Southdale should really go old-school with new look

The company that owns Southdale is finally kicking loose a few bucks for an upgrade, and that's good news. Ever since the economy fell down the stairs, the mall has resembled Zombiedale. Not quite alive, not quite dead.

Herberger's will occupy the space vacated by Mervyn's, which closed because no one could quite figure out why it existed in the first place, and the food court will be relocated outside of Penney's. It's not the first overhaul -- a 1991 renovation added a wing of shops aimed at kids spending their parents' money, and a food court so high up you needed sherpas and a tank of oxygen to get there. Aside from Sbarro's, I think there's a guy selling bologna from a pack of Oscar Meyer. It has seating for hundreds. It's a nice place to go when you want to be alone.

The shuttered shops have dismayed those of us who love the place, but even if it's not your mall, you should care. It's part of our history -- the first of its kind in the country, a vanguard of the postwar model of climate-controlled shopping in a clean, modern space. You hate to see it empty out until there's just a few stores whose clerks keep themselves warm by huddling around a trash can fire.

So this is good news -- but there's an opportunity not just to revive it, but make it distinctive. Each new addition or overhaul has erased more of the original character. The birdcage is gone. The creepy kids-on-stilts statues, the fountain, the elegant lighting -- gone. The 1956 clock is still there, as well as that odd two-story metal sculpture that looks like a monument to tetanus, but otherwise it's just another bright white barn, indistinguishable from its brethren across the country.

If the owners wanted to make it a destination again, strip it down to the bones ... and re-create the original interior. Nostalgia for the boomers, hip mid-century style for people besotted with the crisp modernism of "Mad Men." This would also mean Macy's would have to change its name back to Dayton's, since many regard them as the stepmom Dad married after he divorced Real Mom. Now's your chance. Give us the old Southdale back. No need to say sorry. All will be forgiven.