahoma stores in 2006. This left only the Dillard's, which downgraded to an outlet store before the mall ended up converting to office space. The mall's short life was due not only to its troubled production, poor anchors, and poor location (it's surrounded almost entirely by empty fields and an equally-dead strip mall), but also highway expansion that made access to other Tulsa-area malls more viable.

* Perhaps the most famous "dead mall" of all is Dixie Square Mall in the Chicago suburb of Harvey. Built in 1966 and expanded in 1970, the mall was initially successful. However, it was quickly plagued by crime and poverty, with many shootings and other incidents occurring at the mall. The incidents, combined with the closure of an anchor store (a Turn Style discount store, a division of the still-succesful Jewel supermarket chain which the parent company phased out), sent the mall into a tailspin, and the stores gradually closed off between 1976 and 1978, except for an attached Walgreens pharmacy which stayed until the following spring. The mall space was briefly used by a local school district, but its most famous use was in the movie ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'', where the former J.C. Penney wing was fitted with fake storefronts for the famous scene in which Elwood and Jake drive a car through the mall while being chased by police. The mall was then abandoned, and quickly became a haven of vandalism and crime, despite a police station being built in the parking lot. The city of Harvey was unable to get the building demolished, or even keep it sealed to prevent further damage from scrappers or urban explorers (because really, how often does one get to sneak into a long-abandoned shopping mall?), so it sat and decayed in harsh Midwestern winters well into the mid-2000s. Fires were also started in the former Woolworth and a former bar on-site, further compromising the structure's integrity.\\
The first redevelopment plans were announced in 2005, at which point the mall was to be demolished for "big box" retail such as Costco, with the former Montgomery Ward anchor to be repurposed. However, this was scuttled when it was discovered that a.) the mall was loaded with asbestos, and b.) the company that had begun demolition did not acquire a permit. The mall's power plant was demolished (still illegally) one night, and accidental demolition of the Montgomery Ward building had also begun until the mayor happened to drive by and stop them. Over the next several years, the property passed from developer to developer while the proper permits were acquired for demolition, but another fire had also started in the former J.C. Penney. Finally, after years of legal wrangling, the property was fully demolished and cleared in 2012.

** The fallout from Sochi didn't end in Russia. Over the next two years, largely due to public pressure from citizens about costs, a number of desirable locations in Europe withdrew their bids for the 2022 Winter Olympics ... leaving only Beijing and Almaty, the capitals of China & Kazakhstan, both countries not known for their commitment to the kind of democracy that allows angry citizens to force governments to withdraw Olympic bids. The IOC's widely ridiculed decision to award those Games to Beijing, which might under other circumstances have celebrated and been praised for being the first city ever to host both the Summer and Winter Games, was a last ditch effort to [[FranchiseKiller save the Winter Games]], because at least they know the Chinese can do it, however imperfectly.

** Somewhat related, as [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19334_the-5-biggest-disasters-in-history-marketing-ideas.html Cracked reports,]] the 1984 Olympics also had a negative effect on [=McDonald's=], as well. The restaurant ran an "If the U.S. wins, you win!" promotion where customers were given a scratch card with an Olympic event on it; if the U.S. won a medal in that event, the customer would get a free Big Mac (for gold,) fries (for silver) or drink (for bronze.) With the Soviet Union and their allies (the U.S.'s biggest rivals) boycotting the games, this led to the American team winning a '''lot''' more medals than they would have otherwise, including more than twice as many gold medals as they did in 1976 (83 in '84 compared to 34 competing against Russia in '76,) and [=McDonald's=] had to give away a '''lot''' of valuable Big Macs for free, to the point where many stores were reporting running out of them.
* [[UsefulNotes/SouthKorea Seoul]], 1988. While the Games themselves went off without a hitch from a non-political standpoint, they [[GoneHorriblyWrong went horribly wrong]] for the ruling dictatorship of South Korea. President Chun Doo-hwan intended for the Games to act as a showcase of South Korea's booming industrial economy, legitimize his authoritarian regime, and stave off growing pro-democratic pressure. Instead, the job of hosting the Olympics tied the government's hands when it came to putting down protesters, as it found out when a mass uprising swept the country in June 1987. Rather than crack down hard (and make South Korea look like a BananaRepublic just as the eyes of the world were focused on it), Chun gave in and oversaw constitutional reforms that established democracy and human rights protections and granted amnesty to political prisoners. South Korea's first democratically-elected President officially opened the Games less than a year after taking office.

* UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}}, 1996. Like Munich, the Atlanta Games were also the site of a terrorist attack, this one a bombing by a RightWingMilitiaFanatic named Eric Rudolph that killed two people and injured over a hundred more. Aside from the bombing, the Games were also criticized by European Olympic officials as being overly commercialized and garish, with an overcrowded Olympic Village and poor-quality food and transportation; notably, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch declined to refer to the Atlanta Games as "the best Olympics ever", as was his usual tradition, instead calling them "most exceptional".

* London, 2012. The Games themselves were an overall success and actually turned a small profit, but the run-up was marred by scandal as the IOC was given free rein to turn the city into their personal fiefdom: Special traffic lanes for Olympic athletes, ridiculously [[http://gawker.com/5913175/behold-the-london-olympics-creepy-brand-exclusion-zone aggressive trademark enforcement]] and the apparent suspension of local anti-competitive behaviour laws did ''not'' endear the Olympics to many sectors of the press, the zenith - or nadir - of the absurdity coming when UsefulNotes/McDonalds were given an exclusive monopoly license to sell ''chips'' anywhere within Olympic venues. It was also about this time that serious public attention was focused on the steadily escalating cost of the Games and the questionable long-term benefits.

* The revival of the UsefulNotes/FormulaOne United States Grand Prix was briefly endangered by a contract dispute between Bernie Ecclestone and the backers of Circuit of the Americas, a purpose-built road course in Austin, Texas, which nearly led to the abandonment of the track. However, the parties were able to come to terms, and the race ultimately went off on schedule at the end of the 2012 season.
** The same can't be said of F1's planned US street race, the Grand Prix of America in New Jersey, which slipped into DevelopmentHell amidst vicious contract disputes after missing the schedule for ''three straight years'' due to lack of funds for construction.

** Unfortunately for Democrats, Johnson's announcement had the opposite effect. Vice President UsefulNotes/HubertHumphrey emerged as the front runner, acting essentially as Johnson's proxy: socially liberal but committed to the Vietnam War. UsefulNotes/RobertFKennedy entered the race, to [=McCarthy=]'s chagrin; the two candidates became bitter rivals, competing for antiwar votes. Kennedy won several primaries and gained ground on Humphrey and [=McCarthy=], before his assassination in June 1968. And Alabama Governor George Wallace, notorious for his defense of segregation, formed an American Independent Party of disaffected conservative Democrats.

** Unfortunately for Democrats, Johnson's announcement had the opposite effect. Vice President Hubert Humphrey emerged as the front runner, acting essentially as Johnson's proxy: socially liberal but committed to the Vietnam War. [=McCarthy=]'s campaign flamed out, and New York Senator Robert Kennedy became champion of antiwar liberals. Kennedy won several primaries and gained ground on Humphrey, before his assassination in June 1968. And Alabama Governor George Wallace, notorious for his defense of segregation, formed an American Independent Party of disaffected conservative Democrats.
** Then came the Chicago convention. The convention itself was banal; Humphrey won handily, despite a last-ditch effort by antiwar Democrats to boost George [=McGovern=]. Observers were more interested in goings-on outside. Thousands of antiwar protestors camped out in Chicago, and Mayor Richard Daley responded with a police crackdown. In the subsequent "police riot," hundreds of protestors were injured or arrested. Television cameras captured the violence, which become one of TheSixties' most iconic events.

** Even more than 1968, the primaries were long, drawn-out, and painful. While [=McGovern=] soon emerged the frontrunner, he faced challenges from liberals (John Lindsay), moderates (Hubert Humphrey, Edward Muskie), and conservatives (Scoop Jackson, George Wallace) alike. Richard Nixon's CREEP organization happily sewed discord among the Democrats, through anonymous calls and poison pen letters, phony campaign rallies, and slanderous media stories. For one notorious example, Muskie's campaign was sabotaged by the "Canuck Letter", claiming that Muskie publicly slandered French-Canadians (a sizable minority in the primary state of New Hampshire). Even sleazier was Nixon's effort to tie [=McGovern=] to Wallace's shooting by Arthur Bremer, with Nixon's operatives planting [=McGovern=] campaign literature in Bremer's home.

** The Korean Grand Prix was no picnic either: construction on the track went so slowly that it didn't get approval to hold races until ''13 days'' before the inaugural race, there was a severe lack of accommodations for all the personnel needed, (to the point that many of them had to stay in ''love motels''), the location was prone to heavy rainfall, and the time they chose to start the race left them with little room for delays (which of course happened because of the aforementioned rain). As a result, many of the races ended at ''dusk'' and lighting was inadequate. Combine that with how unpopular it was with the drivers and the high costs to run the race, it was dropped for 2014, and failed to come back for 2015, although like India it hopes to be ready for 2016.

** Forcing four upscale chains into a market unsuitable for them caused LJ Hooker to file for bankruptcy in 1990. This also resulted in the liquidation of three of the four aforementioned chains (only Parisian [which swiftly closed its Forest Fair store, but later opened another short-lived store elsewhere in Cincinnati] survived until 2006, when it was bought by Belk) and a hasty redevelopment to a discount format with several "big box" stores. The mall never got past 75% occupancy but nevertheless gained a few key anchor stores, most notably Kohl's, Bass Pro Shops, Guitar Center, Media Play, Burlington Coat Factory, Babies "R" Us, and even a Saks Fifth Avenue outlet.
** In 2002, the mall was sold to Mills Corporation, a company known for developing similar "discount" malls, so Forest Fair (then renamed Cincinnati Mills) seemed like a natural fit. The mall was closed off in 2002 and reopened in 2004 to initial success, but again its sheer size and market saturation made it hard to fill back up with tenants. Also, the bankruptcies of Media Play and Steve & Barry's, and financial troubles of Bigg's and Elder-Beerman, knocked out four large anchor stores in rapid succession, while the amusement park inside closed due to the manager making sex tapes. Finally, Mills itself was financially struggling by the time it sold its portfolio to Simon Property Group, the largest mall company in the US, in 2007.
** Simon quickly punted the mall to new developers, the first of whom defaulted on loans on parking garage construction. The mall was passed from developer to developer, while also owing debts to the city and a school district. In the midst of all this, the theaters closed and Burlington (who is notorious for maintaining stores in "dead malls") moved to a new location. Later developers had grandiose plans to add an ice rink and a Candlewood Suites hotel that never materialized. The mall withered away to nearly nothing by TheNewTens, leaving a [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/fanofretail/albums/72157657378955661 hulking, pristine, yet ghostly behemoth]] with at last estimate, fewer than 10 stores. Despite all this, rumors still rumble of its renovation, even with the news that Bass Pro Shops would be moving out in 2016. Meanwhile, Tri-County and Northgate have overcome their own management woes, demographic shifts, and changing anchor stores, with both maintaining as reasonably successful malls anchored by Sears and Macy's.

* [[UsefulNotes/{{Greece}} Athens]], 2004. Construction was severely behind schedule, with key facilities like the tram system and the Olympic Stadium itself only being finished less than two months before the start of the Games. The design for the Aquatics Center had to be greatly scaled back in order to finish it on time.

* [[UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}} Rio de Janeiro]], 2016. While some of the infrastructure was ready by the time Rio was a venue for UsefulNotes/TheWorldCup two years prior, buildings getting overpriced and/or behind schedule are starting to get tragically common. Brazil getting hit by an economic recession and a drought in Rio's region is not helping matters either. The IOC even held meetings with Madrid authorities in case the Spanish capital needed to take over.

* There's also Illinois (Star) Centre Mall in Marion, Illinois. When it was built in 1991, nearby Carbondale already had a large and fairly succesful mall, whose Sears store relocated to anchor the newer mall in Marion. Many retail analysts thought that the newer mall would win out with its closer proximity to Interstate 57. Instead, the newer mall struggled for many years, losing one anchor store (a Phar-Mor drugstore) after only two years, and had to resort to re-tenanting the space with offices. While many businesses were built on the periphery, the interior mall struggled, and was only 60% leased by 2000. The original developers sold the mall off after only five years. By the mid-2000s, new developers bought and renamed the mall, which only continued to bleed tenants -- it didn't help that many of its remaining stores were chains that were either going under entirely (Fashion Bug, Deb Shops, Sam Goody, Waldenbooks) or greatly scaling back locations (Ruby Tuesday, Sbarro, Radio Shack, New York & Company). It also didn't help that the building had very poor visibility from both Interstate 57 and Illinois State Highway 13. A 2015 newspaper article revealed that three of the five new owners had been jailed for violating the Sherman Antitrust act; the leasing company was completely unresponsive to inquiries from the tenants; and leasing was complicated due to the parking lot and each anchor store having its own ownership. Meanwhile, the mall in Carbondale has more or less recovered from its own troubles in TheNineties and become the dominant mall in the region.

* Proving that you don't even have to ''win'' hosting the games to have one of these, the attempt by {{UsefulNotes/Boston}} to host the 2024 games [[http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/08/18/boston-olympics-report-real-risks-bid-officials-say/U0664w7BMeTVCMtY3mSXbO/story.html was full of problems]]. Between the half-formed and outright stupid proposals (such building an athlete's village in {{Southie|s}}, and even a cursory knowledge of the neighborhood's history tells you why that's a bad idea) they were also dealing with terrible timing, as this was all unfolding while memory of the worst winter on record, which saw the already aging transportation system grind to a screeching halt, was still fresh in everyone's minds. Add to that a history of city officials pitching grandiose projects like The Big Dig that go horrifically over budget and time (see below under "Other") and there was skepticism and outright scorn towards Boston 2024 from the start. And while no one would admit so out loud, after the Boston Marathon Bombings in 2013, no one wanted to [[TemptingFate tempt fate]] that boldly after what happened in Atlanta in 1996. The bid was eventually dropped completely in an announcement by City Mayor Marty Walsh after the IOC rushed him to sign an agreement, and while he dropped it ostensibly because the IOC wasn't able to guarantee insurance for the taxpayer dollars that would inevitably go into it, it's pretty much universally believed he really did so because he realized he did not have and never was going to have the support he needed from the general public.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig The Big Dig]] is the most famous construction project in {{UsefulNotes/Boston}}'s history for all the wrong reasons. It was simple enough on paper: Reroute Rte 93 under the central part of the city into an underground tunnel and tear down the notoriously ugly elevated roadway that cut the historic North End off from the rest of the city, and then use the newly opened space to create a park and new entertainment venues and attractions. Initially planned to be completed in 1998, it wasn't until 2007 that it was formally finished and only after, according to TheOtherWiki, "escalating costs, scheduling overruns, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests, and one death" (with the death being the result of a ceiling panel collapsing on a car and killing a passenger) and an estimated cost of $14.6 billion, an overrun of 190% of the initial calculation of $6.0 billion[[note]]adjusted for inflation[[/note]]. And even today the tunnels are plagued with problems that require nearly constant repair, such as an estimated 25,000 light fixtures that will eventually have to be replaced to the tune of $54 million. The entire clusterfuck has made Bostonians wary of any big projects since then, and may have had a hand in dooming the Boston 2024 Olympic bid (see above). While everyone agrees the end result did accomplish its intended purpose, the process of getting there was a disaster.

** However, by 2000 several clear factions had emerged in the Reform Party, the main ones being the "old guard" of Perot loyalists, a libertarian wing led by Ventura (which counted Creator/DonaldTrump among its supporters), a leftist wing led by Lenora Fulani, and a paleoconservative wing led by Pat Buchanan. Buchanan won the party's nomination for President that year, but onoy after a series of nasty public disputes that saw Ventura, his supporters, and other anti-Buchanan factions leave the party in disgust. It took a court decision to confirm Buchanan as the nominee after some disgruntled delegates walked out of the convention and nominated John Hagelin right across the street.

* SuperBowl XLV, the championship game of the 2010-11 NFL season. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wanted to use the game to showcase his team's brand-new, $1.15 billion Cowboys Stadium (now known as AT&T Stadium, and also "[[DeadpanSnarker known]]" as [[FanNickname Jerry World]] or [[StarWars Death Star]]), and to break the Super Bowl attendance record. However, the week in the run-up to the game was a comedy of errors.

[[folder:Political Campaigns]]

** A strong performance in the first debate salvaged Romney's sinking poll numbers, even allowing him to catch up to Obama at one point, but still, Obama's four-point victory on Election Day surprised precisely nobody except the most partisan pollsters. (Karl Rove, for instance, famously had a [[ThisCannotBe total meltdown]] upon [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TwuR0jCavk learning]] that Obama had won Ohio, and with it, the election. Even his fellow conservatives on Creator/{{Fox News|Channel}} were baffled by his dogged denial of the events.)

** For the general election, Mondale didn't even try to run an effective campaign, sensing early on that he stood no chance against Reagan and that 1984 would be, at best, a "rebuilding year" for the Democrats. To this end, he made no effort to "balance" the ticket with a running mate who played to his strengths and shored up his weaknesses, instead hoping to make a splash by choosing a woman or a minority as his running mate and winning over female and minority voters for future elections. He ultimately chose Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York; she was not only female, but also the daughter of Italian immigrants who could play well to "ethnic" voters.
** Mondale's choice of Ferraro as his running mate backfired. It did little to excite women, many of whom saw Mondale's selection of Ferraro as tokenism rather than choosing the best candidate for the job. Moreover, when Ferraro's husband was attacked for alleged links to TheMafia, Ferraro responded by releasing her tax returns. While doing so solved that problem, it only created a new one: it revealed that Ferraro had a maid and a few million dollars tied up in real estate, greatly undermining her "working-class immigrant's daughter" image.

* The [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI 1916]], [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII 1940, and 1944]] Olympics are notable for being the only Olympic Games to ever be outright canceled.

* Forest Fair Mall/Cincinnati Mills/Cincinnati Mall/Forest Fair Village in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio may be the best example in the history of retail:
** The developers, an Australian company called LJ Hooker, had literally no idea how to plan a mall. They chose an undeveloped exit on the northwest side of the city's beltway, with other malls located only two exits away in either direction (Tri-County to the east, Northgate to the west), to build a 1.5 million square foot mega-mall. The company had also redeveloped an existing mall in Columbia, South Carolina (only to have it fail when its anchor stores bailed), and opened smaller but equally unsuccessful properties in suburban Denver and Louisville. Malls were also proposed in suburban Orlando, Tampa, Raleigh, and Charlotte, plus downtown Atlanta, but none came to fruition.
** The original plan called for discount and off-price stores, thus causing Bigg's hypermarket (a now defunct regional chain similar to a Walmart supercenter, which also anchored the Denver and Louisville malls) to join as an anchor. However, the developers changed plans early on and instead bought controlling interest in four upscale department stores (New York-based B. Altman and Company and Bonwit Teller; Houston, Texas-based Sakowitz; and Birmingham, Alabama-based Parisian) in order to force all four into anchoring the mall. Since Bigg's opened first, they ended up sharing space with both the upscale anchors and the lower-end regional chain Elder-Beerman, the mall's sixth anchor. Such high-end stores were too opulent for the working-class demographics surrounding the mall, and would have been better suited for Kenwood Towne Centre on the near-northeast side, which is still the "fancy" mall in the Cincinnati market. In addition, Tri-County went on a massive renovation spree at the time, adding a new department store and second level, luring away potential tenants from Forest Fair.

** The developers, an Australian company called LJ Hooker, had literally no idea how to plan a mall. They chose an undeveloped exit on the northwest side of the city's beltway, with other malls located only two exits away in either direction (Tri-County to the east, Northgate to the west), to build a 1.5 million square foot mega-mall. The company had also redeveloped an existing mall in Columbia, South Carolina with similar boom-and-bust, and opened smaller but equally unsuccessful properties in suburban Denver and Louisville. Malls were also proposed in suburban Orlando, Tampa, Raleigh, and Charlotte, plus downtown Atlanta, but none came to fruition.
** The original plan called for discount and off-price stores, thus causing Bigg's hypermarket (a regional chain similar to a Walmart supercenter, which also anchored the Denver and Louisville malls) to join as an anchor. However, the developers changed plans early on and instead bought controlling interest in four upscale department stores (New York-based B. Altman and Company and Bonwit Teller; Houston, Texas-based Sakowitz; and Birmingham, Alabama-based Parisian) in order to force all four into anchoring the mall. The mall then had the more middle-of-the-road regional chain Elder-Beerman as yet another anchor, creating a bizarre hodgepodge of anchor stores, with the high-end stores being too opulent for the market, and too far from Kenwood Towne Centre, the region's lone upscale mall. In addition, Tri-County went on a massive renovation spree at the time, adding a new department store and second level, luring away potential tenants from Forest Fair.
** Forcing four upscale chains into a market unsuitable for them caused LJ Hooker to file for bankruptcy in 1990. This also resulted in the liquidation of three of the four aforementioned chains (only Parisian [which swiftly closed its Forest Fair store, but opened another elsewhere in Cincinnati] survived until 2006, when it was bought by Belk) and a hasty redevelopment to a discount format. The mall never got past 75% occupancy but soon gained a few key anchor stores, most notably Kohl's and Bass Pro Shops, while a few other "big box" stores including Guitar Center, Media Play, Burlington Coat Factory, and even a Saks Fifth Avenue outlet.
** In 2002, the mall was sold to Mills Corporation, a company known for "discount" malls anchored by big box stores, so Forest Fair (then renamed Cincinnati Mills) seemed like a natural fit. The mall was closed off in 2002 and reopened in 2004 to initial success, but again its sheer size and market saturation made it hard to fill back up with tenants. Also, the bankruptcies of Media Play and Steve & Barry's, and financial troubles of Bigg's and Elder-Beerman, knocked out four large anchor stores in rapid succession, and the amusement park inside closed due to the manager making sex tapes. Finally, Mills itself was financially struggling by the time it sold its portfolio to Simon Property Group, the largest mall company in the US, in 2007.
** Simon quickly punted the mall to new developers, who had grandiose plans to add an ice rink and a Candlewood Suites hotel that never materialized. Further suburban development finally whisked away Kohl's, Bass Pro Shops, and the last remaining inline stores, leaving a [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/fanofretail/albums/72157657378955661 hulking, pristine, yet ghostly behemoth]] with at last estimate, fewer than 10 stores. Despite all this, rumors still rumble of its renovation. Meanwhile, Tri-County and Northgate have overcome their own management woes, demographic shifts, and changing anchor stores, with both maintaining as reasonably successful malls anchored by Sears and Macy's.