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Having residential above retail is super common in non-American cities. It works pretty well in Montreal -- condo buildings usually have a grocery store and cof

Having residential above retail is super common in non-American cities. It works pretty well in Montreal -- condo buildings usually have a grocery store and coffee shop in the lobby, while a strip of three-story buildings might have two stories of residential above things like a collectibles store or a martial arts dojo, with a grocery store on the corner. The problem with doing this with malls is you have minimum quality requirements for residences. Daylight requirements are a particular concern -- you can sell corners and edges, but you're left with a big space in the middle you can't use, unless you're willing to make the corner apartments expand that far. Once you start doing that, the condo costs comparable to detached houses, and there you lose out to The American Dream(TM). The real wins here would be in splitting apart the stores and putting housing above each one, and replacing "destination" shopping with neighborhood shopping.

nitrogen 6y ago
The American Dream(TM) If I could have a condo that was as quiet and accessible as a house (buying groceries, whether in person or by delivery, was a huge hassle in my SF apartment), with a "backyard" I could reserve for an hour or two of total quiet and privacy, I'd take that over a detached house. But my experience so far in two separate tower buildings was noise, a lack of mutual respect in amenity spaces, frequently breaking elevators, and overcrowding.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> Daylight requirements are a particular concern -- you can sell corners and edges, but you're left with a big space in the middle you can't use, unless you're willing to make the corner apartments expand that far. Or, since you're talking about the top floor, use skylights. You could even make it the top two floors, but each center unit is on both floors and has a "basement" without natural light. > Once you start doing that, the condo costs comparable to detached houses, and there you lose out to The American Dream(TM). Prices are set by supply and demand. If people like something else better then the price is lower. It's hardly going to be lower than the construction cost. The real thing preventing things like this is that it's all too often prohibited by zoning for no good reason.
- steveBK123 6y ago
  There are reasons for zoning requirements that skylights don't solve, and they are largely around egress. Some mall layouts may be conducive enough to having condos put on the top level, or one could design a modern mall for that now (I've seen a few). However retrofitting onto many of the 80s-90s era malls with huge floorplans is unlikely to be economically feasible.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    Can you explain how the egress problem is supposed to work? Suppose you have a giant square floor plan, and housing units like this: [01][02][03][04] [05][06][07][08] [09][10][11][12] [13][14][15][16] Then units 01-04 and 13-16 are on the exterior of the building, units 05-12 are on the interior with skylights, and there are hallways between them as shown. Where is the egress problem?
    - steveBK123 6y ago
      Zoning generally requires egress be possible from every room which is a sleeping quarters (or living space like living room) via a window or door to the outside. I’m not sure that a door to a common hallway would be considered legal egress. Further, even if it was, this would require each sleeping quarters within your apartment to have an emergency exit door to the common hallway, in addition to the door within your apartment. This would be pretty loud and unattractive. Another zoning concern is that there is generally a rule like “every area of apartment must be within 30 feet of door/window to outside”. So if you create these deep cavernous apartments you won’t be able to meet this rule either. For example in NYC, every room needs two forms of egress. Bedrooms this is the windows + door back to rest of your apartment. Living areas this is windows + door out to common hallway. It is illegal to create a room that has only 1 exit/entrance. The concept here is that in the event of a fire if your 1 & only exit is blocked you are dead. Similar rules apply to why in most jurisdictions you cannot legally finish off your basement unless it has sufficient exits directly to outside / windows big enough for a firefighter in full gear to fit through. This limits many existing basements for conversion depending on their depth as its hard to retrofit these into existing foundations..
cratermoon 6y ago
It's becoming more common in the US, and at least a few cities now have zoning laws requiring multi-purpose buildings in certain situations. There have been some significant redevelopments of the sort you talk about. They aren't the old style large malls with anchor stores, but are typically laid our like an apartment building or hotel, to maximize the window areas.
- schaefer 6y ago
  I’m really interested in reading more, do you know what cities have required multi zone use???
908B64B197 6y ago
In America too, just look at New York. SoHo comes to mind.
bobthepanda 6y ago
In Hong Kong the common model is one massive retail/amenities podium with several towers spiking out. You need daylight, but the towers themselves aren’t very wide; they’re mostly plus or star shaped around a central core.

nitrogen 6y ago

The American Dream(TM) If I could have a condo that was as quiet and accessible as a house (buying groceries, whether in person or by delivery, was a huge hassle in my SF apartment), with a "backyard" I could reserve for an hour or two of total quiet and privacy, I'd take that over a detached house. But my experience so far in two separate tower buildings was noise, a lack of mutual respect in amenity spaces, frequently breaking elevators, and overcrowding.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> Daylight requirements are a particular concern -- you can sell corners and edges, but you're left with a big space in the middle you can't use, unless you're willing to make the corner apartments expand that far. Or, since you're talking about the top floor, use skylights. You could even make it the top two floors, but each center unit is on both floors and has a "basement" without natural light. > Once you start doing that, the condo costs comparable to detached houses, and there you lose out to The American Dream(TM). Prices are set by supply and demand. If people like something else better then the price is lower. It's hardly going to be lower than the construction cost. The real thing preventing things like this is that it's all too often prohibited by zoning for no good reason.

steveBK123 6y ago
There are reasons for zoning requirements that skylights don't solve, and they are largely around egress. Some mall layouts may be conducive enough to having condos put on the top level, or one could design a modern mall for that now (I've seen a few). However retrofitting onto many of the 80s-90s era malls with huge floorplans is unlikely to be economically feasible.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  Can you explain how the egress problem is supposed to work? Suppose you have a giant square floor plan, and housing units like this: [01][02][03][04] [05][06][07][08] [09][10][11][12] [13][14][15][16] Then units 01-04 and 13-16 are on the exterior of the building, units 05-12 are on the interior with skylights, and there are hallways between them as shown. Where is the egress problem?
  - steveBK123 6y ago
    Zoning generally requires egress be possible from every room which is a sleeping quarters (or living space like living room) via a window or door to the outside. I’m not sure that a door to a common hallway would be considered legal egress. Further, even if it was, this would require each sleeping quarters within your apartment to have an emergency exit door to the common hallway, in addition to the door within your apartment. This would be pretty loud and unattractive. Another zoning concern is that there is generally a rule like “every area of apartment must be within 30 feet of door/window to outside”. So if you create these deep cavernous apartments you won’t be able to meet this rule either. For example in NYC, every room needs two forms of egress. Bedrooms this is the windows + door back to rest of your apartment. Living areas this is windows + door out to common hallway. It is illegal to create a room that has only 1 exit/entrance. The concept here is that in the event of a fire if your 1 & only exit is blocked you are dead. Similar rules apply to why in most jurisdictions you cannot legally finish off your basement unless it has sufficient exits directly to outside / windows big enough for a firefighter in full gear to fit through. This limits many existing basements for conversion depending on their depth as its hard to retrofit these into existing foundations..

cratermoon 6y ago

It's becoming more common in the US, and at least a few cities now have zoning laws requiring multi-purpose buildings in certain situations. There have been some significant redevelopments of the sort you talk about. They aren't the old style large malls with anchor stores, but are typically laid our like an apartment building or hotel, to maximize the window areas.

schaefer 6y ago
I’m really interested in reading more, do you know what cities have required multi zone use???

908B64B197 6y ago

In America too, just look at New York. SoHo comes to mind.

bobthepanda 6y ago

In Hong Kong the common model is one massive retail/amenities podium with several towers spiking out. You need daylight, but the towers themselves aren’t very wide; they’re mostly plus or star shaped around a central core.