With an expert eye and a passion, Terri Peters, one of the final Shoppingtown Mall tenants, answers measurement questions for online shoppers.

“I usually have measurements on everything when we do auction,” Terri assures. “But this has been … this is sort of down and dirty.”

Peters is conducting a live online auction all this weekend to quickly move over 1,000 items from her 10,000-square foot warehouse gallery in Shoppingtown Mall.

What You Need To Know

  • Shoppingtown Mall has been losing tenants, owes millions in back taxes, and fallen to disrepair for years

  • The pandemic seemed to expedite the inevitable permanent closing

  • Onondaga County stepped in once the Mall filed bankruptcy in an attempt to recoup back taxes. They are offering the bankruptcy judge to buy the mall for pennies on the dollar to resell and get taxpayer money returned

  • Final hearing in front of the judge is this month, spurring tenants to find a new location or new business model. Terri Peters is doing both

“With the mall closing, obviously we had to figure out what to do, and when life gives you lemons, what do you do? You have to make lemonade. Right?” says Terri.

So how do you sell 1,000 items in three days? One item at a time.

“This is a Baker, a wonderful coffee table. Probably costs like $5,000, $6,000 new. And you can get this for whatever the highest bid is,” explains Terri.

Leading on to an area that looks like it is from a home in historic Sedgwick, she says, “How many parties was this the centerpiece for? It’s really a wonderful feeling when you have such an old piece; you really want to keep it together.”

Right above the antique buffet from that set, she points and says, “Charcoal portraits. Somebody might not want them together, but they’ve been together for a hundred years, so if somebody wants to keep the sisters together, maybe they will buy both of them.”

More and more treasures can be aptly identified in Terri’s gallery, some dating back to the 1920s.

“This is basically a Stickley table that’s cherry and maple and came in 1928,” Terri says, showing off another piece.

One at a time is key, especially when you’re selling a little bit of everything. From vintage hats boxes to purses, furs, and jewelry, it all needs to be sold within three days and virtually.

It’s the final chapter at the mall, with one of a kind items and a one of a kind online sale.

“It’s sad," Terri said. "It really is sad that we’re all having to leave. It has been really difficult as far as the notice and working with COVID. In the beginning we really didn’t know what was happening so nobody was really moving too fast. But now everybody is full gear and I believe we need to try to get out before the end of the year."

Peters will continue her online auction business after she leaves Shoppingtown Mall.

“We’ll find our way," she said. "All of us will find our way, and this will pass, and we will be OK.”

The empty halls of Shoppingtown Mall show a skeleton of what was once a booming center of local commerce.