If there is still such a thing as a prime location in White Flint Mall, a once-fashionable shopping destination on Rockville Pike, it is Store No. 208.

Go up the escalator from the ground floor. There it is, to the left. Leave Borders, there it is, straight ahead. This is the mall's mixing bowl, "the perfect spot," said Ron Scott, who opened the high-end Gentlemen's Jodhpur shoe store in No. 208 when the mall opened in 1977. "Everyone can see you there."

But five years ago, with shoppers dribbling away to big-box stores, Tysons Corner and online sites, White Flint managers, trying to refresh the property, asked Scott to move from an "A location to a D location in a C mall," he said. He declined, walking away in his alligator skin shoes, leaving No. 208 to house a procession of stores selling calendars, hand-knit blouses, assorted tchotchkes, baby crib gear and Egyptian linens.

The story of the revolving door at No. 208 is all too common. When Black Friday dawns the morning after Thanksgiving, customers who make the pilgrimage to malls will find a startling number of vacancies, even in the best locations.

As Americans shift to more upscale shopping destinations or avoid malls altogether, older places such as White Flint are struggling, experts say. And with the recession, the big retailers that fill most malls have trimmed their sails.

"It's very difficult to restore your former glory in the mall business," said Ryan Severino, an economist for Reis Inc., which tracks mall leasing activity. "And this is a hard time to do business. We've seen thousands of stores closing over the last two years."

Montgomery County planners and local property owners are working on a dense residential and retail development to revitalize the White Flint area and surrounding shopping centers. In the case of Store No. 208, Scott said, leasing officials from Lerner Enterprises, which owns White Flint, originally asked him to move because they wanted to lure a high-end jewelry store to his longtime spot.

Scott pleaded to stay, even taking his case to Mark Lerner, son of company founder and Washington Nationals owner Ted Lerner. But Scott said company officials, who declined to comment, wouldn't budge. Scott moved Gentlemen's Jodhpur out of the mall and into a standalone shop in the Rosedale Park area of Bethesda.

Then the jewelry store deal fell through.

In came a calendar store, a ubiquitous pop-up tenant in vacant mall spaces. Then out went the calendar store. In came Knits Etc., a boutique co-owned by Amanda Zeil, an independent retailer. Zeil scouts out temporary lease spots because they tend to be much cheaper than permanent deals, as mall owners seek to avoid the dreaded drywall and "Coming Soon" signs covering empty storefronts.

Zeil and her partner considered themselves lucky to land No. 208, selling handmade knits, European clothing and jewelry by local designers. "I thought we had a prime spot," Zeil said. "You're talking about a mall that doesn't get that much traffic. But that's one of the better spots within that mall."

Every time an established shop leaves, other stores in the mall feel the pain, especially small businesses trying to survive in a big-retailer world. Bertram's Inkwell, a pen store across from No. 208, had for years fed off Gentlemen's Jodhpur's high-end clientele.