By the 2000s, the Mall had been in decline. In 2001, anchor store Montgomery Ward went out of business, and JC Penney vacated the mall in 2002. Around the same time, the expansion and renovation of the nearby Mall in Columbia added restaurants and movie theaters to its existing tenants. Big-box stores at U.S. Route 1 and Maryland Route 198 opened and expanded offerings over the decade. As a result, business at the Laurel mall dwindled. A Burlington Coat Factory occupied most of the former Montgomery Ward space, and Macy's replaced Hecht's in 2006. On two occasions, sections of the aging parking decks had crumbled and fallen onto the parking lots below, resulting in their closure.