19 ms·

Malls adding apartments to offset dwindling numbers of shoppers

144 points by lxm 5y ago

bobthepanda 5y ago
This was inevitable, and not even because of online shopping. America has been over-retailed for a long time. Retail per square foot around the world looks like this, in decreasing order US - 23.5 sq ft of retail per person Canada - 16.8 sq ft Australia - 11.2 sq ft UK - 4.6 Japan - 4.4 etc. US stores got here by taking on more debt than they could handle, expanding aggressively, and then collapsing under the burden. When the big box stores and department stores went bankrupt, they often took whatever mall they were anchoring down with them. The question has always been not if this would happen, but how quickly. Source: https://i.insider.com/5bb37815ac0a6314735194e8?width=1300&format=jpeg&auto=webp https://i.insider.com/5bb37815ac0a6314735194e8?width=1300&fo...
- KiranRao0 5y ago
  While the amount of amount of retail space is higher than Canada/Australia, so is the spending (per Capita) United States: 14,614 Canada: 10,953 Australia: 9,239 UK: 6,495 I still believe anchor stores can take down an entire mall, but I don't believe it's inevitable based solely on the sq ft per Capita numbers. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/741827/retail-sales-per-capita-of-shopping-centers-worldwide-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/741827/retail-sales-per-... Edit: spacing
  - pas 5y ago
    It's expected that US spending is the highest. Just as with healthcare, the US average individualized consumption is the highest, because the on average US residents produce the most. The US is a very rich country. Unfortunately there are so many almost mandatory luxuries built in to the American dream that it quickly eats up all that income.
    - allendoerfer 5y ago
      > The US is a very rich country. > [...] on average US residents produce the most Of course that is true. > It's expected that US spending is the highest. And of course there is a connection here. But you are not necessarily rich, when you spend more. By definition you are rich when you have more. Americans often do not get more for spending more (see healthcare and others) so after spending they would actually often be poorer. Americans also tend to spend even if they actually do not have anything to spend.
      - pas 5y ago
        > Americans also tend to spend even if they actually do not have anything to spend. Mostly because there are some mandatory luxuries, like having a car, student debt, health insurance, ridiculously expensive housing. Or just "the new iphone". > Americans often do not get more for spending more (see healthcare and others) so after spending they would actually often be poorer. https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-on-health-care-is-wrong-a-primer/#rcatoc-diminishing-returns-to-spending-and-worse-lifestyle-factors-explain-americas-mediocre-health-outcomes https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-o... > And of course there is a connection here. But you are not necessarily rich, when you spend more. By definition you are rich when you have more. I mean, the economic surplus is spent, on what is of course critical, but the vast riches produced year by year is there. As the link argues, lifestyle choices determine where that surplus is allocated to.
      - neither_color 5y ago
        The discussion is about retail so I'd exclude healthcare and education. Retail-wise, with relatively low sales tax(no VAT, typically 5-10% sales tax) and highly competitive options we do have cheap abundance in the US. Isn't one of the main criticisms that we waste the most energy per capita? Fuel is cheap, electricity is cheap, electronics are cheap, food is cheap and portions are massive. When I travel the only thing I find comparatively cheaper in other countries is human services. So in places like Southeast Asia or Latin America you can afford a maid and a driver on an upper middle local salary but would still pay more for an imported cell phone than an American.
    - 5y ago
- echelon 5y ago
  Contrarian perspective. The model worked until it apparently didn't. If Amazon and online shopping hadn't happened, we'd still be going to the malls. A large number of retailers fell not to online shopping, but instead to lowering quality of service and goods. Sears, Circuit City, JC Penny, and Kmart each have analogous stores and former competitors that remain and are doing well. Outside of disposably fast fashion like Shein, it's usually more convenient to try clothes on shotgun fashion. In person. Fragrance, jewelry, luxury goods. All better done in person. Home Depot is peerless and will never be replaced with an online equivalent. Touching and trying things on is an experience that just can't be matched online (sans metaverse, if it actually delivers). Amazon is aggressively expanding physical retail presence. They're focusing on convenience, which is probably the biggest reason people avoid shopping in person. People love shopping. And if the shopping experience is modern and fun, and interspersed with drinking and dining, they love doing it with friends. It's a social activity too. If malls morph into "live-work-play" hubs like this old sears factory [1] or this entirely new construction in that mold [2], they'll absolutely flourish. [1] https://www.poncecitymarket.com https://www.poncecitymarket.com [2] https://townbrookhaven.net https://townbrookhaven.net
  - im3w1l 5y ago
    > A large number of retailers fell not to online shopping, but instead to lowering quality of service and goods. Sears, Circuit City, JC Penny, and Kmart each have analogous stores and former competitors that remain and are doing well. Online shopping decreased the demand for retail but not all the way to zero. So it makes sense that some should fold and others should stay.
    - echelon 5y ago
      I'm too tired to find sources right now, but the popular thinking is that each of these retailers sank due to bad service. They had leadership changes that suddenly wanted to cut salespeople (while their competitors didn't), or source cheaper parts (Sears Craftsman and appliances). This was at a time when the businesses had seemingly healthy margins and glowing prospects.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  The UK and especially Japan have significantly higher population densities. You would expect them to have less square footage of retail space. Meanwhile, a reason for the mall explosion was because real estate developments, especially commercial malls were heavily subsidized by taxpayers in the 1980s (might have the decade off). Those still exist at a smaller scale, but not enough to justify their levels, even back before 2008.
  - JCharante 5y ago
    Is it not possible that such a large retail industry is only possible in high population density area?
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      My point is that extra space to move (wide aisles that can handle multiple carts across or space around an in store display or other empty space) is much cheaper in the US, so you can just afford it. But the cost of devoting 100's of sq ft of space to mannequins on pedestals might not fly in a Japan (Walmart equivalent)
    - ant6n 5y ago
      Do suburban Americans not drive to Buy'n'Large to shop? It's the high density Americans in New York City who go shop in tiny supermarkets.
  - chii 5y ago
    square footage per capita is a misleading metric, coz it assumes that each square foot is equivalent in each country - and that a higher area equates to a higher spending and cost. I think profit per-capita is a better metric. It's harder obtain that metric of course...
    - achow 5y ago
      Hmm.. per sqft seems to be reasonable. Whichever country (given income equality and ignoring cultural disposition to consumption patterns) a human would need approx' same amount of goods, whether grocery, clothing or other such, and those items would occupy exact same space in all countries.
- lmm 5y ago
  How do those numbers compare with land value in those countries? My impression is that a lot of things are built bigger in the US because there's plenty of space so land is cheap.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    Depending on where you are, land is not actually that cheap where these suburban stores exist. The suburbs of New York and the suburbs of Cleveland look very different in terms of land price. One contributing factor might be local tax policies. American politicians are all about bringing jobs to their local area, and so have been willing to cut very generous tax breaks in return for, say, opening a store that provides jobs. However, American metropolitan areas have very fragmented local areas, so suburb A and suburb B and suburb Z across town are all doing this. This basically encouraged a lot of these commercial developments to throw up cheap buildings that wouldn't last long; once it was showing its age they'd just take the next suburb's tax break and start over. You can only repeat this trick so much, though.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    That's part of it. The other part is property taxes and zoning rules either encouraging or outright mandating low density development.
- fy20 5y ago
  Are you sure this is worldwide data? This dataset shows Sweden and Norway having higher densities than the UK, but they aren't anywhere on your list: https://eeg.tuwien.ac.at/commonenergy/gla-per-capita-shopping-center https://eeg.tuwien.ac.at/commonenergy/gla-per-capita-shoppin...
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    Admittedly, it's been a while since I last had to bring this up, so I found https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-apocalypse-is-still-in-early-innings-cowen-says-2018-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-apocalypse-is-still-i..., which upon further inspection lacks those countries. That being said, the US is by far the country with the most retail per capita.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  Looks like they correlate with population density! Australia sounds sparse but people are mostly clumped in a few cities.
- bigodbiel 5y ago
  I always thought the abundance of malls was by design of affluent suburban dwellings (unlike Europe where suburbs are usually mid-lower class dwellings), plus sprinkle of the old American entrepreneurship. That commerce is going virtual and suburbs failing was always my reasoning.
- FredPret 5y ago
  This is probably more due to population density and GDP per capita. The US has the most space and the most money per person, so one would expect lots of retail per person there.
leoedin 5y ago
It seems like they're reinventing walkable local town centres! I wonder if it will be successful this time?
- matsemann 5y ago
  Yeah, I thought the whole point of malls was that it's actually walkable between the stores, without getting mauled by a car or dying of thirst the long trek between two parking lots.
  - Broken_Hippo 5y ago
    I think the point was to make you walk past a bunch of stores to get to the one you wanted, increasing your chance of buying something else (Whether food or merch). In strip malls and freestanding buildings, you go into the store you want, get your stuff, and leave.
xrd 5y ago
Lloyd Center Mall in Portland, OR was in the news recently. It was at one point the largest mall in the US. And, now is one of the few places supporting a diverse community of young people from around the city. And, also, a place that has become a focus because of the car break-ins that are plaguing the city, depending on what news sources you read. The owners were going to sell it and people were excited about the opportunity to reconsider an extremely large space in a major urban area. Then, the owners decided to turn it into apartments and condos. This will save the ice skating rink, and that's good. But, in the COVID era when public spaces are so hard to find, I wonder how that will impact people who don't own their own large houses, and I'm somewhat sad malls are moving in this direction, even though I hate going to them myself.
- jdlshore 5y ago
  I was at Lloyd Center on a Friday night recently. At 7:00 the place was dead, other than the skating rink. The food court was shutting down. If that’s what it’s like during what should be prime time for a mall, no wonder it’s shutting down.
  - nicky0 5y ago
    Do people go shopping on Friday night? Not sure that is prime time.
    - autoexec 5y ago
      There's a also a pandemic going on which (at least in areas with high community spread) you'd hope would have some people reconsidering going to a shopping mall if they can avoid it. I wouldn't expect most retail spaces to be getting as much traffic as they might otherwise.
    - michaelt 5y ago
      Shopping, not so much. But cities need bars, restaurants, nightclubs, theatres, cinemas and so on, and Friday night is prime time for them (when there's not a pandemic) If malls-with-added-housing are to become the walkable urban neighbourhoods of the future, you'd expect them to move in that direction.
seszett 5y ago
The supermarkets around me here in Belgium are also being rebuilt with apartments on top, Colruyt at least. It just seems logical, otherwise it's a waste of space.
bfung 5y ago
This is the norm in Hong Kong ~ High up residentials, Large malls and offices mid level, MTR (subway/metro) underground. No need to drive, noise isn’t a problem built w/the right technology/materials, super convenient. Here’s one of the more expensive examples: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Square_(Hong_Kong) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Square_(Hong_Kong)
- ayngg 5y ago
  The way it is done in Hong Kong (and other Asian cities like Tokyo to an extent) feels way closer to town centers that predate cars, where there is a lot of foot traffic and walkability which imo makes such a better experience. I just think in America it is too car centric and not dense enough to line the incentives up for it to happen here. Land is cheap enough that malls will just build outwards and create giant moats of parking lots around them to kill walkability, and public transit ridership is too low because everyone is driving cars so service can never reach the standards in Asia. Its a shame because feels so much worse than what has been achieved in Hong Kong.
  - pas 5y ago
    It's too car centric but its externality will eventually topple that. Infrastructure spread so thin have an enormous overhead. (Roads need to be paved, pipes leak, even cabling is a problem, see the again electric grid, also how most US addresses are only served by one ISP, heating/cooling each house separately).
  - mcv 5y ago
    Those town centers have survived cars in many places outside North America. In Netherland it's very common to have houses above shops, and in newer developments, either parking or public transport below ground, while the ground level is mostly for pedestrians and bikes. It's mostly North America (both US and Canada at least; no idea about Mexico) that seems to have outlawed this style of building, and enforced extremely car-dependent suburbs, big box stores in a wasteland of parking lots, and dangerous stroads to connect them. I've heard that the main thing that's driving American cities to bankruptcy is the cost of maintaining inefficient suburban infrastructure.
phreeza 5y ago
I read somewhere that many franchise restaurant chains make more money off real estate appreciation than on sales. For favourably located malls, I guess this could also end up applying if housing prices continue to rise.
aqeelat 5y ago
Tysons Corner, VA and Reston, VA are good examples of how things should be. Mixed use development with retail, commercial, residential, public transportation, and plenty of parking.
hooande 5y ago
I could be wrong, but it seems like the cost to demolish a mall and completely rebuild is dwarfed by the value of the real estate. I don't particularly want to live in a former mall, but I might be interested in a condo in the same location. Just demolish everything and have developers create new living spaces from scratch. Malls are mostly parking lots anyway. I may be drastically underestimating the cost of such a project. But the real estate for centrally located malls is likely to continue increasing in value.
- adammunich 5y ago
  natural resources are getting scarcer
- autoexec 5y ago
  As long as the places are nice and suit my needs I wouldn't mind an apartment in a converted mall. To be honest though there are a ton of available condos and rental options I can afford. What we really need more of in many areas are decent rental units affordable for people making closer to minimum wage and a converted mall might be a really nice place for that, especially if it can help build and support small communities where folks can get to know and help each other while offering easy access to stores and jobs.
taubek 5y ago
In my country we've had one mall turned into a four star hotel few years ago. I think that this is better than leaving the building to be abandoned. For another mall at outskirts of our capital city there was even talk about converting it to jail.
idiotbeforegod 5y ago
This is something I've been kinda wanting. A mixed-use zoning in a contemporary shopping centre. Something akin to shop downstairs - home upstairs which is common in most developing countries I've been to. Unfortunately this seems to be a strict conversion from store -> apartment which kinda disallows the upstair/downstair dynamic, and also prevents the 'single rent for multiple uses' deal which kinda enables the mixed zoning spirit. I wonder what levels of entrepreneurship could be enabled by opening up zoning in the west? I felt like a shopping centre conversion would be perfect as it is a locus of activity, density and business planning. I wonder if in the developing world mixed-use zoned homes/business are more expensive than typical residential zones?
drdeadringer 5y ago
I've been waiting to see this type of thing since reading Larry Niven scifi stories involving his transport booth technology. A transporter booth on every street corner type of thing [think "phone booth" in 1970s Superman days]. In a particular one, a journalist is compelled to investigate, write, and publish a story regarding some implications of this transport booth technology in order to help "clear his name" of some possible legal charges. In one scene, the guy is walking down a few streets crowded with new "temp" housing and shops and micro-industry and foot traffic where there once would have been nothing but vehicle traffic and empty parking spots and delivery-only zones and such. "These folks have caught on quicker than the rest of us", the guy considers. IRL with dead malls laying around for ~30 years, every time I've passed by I've had similar marbles rolling around in my head.
cowl 5y ago
What's up with these titles? Does noone know how to Convey an idea anymore? My first reaction on reading the title was: "who would want to buy an appartment in a mall". Ofcourse when you read it you understand that NO, Malls are not adding appartments in their space, Malls are being demolished and appartments are being constructed on their space. It's just a normal Redevelopment project.
- theklub 5y ago
  https://betweentworocks.com/welcome-new-havens-strangest-apartment-building/ https://betweentworocks.com/welcome-new-havens-strangest-apa...
- 123pie123 5y ago
  It's the Malls carpark(s) that are being developed from the article "marking the start of construction of a new 309-unit apartment complex on a parking lot at Santa Ana’s MainPlace Mall" making the title correct, they're adding apartments to a Mall edit: from the other response to this post that has pictures. It looks like the Mall has been modified into an appartment block
  - sethammons 5y ago
    If I put a porter potty in your driveway, I'm not adding a bathroom to your house and your house has not been modified, only your parking situation. The current title suggests the apartments are attached or inside.
- philliphaydon 5y ago
  > "who would want to buy an appartment in a mall" I lived in an apartment on top of a mall in Singapore. It’s awesome.
  - chairmanwow1 5y ago
    I know what you mean, but I’m pretty confident OP is talking about the wild strip mall variant that plagues the American countryside.
Jaruzel 5y ago
> “The non-fortress malls, the B and C malls, they’re having difficulty surviving,” Can someone explain the different type of malls here please?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I assume it means malls on the richer side of town, usually indicated by the presence of Apple/Nordstroms stores.
- lazerpants 5y ago
  https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/21/what-is-a-class-a-mall.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/21/what-is-a-class-a-...
quickthrower2 5y ago
Build enough apartments and you have your shoppers! Just make sure its really hard to get an Amazon package delivered!
jansan 5y ago
In Germany Aldi has torn down and rebuilt hundreds(?) of their shops during the last few years. Most of the new buildings now have appartments above the super market. In Berlin alone they built 2000 appartments without using any extra land.
netcan 5y ago
Malls, seemingly, aren't a forever thing. Some malls might have "old market square" longevity to them, bit that's the exception. Most have 2-3 decades of prime followed by several more of decline and/or other kinds of changes. Fashions change, the competitive landscape changes, etc. Also, the investment/debt cycle changes things. Malls should probably be designed with this in mind. EOL & redevelopment needs to be assumed from the start. For more permanent places to put retail, you probably need something different to a mall. Main streets, squares and/or other template with more municipal planning involved.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Yep, plus people change... what was once a nice middle class neighbourhood in detroit, is now three crackhouses and hundreds of destroyed houses... people still livng there don't have money for expensive stores, and malls close down. Add to that a new mall, better, bigger and cheaper a similar distance away and the old one starts to decline https://www.youtube.com/c/BrightSunGaming/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/BrightSunGaming/videos <- a youtube channel recording abandoned buildings, among them many abandoned malls, some torn down and partly rebuilt as other stuff, some still standing, in their full glory (just with anything worth stolen, from copper cables on.
cpursley 5y ago
I don't understand why Americans are so against human scale housing: where there's retail on the bottom floors and apartments (condos) above. But also where the development is well connected to adjacent parcels and into an overall city general plan. Perhaps it's because they simply aren't aware a different pattern is available.
- k8sToGo 5y ago
  When I lived in the US it was quite common to have retail space on the ground floor and apartments on the other floors. At least for modern buildings.
- yason 5y ago
  If you design for cars you will never get that: instead, you will get malls instead of city blocks. Or malls with an apartment block on the same lot but the residents still can't walk anywhere except to that one mall.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  Zoning (and cars). Most developed areas have some version of single use zoning. Changing that takes time and money (lawyers, political campaign contributions, etc). This in turn means only large developers can afford to redevelop. And it’s only worth their time if they can do a massive project. So instead of human scale stuff, we get massive multi-block size buildings. Like this block in Reston VA[1]. The lots surrounding it are all a slated for similar buildings - the existing mid-rise are mostly mid-80s through mid-90s builds. The new building is bad because it’s unnavigable. As you approach, it’s just a giant blob. There’s a CVS pharmacy in there, but try to find it - it’s not easy. Parking is a mess. And heaven help if you need to walk to the building. Oh, no bike racks either, aside from a subscription bike room for subway users (nothing on the main retail levels). 1- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Reston_Station_West_View.jpg/320px-Reston_Station_West_View.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Re...
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    And to be clear - I'm referring to the building on the right of the highway in that photo. And I'm not against redevelopment. I'm glad my area is turning these massive open parking lots into mixed-use buildings. I just wish they were building them in a more organic urban style. I live within walking distance of several of these projects, but rarely walk to them because I have to cross too many 6-8 lane intersections and massive swaths of asphalt parking lot (with distracted office workers hurrying to-fro).
unfunco 5y ago
Similarly in the United Kingdom, John Lewis (big department store type shop thing) is also building rental properties on their land and optionally furnishing them things from John Lewis. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/04/john-lewis-plans-to-build-10000-rental-homes-on-its-land-waitrose https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/04/john-lewis-...
streamofdigits 5y ago
There is an implicit assumption of substitutability of land use in this conversion that is interesting whether it holds or not: People are not exactly asked to live in a parking lot but no matter how much you invest on specific grounds, you cannot redevelop the entire environs of the "mall area" which are typically in commercial zones not exactly designed for people to live in. Hence it is plausible that these redevelopments will end up being undesirable, low cost housing that will be occupied by those have to be there rather than want to be there (unable to afford something more "residential"). Essentially a downgrade option for the increasingly tenuous "middle class"
arbuge 5y ago
US malls seem to have a strong aversion to carrying anything other than gifts and clothing for some reason. I suspect those apartment renters would be easier to attract if there was a more diverse range of goods on offer as in other countries, including full-size grocery stores. That would create a more complete immediate neighborhood and remove the need to drive out regularly for essentials.
- acdha 5y ago
  It basically comes down to sprawl: for the better part of a century the American model has been oriented around someone driving in a car, usually solo. That encourages businesses like grocery stores to favor big facilities because they don’t pay the extra cost of the roads, cars, etc. and their customers are probably driving anyway. Why pay mall retail space pricing if you don’t have to? Where you do see this, it’s in areas with more foot/bike/transit biking and the stores tend to be upscale since they can afford the higher real estate costs.
- cuddlybacon 5y ago
  I think that's because those items are the only ones that work to a mall's advantage. There are four ways of providing suburban style shopping that I can think of: * malls * strip malls * big-box stores * big-box stores which oppose a strip mall I think malls main advantage over the other archtypes is that it makes it easiest to evaluate multiple stores before committing to your choice. That is handy for clothes and gifts. For anything else, that isn't handy. As a shopper, why then go to a mall drive to a mall, pay for parking, and then spend a few minutes navigating to get to your desired store when you could instead go to the same store in a strip mall, park for free, and enter the store in less than a minute after leaving your car?
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    This is a US-only distinction. Malls in Australia often have grocery stores and pharmacies to generate foot traffic. The mall/strip-mall distinction is purely artificial. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to distinguish CVS and Walgreens in the same mall, the same way you can make a distinction between H&M and Zara.
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
subpixel 5y ago
This is just redevelopment. What’s _really weird_ to me is new developments that are designed to look like walkable town centers, but are actually open-air shopping malls in the exurbs of cities with hollowed-out centers that were thriving and walkable a single generation ago. These new, faux town centers come with two things the real ones didn’t: massive parking garages, and condos on the third floor with non-functional Juliet balconies that overlook the chain stores.
- loudmax 5y ago
  If you're comparing "faux" town centers to century old walkable town centers, then they do seem lacking. But in most of North America, the alternative to "faux" town centers isn't original town centers. The alternative is miles of stroads flanked by strip malls, or islands of big box shopping malls surrounded by an ocean of parking lots. In this context, the open-air shopping mall as town center is a net positive. Especially when combined with apartment buildings or townhouses as is also happening in some new developments.
evancoop 5y ago
One reads this article and thinks "would I want to live in one of these apartments?" Or possibly, one considers a conveniently-located store that will close. The question that should come to mind might be "what happens to retail workers employed in malls?" Will they all be exerting themselves optimally in Amazon warehouses? Will they vanish from the workforce? The market is speaking loudly. Society does not seem to have an answer.
rootsudo 5y ago
Malls were originally designed and imagined as being condos/shopping center. This is common in asia and I would love a grocery store at the base.
yellowapple 5y ago
It's crazy to me that more malls didn't already include residential spaces. It makes perfect sense to me: bottom couple of floors for shops, and a few floors' worth of apartments on top. Good for businesses (residents = likely customers), good for residents (far easier to buy stuff when you live above a mall), win/win. Hell, throw in some offices and warehouse/workshop spaces and you've got yourself a little micro-city going.
- epistasis 5y ago
  I think this speaks to the abject failure of US planning policies. Very few people realize just how highly constrained all land use is. What you propose is, and was, illegal to build. The very good idea of allowing residential next to commercial space was anathema while the suburbs were being built, as was allowing residential buildings that allowed any destinations that one could walk to. We have squandered a massive amount of our land by laying out residential property on winding roads with cul-de-sacs, intentionally blocking the possibility of walkable density ever developing. This century, we are starting to realize that forcing car use for every single trip is really bad for our health and happiness.
kerneloftruth 5y ago
Next step: turn malls into train stations, and connect via rail.
neom 5y ago
I lived in an OfficeTel in Koera and it was super cool/weird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officetel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officetel
goblin89 5y ago
First time I saw a mall-and-apartment-complex in Seoul a few years back[0], it seemed simultaneously weird that someone would choose to live where you literally exit into a shopping center every day, and for those who did—surprising to not see them wandering about in slippers and pajamas. [0] https://www.architectmagazine.com/project-gallery/mecenatpolis-6522 https://www.architectmagazine.com/project-gallery/mecenatpol...
- mywittyname 5y ago
  This is something I always thought would be really cool. Every time I go through a dead mall I wish I could turn a defunct store into an apartment. It would be the aspects of city and suburban living combined.
brightball 5y ago
I actually owned a mall store a few years ago and mall management told us all about the development plans. They look to demolish a big box space on one end and then create an outdoor green space, amphitheater and area for standalone restaurants and shops on the property. And then add apartments near all that to create a desirable and appealing premium rental environment. All of this was while the mall was plenty busy. It’s just the direction they were moving to adapt in a changing world. Some mall management is a lot more forward thinking that others and that had to be kept in mind. Poorly managed malls fail quickly.
- cogman10 5y ago
  Zoning laws and automobiles, IMO, have a pretty negative environmental impact. It only makes sense to me that you'd have people living next to the goods they consume and where they work. Sure, there are commercial manufacturing industries that you might not want in the middle of residential neighborhoods. But, your local tax or accounting firm? Who wouldn't want to be within walking distance of their store, work, garden and gym?
TheRealPomax 5y ago
I'll take "vertical business practices that should be broken up the moment a company shows signs of attempting it" for $800, Alex.
Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
Co-locating residential and shopping is good for everybody. US zoning laws that tried to separate them are dumb and bad.

144 points by lxm 5y ago

This was inevitable, and not even because of online shopping. America has been over-retailed for a long time. Retail per square foot around the world looks like this, in decreasing order US - 23.5 sq ft of retail per person Canada - 16.8 sq ft Australia - 11.2 sq ft UK - 4.6 Japan - 4.4 etc. US stores got here by taking on more debt than they could handle, expanding aggressively, and then collapsing under the burden. When the big box stores and department stores went bankrupt, they often took whatever mall they were anchoring down with them. The question has always been not if this would happen, but how quickly. Source: https://i.insider.com/5bb37815ac0a6314735194e8?width=1300&format=jpeg&auto=webp https://i.insider.com/5bb37815ac0a6314735194e8?width=1300&fo...

KiranRao0 5y ago
While the amount of amount of retail space is higher than Canada/Australia, so is the spending (per Capita) United States: 14,614 Canada: 10,953 Australia: 9,239 UK: 6,495 I still believe anchor stores can take down an entire mall, but I don't believe it's inevitable based solely on the sq ft per Capita numbers. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/741827/retail-sales-per-capita-of-shopping-centers-worldwide-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/741827/retail-sales-per-... Edit: spacing
- pas 5y ago
  It's expected that US spending is the highest. Just as with healthcare, the US average individualized consumption is the highest, because the on average US residents produce the most. The US is a very rich country. Unfortunately there are so many almost mandatory luxuries built in to the American dream that it quickly eats up all that income.
  - allendoerfer 5y ago
    > The US is a very rich country. > [...] on average US residents produce the most Of course that is true. > It's expected that US spending is the highest. And of course there is a connection here. But you are not necessarily rich, when you spend more. By definition you are rich when you have more. Americans often do not get more for spending more (see healthcare and others) so after spending they would actually often be poorer. Americans also tend to spend even if they actually do not have anything to spend.
    - pas 5y ago
      > Americans also tend to spend even if they actually do not have anything to spend. Mostly because there are some mandatory luxuries, like having a car, student debt, health insurance, ridiculously expensive housing. Or just "the new iphone". > Americans often do not get more for spending more (see healthcare and others) so after spending they would actually often be poorer. https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-on-health-care-is-wrong-a-primer/#rcatoc-diminishing-returns-to-spending-and-worse-lifestyle-factors-explain-americas-mediocre-health-outcomes https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-o... > And of course there is a connection here. But you are not necessarily rich, when you spend more. By definition you are rich when you have more. I mean, the economic surplus is spent, on what is of course critical, but the vast riches produced year by year is there. As the link argues, lifestyle choices determine where that surplus is allocated to.
    - neither_color 5y ago
      The discussion is about retail so I'd exclude healthcare and education. Retail-wise, with relatively low sales tax(no VAT, typically 5-10% sales tax) and highly competitive options we do have cheap abundance in the US. Isn't one of the main criticisms that we waste the most energy per capita? Fuel is cheap, electricity is cheap, electronics are cheap, food is cheap and portions are massive. When I travel the only thing I find comparatively cheaper in other countries is human services. So in places like Southeast Asia or Latin America you can afford a maid and a driver on an upper middle local salary but would still pay more for an imported cell phone than an American.
  - 5y ago
echelon 5y ago
Contrarian perspective. The model worked until it apparently didn't. If Amazon and online shopping hadn't happened, we'd still be going to the malls. A large number of retailers fell not to online shopping, but instead to lowering quality of service and goods. Sears, Circuit City, JC Penny, and Kmart each have analogous stores and former competitors that remain and are doing well. Outside of disposably fast fashion like Shein, it's usually more convenient to try clothes on shotgun fashion. In person. Fragrance, jewelry, luxury goods. All better done in person. Home Depot is peerless and will never be replaced with an online equivalent. Touching and trying things on is an experience that just can't be matched online (sans metaverse, if it actually delivers). Amazon is aggressively expanding physical retail presence. They're focusing on convenience, which is probably the biggest reason people avoid shopping in person. People love shopping. And if the shopping experience is modern and fun, and interspersed with drinking and dining, they love doing it with friends. It's a social activity too. If malls morph into "live-work-play" hubs like this old sears factory [1] or this entirely new construction in that mold [2], they'll absolutely flourish. [1] https://www.poncecitymarket.com https://www.poncecitymarket.com [2] https://townbrookhaven.net https://townbrookhaven.net
- im3w1l 5y ago
  > A large number of retailers fell not to online shopping, but instead to lowering quality of service and goods. Sears, Circuit City, JC Penny, and Kmart each have analogous stores and former competitors that remain and are doing well. Online shopping decreased the demand for retail but not all the way to zero. So it makes sense that some should fold and others should stay.
  - echelon 5y ago
    I'm too tired to find sources right now, but the popular thinking is that each of these retailers sank due to bad service. They had leadership changes that suddenly wanted to cut salespeople (while their competitors didn't), or source cheaper parts (Sears Craftsman and appliances). This was at a time when the businesses had seemingly healthy margins and glowing prospects.
HWR_14 5y ago
The UK and especially Japan have significantly higher population densities. You would expect them to have less square footage of retail space. Meanwhile, a reason for the mall explosion was because real estate developments, especially commercial malls were heavily subsidized by taxpayers in the 1980s (might have the decade off). Those still exist at a smaller scale, but not enough to justify their levels, even back before 2008.
- JCharante 5y ago
  Is it not possible that such a large retail industry is only possible in high population density area?
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    My point is that extra space to move (wide aisles that can handle multiple carts across or space around an in store display or other empty space) is much cheaper in the US, so you can just afford it. But the cost of devoting 100's of sq ft of space to mannequins on pedestals might not fly in a Japan (Walmart equivalent)
  - ant6n 5y ago
    Do suburban Americans not drive to Buy'n'Large to shop? It's the high density Americans in New York City who go shop in tiny supermarkets.
- chii 5y ago
  square footage per capita is a misleading metric, coz it assumes that each square foot is equivalent in each country - and that a higher area equates to a higher spending and cost. I think profit per-capita is a better metric. It's harder obtain that metric of course...
  - achow 5y ago
    Hmm.. per sqft seems to be reasonable. Whichever country (given income equality and ignoring cultural disposition to consumption patterns) a human would need approx' same amount of goods, whether grocery, clothing or other such, and those items would occupy exact same space in all countries.
lmm 5y ago
How do those numbers compare with land value in those countries? My impression is that a lot of things are built bigger in the US because there's plenty of space so land is cheap.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  Depending on where you are, land is not actually that cheap where these suburban stores exist. The suburbs of New York and the suburbs of Cleveland look very different in terms of land price. One contributing factor might be local tax policies. American politicians are all about bringing jobs to their local area, and so have been willing to cut very generous tax breaks in return for, say, opening a store that provides jobs. However, American metropolitan areas have very fragmented local areas, so suburb A and suburb B and suburb Z across town are all doing this. This basically encouraged a lot of these commercial developments to throw up cheap buildings that wouldn't last long; once it was showing its age they'd just take the next suburb's tax break and start over. You can only repeat this trick so much, though.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  That's part of it. The other part is property taxes and zoning rules either encouraging or outright mandating low density development.
fy20 5y ago
Are you sure this is worldwide data? This dataset shows Sweden and Norway having higher densities than the UK, but they aren't anywhere on your list: https://eeg.tuwien.ac.at/commonenergy/gla-per-capita-shopping-center https://eeg.tuwien.ac.at/commonenergy/gla-per-capita-shoppin...
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  Admittedly, it's been a while since I last had to bring this up, so I found https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-apocalypse-is-still-in-early-innings-cowen-says-2018-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-apocalypse-is-still-i..., which upon further inspection lacks those countries. That being said, the US is by far the country with the most retail per capita.
quickthrower2 5y ago
Looks like they correlate with population density! Australia sounds sparse but people are mostly clumped in a few cities.
bigodbiel 5y ago
I always thought the abundance of malls was by design of affluent suburban dwellings (unlike Europe where suburbs are usually mid-lower class dwellings), plus sprinkle of the old American entrepreneurship. That commerce is going virtual and suburbs failing was always my reasoning.
FredPret 5y ago
This is probably more due to population density and GDP per capita. The US has the most space and the most money per person, so one would expect lots of retail per person there.

leoedin 5y ago

It seems like they're reinventing walkable local town centres! I wonder if it will be successful this time?

matsemann 5y ago
Yeah, I thought the whole point of malls was that it's actually walkable between the stores, without getting mauled by a car or dying of thirst the long trek between two parking lots.
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  I think the point was to make you walk past a bunch of stores to get to the one you wanted, increasing your chance of buying something else (Whether food or merch). In strip malls and freestanding buildings, you go into the store you want, get your stuff, and leave.

xrd 5y ago

Lloyd Center Mall in Portland, OR was in the news recently. It was at one point the largest mall in the US. And, now is one of the few places supporting a diverse community of young people from around the city. And, also, a place that has become a focus because of the car break-ins that are plaguing the city, depending on what news sources you read. The owners were going to sell it and people were excited about the opportunity to reconsider an extremely large space in a major urban area. Then, the owners decided to turn it into apartments and condos. This will save the ice skating rink, and that's good. But, in the COVID era when public spaces are so hard to find, I wonder how that will impact people who don't own their own large houses, and I'm somewhat sad malls are moving in this direction, even though I hate going to them myself.

jdlshore 5y ago
I was at Lloyd Center on a Friday night recently. At 7:00 the place was dead, other than the skating rink. The food court was shutting down. If that’s what it’s like during what should be prime time for a mall, no wonder it’s shutting down.
- nicky0 5y ago
  Do people go shopping on Friday night? Not sure that is prime time.
  - autoexec 5y ago
    There's a also a pandemic going on which (at least in areas with high community spread) you'd hope would have some people reconsidering going to a shopping mall if they can avoid it. I wouldn't expect most retail spaces to be getting as much traffic as they might otherwise.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    Shopping, not so much. But cities need bars, restaurants, nightclubs, theatres, cinemas and so on, and Friday night is prime time for them (when there's not a pandemic) If malls-with-added-housing are to become the walkable urban neighbourhoods of the future, you'd expect them to move in that direction.

seszett 5y ago

The supermarkets around me here in Belgium are also being rebuilt with apartments on top, Colruyt at least. It just seems logical, otherwise it's a waste of space.

bfung 5y ago

This is the norm in Hong Kong ~ High up residentials, Large malls and offices mid level, MTR (subway/metro) underground. No need to drive, noise isn’t a problem built w/the right technology/materials, super convenient. Here’s one of the more expensive examples: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Square_(Hong_Kong) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Square_(Hong_Kong)

ayngg 5y ago
The way it is done in Hong Kong (and other Asian cities like Tokyo to an extent) feels way closer to town centers that predate cars, where there is a lot of foot traffic and walkability which imo makes such a better experience. I just think in America it is too car centric and not dense enough to line the incentives up for it to happen here. Land is cheap enough that malls will just build outwards and create giant moats of parking lots around them to kill walkability, and public transit ridership is too low because everyone is driving cars so service can never reach the standards in Asia. Its a shame because feels so much worse than what has been achieved in Hong Kong.
- pas 5y ago
  It's too car centric but its externality will eventually topple that. Infrastructure spread so thin have an enormous overhead. (Roads need to be paved, pipes leak, even cabling is a problem, see the again electric grid, also how most US addresses are only served by one ISP, heating/cooling each house separately).
- mcv 5y ago
  Those town centers have survived cars in many places outside North America. In Netherland it's very common to have houses above shops, and in newer developments, either parking or public transport below ground, while the ground level is mostly for pedestrians and bikes. It's mostly North America (both US and Canada at least; no idea about Mexico) that seems to have outlawed this style of building, and enforced extremely car-dependent suburbs, big box stores in a wasteland of parking lots, and dangerous stroads to connect them. I've heard that the main thing that's driving American cities to bankruptcy is the cost of maintaining inefficient suburban infrastructure.

phreeza 5y ago

I read somewhere that many franchise restaurant chains make more money off real estate appreciation than on sales. For favourably located malls, I guess this could also end up applying if housing prices continue to rise.

aqeelat 5y ago

Tysons Corner, VA and Reston, VA are good examples of how things should be. Mixed use development with retail, commercial, residential, public transportation, and plenty of parking.

hooande 5y ago

I could be wrong, but it seems like the cost to demolish a mall and completely rebuild is dwarfed by the value of the real estate. I don't particularly want to live in a former mall, but I might be interested in a condo in the same location. Just demolish everything and have developers create new living spaces from scratch. Malls are mostly parking lots anyway. I may be drastically underestimating the cost of such a project. But the real estate for centrally located malls is likely to continue increasing in value.

adammunich 5y ago
natural resources are getting scarcer
autoexec 5y ago
As long as the places are nice and suit my needs I wouldn't mind an apartment in a converted mall. To be honest though there are a ton of available condos and rental options I can afford. What we really need more of in many areas are decent rental units affordable for people making closer to minimum wage and a converted mall might be a really nice place for that, especially if it can help build and support small communities where folks can get to know and help each other while offering easy access to stores and jobs.

taubek 5y ago

In my country we've had one mall turned into a four star hotel few years ago. I think that this is better than leaving the building to be abandoned. For another mall at outskirts of our capital city there was even talk about converting it to jail.

idiotbeforegod 5y ago

This is something I've been kinda wanting. A mixed-use zoning in a contemporary shopping centre. Something akin to shop downstairs - home upstairs which is common in most developing countries I've been to. Unfortunately this seems to be a strict conversion from store -> apartment which kinda disallows the upstair/downstair dynamic, and also prevents the 'single rent for multiple uses' deal which kinda enables the mixed zoning spirit. I wonder what levels of entrepreneurship could be enabled by opening up zoning in the west? I felt like a shopping centre conversion would be perfect as it is a locus of activity, density and business planning. I wonder if in the developing world mixed-use zoned homes/business are more expensive than typical residential zones?

drdeadringer 5y ago

I've been waiting to see this type of thing since reading Larry Niven scifi stories involving his transport booth technology. A transporter booth on every street corner type of thing [think "phone booth" in 1970s Superman days]. In a particular one, a journalist is compelled to investigate, write, and publish a story regarding some implications of this transport booth technology in order to help "clear his name" of some possible legal charges. In one scene, the guy is walking down a few streets crowded with new "temp" housing and shops and micro-industry and foot traffic where there once would have been nothing but vehicle traffic and empty parking spots and delivery-only zones and such. "These folks have caught on quicker than the rest of us", the guy considers. IRL with dead malls laying around for ~30 years, every time I've passed by I've had similar marbles rolling around in my head.

cowl 5y ago

What's up with these titles? Does noone know how to Convey an idea anymore? My first reaction on reading the title was: "who would want to buy an appartment in a mall". Ofcourse when you read it you understand that NO, Malls are not adding appartments in their space, Malls are being demolished and appartments are being constructed on their space. It's just a normal Redevelopment project.

theklub 5y ago
https://betweentworocks.com/welcome-new-havens-strangest-apartment-building/ https://betweentworocks.com/welcome-new-havens-strangest-apa...
123pie123 5y ago
It's the Malls carpark(s) that are being developed from the article "marking the start of construction of a new 309-unit apartment complex on a parking lot at Santa Ana’s MainPlace Mall" making the title correct, they're adding apartments to a Mall edit: from the other response to this post that has pictures. It looks like the Mall has been modified into an appartment block
- sethammons 5y ago
  If I put a porter potty in your driveway, I'm not adding a bathroom to your house and your house has not been modified, only your parking situation. The current title suggests the apartments are attached or inside.
philliphaydon 5y ago
> "who would want to buy an appartment in a mall" I lived in an apartment on top of a mall in Singapore. It’s awesome.
- chairmanwow1 5y ago
  I know what you mean, but I’m pretty confident OP is talking about the wild strip mall variant that plagues the American countryside.

Jaruzel 5y ago

> “The non-fortress malls, the B and C malls, they’re having difficulty surviving,” Can someone explain the different type of malls here please?

lotsofpulp 5y ago
I assume it means malls on the richer side of town, usually indicated by the presence of Apple/Nordstroms stores.
lazerpants 5y ago
https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/21/what-is-a-class-a-mall.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/21/what-is-a-class-a-...

quickthrower2 5y ago

Build enough apartments and you have your shoppers! Just make sure its really hard to get an Amazon package delivered!

jansan 5y ago

In Germany Aldi has torn down and rebuilt hundreds(?) of their shops during the last few years. Most of the new buildings now have appartments above the super market. In Berlin alone they built 2000 appartments without using any extra land.

netcan 5y ago

Malls, seemingly, aren't a forever thing. Some malls might have "old market square" longevity to them, bit that's the exception. Most have 2-3 decades of prime followed by several more of decline and/or other kinds of changes. Fashions change, the competitive landscape changes, etc. Also, the investment/debt cycle changes things. Malls should probably be designed with this in mind. EOL & redevelopment needs to be assumed from the start. For more permanent places to put retail, you probably need something different to a mall. Main streets, squares and/or other template with more municipal planning involved.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Yep, plus people change... what was once a nice middle class neighbourhood in detroit, is now three crackhouses and hundreds of destroyed houses... people still livng there don't have money for expensive stores, and malls close down. Add to that a new mall, better, bigger and cheaper a similar distance away and the old one starts to decline https://www.youtube.com/c/BrightSunGaming/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/BrightSunGaming/videos <- a youtube channel recording abandoned buildings, among them many abandoned malls, some torn down and partly rebuilt as other stuff, some still standing, in their full glory (just with anything worth stolen, from copper cables on.

cpursley 5y ago

I don't understand why Americans are so against human scale housing: where there's retail on the bottom floors and apartments (condos) above. But also where the development is well connected to adjacent parcels and into an overall city general plan. Perhaps it's because they simply aren't aware a different pattern is available.

k8sToGo 5y ago
When I lived in the US it was quite common to have retail space on the ground floor and apartments on the other floors. At least for modern buildings.
yason 5y ago
If you design for cars you will never get that: instead, you will get malls instead of city blocks. Or malls with an apartment block on the same lot but the residents still can't walk anywhere except to that one mall.
alistairSH 5y ago
Zoning (and cars). Most developed areas have some version of single use zoning. Changing that takes time and money (lawyers, political campaign contributions, etc). This in turn means only large developers can afford to redevelop. And it’s only worth their time if they can do a massive project. So instead of human scale stuff, we get massive multi-block size buildings. Like this block in Reston VA[1]. The lots surrounding it are all a slated for similar buildings - the existing mid-rise are mostly mid-80s through mid-90s builds. The new building is bad because it’s unnavigable. As you approach, it’s just a giant blob. There’s a CVS pharmacy in there, but try to find it - it’s not easy. Parking is a mess. And heaven help if you need to walk to the building. Oh, no bike racks either, aside from a subscription bike room for subway users (nothing on the main retail levels). 1- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Reston_Station_West_View.jpg/320px-Reston_Station_West_View.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Re...
- alistairSH 5y ago
  And to be clear - I'm referring to the building on the right of the highway in that photo. And I'm not against redevelopment. I'm glad my area is turning these massive open parking lots into mixed-use buildings. I just wish they were building them in a more organic urban style. I live within walking distance of several of these projects, but rarely walk to them because I have to cross too many 6-8 lane intersections and massive swaths of asphalt parking lot (with distracted office workers hurrying to-fro).

unfunco 5y ago

Similarly in the United Kingdom, John Lewis (big department store type shop thing) is also building rental properties on their land and optionally furnishing them things from John Lewis. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/04/john-lewis-plans-to-build-10000-rental-homes-on-its-land-waitrose https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/04/john-lewis-...

streamofdigits 5y ago

There is an implicit assumption of substitutability of land use in this conversion that is interesting whether it holds or not: People are not exactly asked to live in a parking lot but no matter how much you invest on specific grounds, you cannot redevelop the entire environs of the "mall area" which are typically in commercial zones not exactly designed for people to live in. Hence it is plausible that these redevelopments will end up being undesirable, low cost housing that will be occupied by those have to be there rather than want to be there (unable to afford something more "residential"). Essentially a downgrade option for the increasingly tenuous "middle class"

arbuge 5y ago

US malls seem to have a strong aversion to carrying anything other than gifts and clothing for some reason. I suspect those apartment renters would be easier to attract if there was a more diverse range of goods on offer as in other countries, including full-size grocery stores. That would create a more complete immediate neighborhood and remove the need to drive out regularly for essentials.

acdha 5y ago
It basically comes down to sprawl: for the better part of a century the American model has been oriented around someone driving in a car, usually solo. That encourages businesses like grocery stores to favor big facilities because they don’t pay the extra cost of the roads, cars, etc. and their customers are probably driving anyway. Why pay mall retail space pricing if you don’t have to? Where you do see this, it’s in areas with more foot/bike/transit biking and the stores tend to be upscale since they can afford the higher real estate costs.
cuddlybacon 5y ago
I think that's because those items are the only ones that work to a mall's advantage. There are four ways of providing suburban style shopping that I can think of: * malls * strip malls * big-box stores * big-box stores which oppose a strip mall I think malls main advantage over the other archtypes is that it makes it easiest to evaluate multiple stores before committing to your choice. That is handy for clothes and gifts. For anything else, that isn't handy. As a shopper, why then go to a mall drive to a mall, pay for parking, and then spend a few minutes navigating to get to your desired store when you could instead go to the same store in a strip mall, park for free, and enter the store in less than a minute after leaving your car?
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  This is a US-only distinction. Malls in Australia often have grocery stores and pharmacies to generate foot traffic. The mall/strip-mall distinction is purely artificial. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to distinguish CVS and Walgreens in the same mall, the same way you can make a distinction between H&M and Zara.

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

subpixel 5y ago

This is just redevelopment. What’s _really weird_ to me is new developments that are designed to look like walkable town centers, but are actually open-air shopping malls in the exurbs of cities with hollowed-out centers that were thriving and walkable a single generation ago. These new, faux town centers come with two things the real ones didn’t: massive parking garages, and condos on the third floor with non-functional Juliet balconies that overlook the chain stores.

loudmax 5y ago
If you're comparing "faux" town centers to century old walkable town centers, then they do seem lacking. But in most of North America, the alternative to "faux" town centers isn't original town centers. The alternative is miles of stroads flanked by strip malls, or islands of big box shopping malls surrounded by an ocean of parking lots. In this context, the open-air shopping mall as town center is a net positive. Especially when combined with apartment buildings or townhouses as is also happening in some new developments.

evancoop 5y ago

One reads this article and thinks "would I want to live in one of these apartments?" Or possibly, one considers a conveniently-located store that will close. The question that should come to mind might be "what happens to retail workers employed in malls?" Will they all be exerting themselves optimally in Amazon warehouses? Will they vanish from the workforce? The market is speaking loudly. Society does not seem to have an answer.

rootsudo 5y ago

Malls were originally designed and imagined as being condos/shopping center. This is common in asia and I would love a grocery store at the base.

yellowapple 5y ago

It's crazy to me that more malls didn't already include residential spaces. It makes perfect sense to me: bottom couple of floors for shops, and a few floors' worth of apartments on top. Good for businesses (residents = likely customers), good for residents (far easier to buy stuff when you live above a mall), win/win. Hell, throw in some offices and warehouse/workshop spaces and you've got yourself a little micro-city going.

epistasis 5y ago
I think this speaks to the abject failure of US planning policies. Very few people realize just how highly constrained all land use is. What you propose is, and was, illegal to build. The very good idea of allowing residential next to commercial space was anathema while the suburbs were being built, as was allowing residential buildings that allowed any destinations that one could walk to. We have squandered a massive amount of our land by laying out residential property on winding roads with cul-de-sacs, intentionally blocking the possibility of walkable density ever developing. This century, we are starting to realize that forcing car use for every single trip is really bad for our health and happiness.

kerneloftruth 5y ago

Next step: turn malls into train stations, and connect via rail.

neom 5y ago

I lived in an OfficeTel in Koera and it was super cool/weird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officetel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officetel

goblin89 5y ago

First time I saw a mall-and-apartment-complex in Seoul a few years back[0], it seemed simultaneously weird that someone would choose to live where you literally exit into a shopping center every day, and for those who did—surprising to not see them wandering about in slippers and pajamas. [0] https://www.architectmagazine.com/project-gallery/mecenatpolis-6522 https://www.architectmagazine.com/project-gallery/mecenatpol...

mywittyname 5y ago
This is something I always thought would be really cool. Every time I go through a dead mall I wish I could turn a defunct store into an apartment. It would be the aspects of city and suburban living combined.

brightball 5y ago

I actually owned a mall store a few years ago and mall management told us all about the development plans. They look to demolish a big box space on one end and then create an outdoor green space, amphitheater and area for standalone restaurants and shops on the property. And then add apartments near all that to create a desirable and appealing premium rental environment. All of this was while the mall was plenty busy. It’s just the direction they were moving to adapt in a changing world. Some mall management is a lot more forward thinking that others and that had to be kept in mind. Poorly managed malls fail quickly.

cogman10 5y ago
Zoning laws and automobiles, IMO, have a pretty negative environmental impact. It only makes sense to me that you'd have people living next to the goods they consume and where they work. Sure, there are commercial manufacturing industries that you might not want in the middle of residential neighborhoods. But, your local tax or accounting firm? Who wouldn't want to be within walking distance of their store, work, garden and gym?

TheRealPomax 5y ago

I'll take "vertical business practices that should be broken up the moment a company shows signs of attempting it" for $800, Alex.

Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago

Co-locating residential and shopping is good for everybody. US zoning laws that tried to separate them are dumb and bad.