5 ms·

I used to work for a company in NYS that used a section of a converted mall for office space. God, that was the worst office space I've ever been in -- the floo

I used to work for a company in NYS that used a section of a converted mall for office space. God, that was the worst office space I've ever been in -- the floors moved a ton when you moved your chair, echoed when you walked around, the temperatures were absolutely all over the place depending on how close you were to a heater/cooling vent, and worst of all... malls don't really have windows. Working in a converted mall might as well be working in a prison, for all I can tell. The walkway through the middle was kind of nice (and the food court still functioned as a cafeteria, so you could walk fully indoors during cold winter/hot summer days to get a coffee or lunch)... but I think I'd still rather be able to see the outdoors from my desk.

quesera 6y ago
Epic will be redeveloping the entire 87-acre site, for reopening in 2024. The mall is in Cary, NC (Raleigh-Durham / RTP area). Ironically, I was thinking it'd be kind of cool to work in an old mall building (with the typical US indoor shopping mall layout). Inefficient in many ways (parking, space utilization, HVAC), but the idea of locating teams in small (fishbowl?) office-like pods seems interesting. Natural light would be a problem. The food court could be appealing... Some of the complaints you mention sound like they might be specific to that building? Commercial floors should be standard build slab/tray concrete in a mall or office building. Retail HVAC should be adequate if inefficient.. Then again, a failed mall might have failed for a long list of reasons, and a crappy physical plant is definitely one of them!
- xnyan 6y ago
  I did some construction work at this mall in college. Of the many many problems, natural light is probably number 1. It's an absolute dungeon, dark and oppressive. I don't see how you fix it besides blowing it up and starting over.
  - Grazester 6y ago
    Anything can be done especially if you have the will and the money.
    - r00fus 6y ago
      I thought Epic was moving there because of the money savings...
    - falcolas 6y ago
      Money's not infinite (not even Epic's money). Much of the time, it's better (cost-effective) to demolish and start fresh, especially if the foundation and infrastructure are even remotely sketchy. Demolishing isn't really that expensive, at this kind of scale.
      - jbverschoor 6y ago
        It actually is! The reserve requirements are 0%, which makes money effectively infinite
    - ACow_Adonis 6y ago
      actually there's a case of problems that involve natural evolution, survivorship over time and distributed actors. It can be argued this is also possible if you have the will and the money, but it practically never happens (arguably a minority of vc money maybe?) that people with will and money give it away to a large number of distributed decision makers over a time period to produce a single specific goal. It might seem like I'm splitting hairs, but actually urban design and working/living environment is exactly hypothesised to be one of those cases. It's why some people argue successful downturn areas and urban environments with walkability and diversity of use/design/ spectacle (so not most US cities), because they have evolved that way from lots of little distributed inconsistent designs, but with individual members tested, repurposed and surviving due to evolution over time. When a big developer or mega Corp develops or designs, you don't get natural evolution and diversity of design over time, you get mass sameness and waterfall design. It's why you get planned community aesthetics and corporate brand + policy rather than what organically works. The best of them might be bright and shiny (see Apple office/campus), but they still have the overarching ethos of singular design and absolute central/corporate control. Some people like that environment, personally I don't like working in it (don't get me wrong, i'd rather work in a good one rather than a bad one though). In practice they don't get it perfect. I imagine a lot of people could list problems with the Apple campus in practice, and I'd be good money this isn't going to be the Apple campus...
- vanilla_nut 6y ago
  The article mentions that "some structures" will be demolished, but that other plans are far from certain. I'll definitely keep an eye on this to see if they do a better job converting this mall than the converted mall that I've experienced!
notional 6y ago
Amazon bought the upper floors of the Seattle downtown Macys building. I worked in there for a few days to get a feel for it out of curiosity (my team was in a dif building). It was awful, it was completely dark inside, almost no natural light, the building is old as shit and super janky as a result. It's also across the street from McStabs so once they moved in, every Seattle employee started getting emergency stay inside texts because of the street level problems outside that building.
- ionwake 6y ago
  Sorry I am from the UK what do you mean? Is there alot of crime in Seattle around the MC restaurants?
  - Analemma_ 6y ago
    Not McDonalds in general, but one particular McDonalds in Seattle is located at a spot with a large number of homeless people, where crime and open-air drug use is pretty common.
    - ionwake 6y ago
      That is odd, I dont think there are any locations in the UK where there is open drug use. I also remember seeing clearly mentally ill people on the streets in Miami, something you dont see here ( though you do see homeless every now again - rarely tents ). Is that just a normal feature in cities in the US?
      - nradov 6y ago
        It's a normal feature of many large cities in the US, particularly those run by more progressive politicians. No city has adequate mental health treatment facilities or homeless services. Open drug use has been de facto decriminalized: elected District Attorneys refuse to prosecute and thus police don't bother making arrests. I do support treating addiction as a health problem rather than a crime. But the current approach in cities like San Francisco is wrecking quality of life for regular people.

quesera 6y ago

Epic will be redeveloping the entire 87-acre site, for reopening in 2024. The mall is in Cary, NC (Raleigh-Durham / RTP area). Ironically, I was thinking it'd be kind of cool to work in an old mall building (with the typical US indoor shopping mall layout). Inefficient in many ways (parking, space utilization, HVAC), but the idea of locating teams in small (fishbowl?) office-like pods seems interesting. Natural light would be a problem. The food court could be appealing... Some of the complaints you mention sound like they might be specific to that building? Commercial floors should be standard build slab/tray concrete in a mall or office building. Retail HVAC should be adequate if inefficient.. Then again, a failed mall might have failed for a long list of reasons, and a crappy physical plant is definitely one of them!

xnyan 6y ago
I did some construction work at this mall in college. Of the many many problems, natural light is probably number 1. It's an absolute dungeon, dark and oppressive. I don't see how you fix it besides blowing it up and starting over.
- Grazester 6y ago
  Anything can be done especially if you have the will and the money.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    I thought Epic was moving there because of the money savings...
  - falcolas 6y ago
    Money's not infinite (not even Epic's money). Much of the time, it's better (cost-effective) to demolish and start fresh, especially if the foundation and infrastructure are even remotely sketchy. Demolishing isn't really that expensive, at this kind of scale.
    - jbverschoor 6y ago
      It actually is! The reserve requirements are 0%, which makes money effectively infinite
  - ACow_Adonis 6y ago
    actually there's a case of problems that involve natural evolution, survivorship over time and distributed actors. It can be argued this is also possible if you have the will and the money, but it practically never happens (arguably a minority of vc money maybe?) that people with will and money give it away to a large number of distributed decision makers over a time period to produce a single specific goal. It might seem like I'm splitting hairs, but actually urban design and working/living environment is exactly hypothesised to be one of those cases. It's why some people argue successful downturn areas and urban environments with walkability and diversity of use/design/ spectacle (so not most US cities), because they have evolved that way from lots of little distributed inconsistent designs, but with individual members tested, repurposed and surviving due to evolution over time. When a big developer or mega Corp develops or designs, you don't get natural evolution and diversity of design over time, you get mass sameness and waterfall design. It's why you get planned community aesthetics and corporate brand + policy rather than what organically works. The best of them might be bright and shiny (see Apple office/campus), but they still have the overarching ethos of singular design and absolute central/corporate control. Some people like that environment, personally I don't like working in it (don't get me wrong, i'd rather work in a good one rather than a bad one though). In practice they don't get it perfect. I imagine a lot of people could list problems with the Apple campus in practice, and I'd be good money this isn't going to be the Apple campus...
vanilla_nut 6y ago
The article mentions that "some structures" will be demolished, but that other plans are far from certain. I'll definitely keep an eye on this to see if they do a better job converting this mall than the converted mall that I've experienced!

notional 6y ago

Amazon bought the upper floors of the Seattle downtown Macys building. I worked in there for a few days to get a feel for it out of curiosity (my team was in a dif building). It was awful, it was completely dark inside, almost no natural light, the building is old as shit and super janky as a result. It's also across the street from McStabs so once they moved in, every Seattle employee started getting emergency stay inside texts because of the street level problems outside that building.

ionwake 6y ago
Sorry I am from the UK what do you mean? Is there alot of crime in Seattle around the MC restaurants?
- Analemma_ 6y ago
  Not McDonalds in general, but one particular McDonalds in Seattle is located at a spot with a large number of homeless people, where crime and open-air drug use is pretty common.
  - ionwake 6y ago
    That is odd, I dont think there are any locations in the UK where there is open drug use. I also remember seeing clearly mentally ill people on the streets in Miami, something you dont see here ( though you do see homeless every now again - rarely tents ). Is that just a normal feature in cities in the US?
    - nradov 6y ago
      It's a normal feature of many large cities in the US, particularly those run by more progressive politicians. No city has adequate mental health treatment facilities or homeless services. Open drug use has been de facto decriminalized: elected District Attorneys refuse to prosecute and thus police don't bother making arrests. I do support treating addiction as a health problem rather than a crime. But the current approach in cities like San Francisco is wrecking quality of life for regular people.