We "The Community of Fiesta Mall Buddies" in Mesa, Arizona, want our mall back. Yes, we literally want to buy it back from the property developers.

Why?

We want a place where we can congregate again in a clean, safe manner. This is more than a place to shop. It is about us local citizens living close to a community center, even if it was commercial in nature.

It also gave us a dry and safe place to walk and exercise each day instead of facing possible heat stroke. And most of us were not inclined to go to the local gym either as we are not trying to be bodybuilders. We just want to stay active.

If any one of you recognized our faces in the early morning hours, you'd know who we are. We may be retired, maybe disabled, but we were passionate about getting out there each day and walking that mall.

We want Fiesta Mall back. We don't want to be another YouTube Phenomena.  We graciously appreciate everything they did and offered for us, but still, it hurts.

Something was taken away from us. Sorry. Loss doesn't go away easily. Some of us have been retired for some time now and developed literally second life long friendships because we started out as the mall walkers.

The mall owner/property developer Dimension Financial & Reality Investment Inc, has been talking about bringing in educational and medical institutions. What are they waiting for? There is Sear's​, Dillard's Clearance Store and the Fade Tite Barber Shop left (kudos to him for even beating out the big box national chains!).

What are the developers waiting for? Some of us may get lucky, live a few more years, walk somewhere else in a mall in another part of town but what will come of Fiesta Mall? 

Just YouTube "Fiesta Mall" in the search box and people are already doing documentaries on yet another dead mall in America. How sad!

Are you aware of what comes with dead, vacant malls?  Crime. Squatters. Your next door neighbor could be living rent free soon enough because the Mesa City Council didn't put enough pressure on the mall developer to do something or have a real plan in place.

Dimension Financial & Reality Investment Inc.  has been planning for over a year. There is not a single article we can find that says new business is coming in. The only research on the Internet says all the businesses that are going out. Big plans these big guys have planned. NOT!

What is Fiesta Mall going to look like soon? Tent cities that are sprawled across like Seattle because the local governments enabled the behavior? That's a sure fire way to spurn our local economy (all rhetoric aside.)

We are the Fiesta Mall Buddies, aka the early morning mall walkers. Don’t destroy our community because one man behind a multi million dollar company just didn’t care to do nothing.

At $6.72 million for buying the local property, we hope you are willing to invest in our community and see just beyond any personal gain or greed.

When it is 100+ degrees outside, where can we go and we are not as strong physically as we used to be? This is why we went to the mall to begin with. Do you really want old people keeling over in the street because a mall is closed? We would be your best security because someone is always going to be walking, watching and you don't even have to pay us. God Bless!

~Gerry Martin