After nine months of pandemic-induced seclusion, a visit to Tysons Corner Center in Northern Virginia can trigger a tidal wave of sensory memories. Cinnabon still smells like Cinnabon, even through a mask. Ear piercing is still on offer at Claire’s.

At the soap store Lush, chipper sales associates guide shoppers through an odoriferous hand-washing ritual prior to granting them entrance to the store. Santa in a face mask waves at kids from Santa HQ on the ground level.

Despite rising COVID-19 cases and consumers’ increasing reliance on online retail, Tysons — the largest shopping mall in the Washington region — still fills up on the weekends with holiday shoppers, moviegoers, loitering teens and restaurant diners.

On a bench by the Barnes & Noble, a gray-haired couple named Pam and Richard stop for a rest on a recent Sunday. They’ve been running errands — buying a string for Richard’s glasses at Sunglass Hut, making a return at the bookstore.

Mostly, they’re “just wandering around, taking a risk,” as Pam puts it. The couple declined to share their last name because they felt “a little embarrassed” to be at the mall, even though they’re masked up and came early to beat the crowds.

Outside the mall, the pandemic rages on. But inside, all is calm, all is bright.

This makes Tysons an outlier among the more than 1,100 malls in the U.S. 2020 has been a markedly bad year for the mall business: Industry analysts expect about a quarter to a third of all American malls will close in the next five years.

The pandemic deserves some, but not all, of the blame. “COVID is just an accelerator of things that have already been going on in the retail space,” says Gautham Vadakkepatt, the director of George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation. “There’s a lot of carnage. A lot of bankruptcies being filed both by retailers and malls.”

Malls used to rely on so-called anchor stores to pay rent for large swaths of retail space that drew in big crowds. Multiple anchor stores have declared bankruptcy this year, from JCPenney to the upscale Neiman Marcus. Macy’s has narrowly avoided a similar fate but still plans to close 125 stores across the country, including at Landmark Mall in Alexandria and Tysons Galleria (a.k.a. “fancy Tysons” down the road from Tysons Corner Center).

In the past decade, online retail has steadily whittled away at mall traffic and profits. But some high-end malls like Tysons Corner Center effectively pivoted their leasing strategies and brands amid the industry upheaval. They remade themselves into entertainment and lifestyle centers with restaurants instead of just food courts, “experiential” stores like LLBean or Apple, and a presence from upscale lifestyle brands like Lululemon and Peloton.

“You go to the mall not only to buy things, but for the experience, the atmosphere,” says Denver D’Rozario, a marketing professor at Howard University. He calls the concept “shoptainment” and says the malls like Tysons that follow its tenets will survive both the pandemic and the growth of online retail.

“There’s no substitute for going to a store and checking out the merchandise yourself — for touching and feeling,” he says.

Prior to the pandemic, Tysons was not just surviving but thriving. It’s one of the top ten highest-earning malls in the country and typically attracts around 20 million visitors a year.

Besides its leasing strategy, another reason for the mall’s financial success is its location in Fairfax County, one of the richest counties in the United States. Households in the area have a lot of disposable income and residents are interested in high-end brands, says Eric Maribojoc, who runs George Mason University’s Center for Real Estate Entrepreneurship.

Plus, the area’s density is growing rapidly. In the immediate Tysons area alone, the population is expected to hit 100,000 in 2050, up from just 17,000 in 2010. Maribojoc says all those people want to shop, but they also see movies, eat out and be entertained. Tysons offers all of that. “The area around the mall is still growing in terms of population, which is very rare for a mall in an established area,” he says.

That’s not to say Tysons has been miraculously spared from any effects of the pandemic. The mall is owned by Macerich, a real estate investment trust specializing in shopping centers. Macerich’s stock price has dropped 57% since the beginning of the year. Visitor numbers have dropped as well. “We haven’t seen as many people as we might’ve in other years,” says Todd Putt, Macerich’s marketing manager for Tysons. Macerich declined to share 2020’s visitor count to date.

The mall also lost tenants — Macerich declined to specify how many — after Virginia put stay-at-home measures in place and stores were forced to close. Tysons itself remained open, though its tenants’ doors were locked.

Putt says many of those empty spaces have now been filled. The new tenants include online-first brands looking to experiment with a brick-and-mortar presence — the mattress brands Purple and Casper, the smart mirror/home gym company Tonal — or pop-up shops and kiosks with leases that expire after the holidays.

Diego Vanegas works at Neuhaus Belgian Chocolates, a second-floor kiosk near the Macy’s with a lease that runs through early January. He shows me a photo on his phone he took on a Saturday in early December, when the mall was packed. “We’re making almost a thousand dollars a day,” he says of weekend business. But he hypothesizes the boom in business will end right after the holidays, especially if coronavirus cases continue to go up.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t wear their masks,” he says. “I’m cleaning everything every hour or two. I’m doing the best I can, but if other people can’t do it, I can’t force anyone.”

Putt says Tysons employees offer free masks to shoppers who arrive without one. The mall also employs a team of individuals who go around encouraging social distancing on the weekends.

I don’t see any free mask handouts or spot the social distance brigades during two recent trips to the mall, though I do find numerous hand sanitizing stations and see store associates regularly enforcing social distancing. Many of the shoppers I speak to seemed to be a bit ashamed to be at the mall during this stage of the pandemic. One woman, who declines to give her name, tells me she feels “really anxious” about being at the mall and is here only to make a quick return at Athleta, though she talks to me as she waits for a latte at a coffee kiosk.

Another shopper, Joshua (again, no last name given), drove to Tysons from Manassas for an appointment at Peloton. He says he wants to try out their treadmill before buying it for his wife for Christmas, and he also needs to get some coffee pods from Nespresso and a few other gifts.

“This is my first time at the mall since the pandemic,” he says, speaking over the Christmas music playing on the mall’s speakers. Then, after a beat, he corrects himself: “Well, maybe my second.”