26 ms·

Can the American mall survive?

78 points by 0x54MUR41 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
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jotjotzzz 4y ago
Most American malls are so badly designed -- they aren't places where people are hanging out but just shopping and leaving. Well, most folks shop online nowadays, what's the point of coming to the mall? There's no place to sit or talk or create a community.
- kube-system 4y ago
  When I was a kid in the US, the mall was the #1 place to hang out. We could see a movie, grab some food, and browse some clothing stores, and our parents knew where to find us. I suppose this is less of an advantage with cell phones these days, and teenagers don't really have much disposable income.
  - brigade 4y ago
    How long ago? Malls have spent the last two decades discouraging or even outright banning teenage loiterers.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      Yeah, they have. But I still see kids hanging out at malls in my area, although well behaved and in not in gigantic groups.
deleted 4y ago
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midislack 4y ago
What's that law where you can answer any headline question with "no?"
- askafriend 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
- Nasrudith 4y ago
  Bertridge's law of headlines. Malls have been doing just fine at the high end boutique level though, at least last I checked.
  - classified 4y ago
    *Betteridge* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    Those are the only variation I see around now. Unless you could strip-malls, which do fine owing to density/accessibility.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    I’m my area we have high end and ethnic malls, both approaches do well but ethnic (eg Chinese, Filipino) needs much cheaper rent to thrive.
chaosbutters314 4y ago
multi level parking, 2-3 story housing built over existing mall, build high rise housing in unnecessary parking areas, put some grass/parks in. not sure why this is complicated. starts with rezoning
- epistasis 4y ago
  They're trying to do that with a local mall. One of the main objections of the city council is that new residents cost them money in terms of necessary services like schools, whereas the mall itself is a cash cow because of the sales tax, with minimal city services for the mall. It's taken as a given that housing is generally too expensive for the mall workers to live nearby...
- tpm 4y ago
  That would probably require demolishing or substantially remodelling existing buildings. At which point it's probably cheaper to build on an empty lot.
- schnevets 4y ago
  To start, malls tend to be built on highways removed from a municipality's center. Many of the people in this area will need certain amenities (for example, schools) and will have commutes. The entire surrounding area would have to be redesigned before you can plop 2,000 new residents in an empty lot. I'm not saying it can't be done, but making something more desirable is more complicated than just rezoning. And making something less desirable could be absolutely dystopian.
  - jghn 4y ago
    In areas I've seen, the older malls are effectively closer in due to decades of sprawl. If one converts those, the effect isn't as stark.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    The mall is perfectly suited to adapt to 2000 new residents; shift one store to a grocery, one to a daycare, and you're 90% of the way to rebuilding a nice little town center that lets people live most of their lives without a car. The real problem is the planning profession, which has taken to such micromanagement of central planning that there's no way to dynamically adjust spaces to better uses. In my local downtown area, there are extremely strict rules about which type of retail are allowed where. And how close to which corners. It's a disaster.
alberth 4y ago
It’s also been shown that Apple drives so much traffic to malls where they are located (incremental 10% higher total mall sales), that Apple is able to negotiate cheaper rent. https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/10-mind-blowing-facts-about-the-apple-store/slidelist/46556676.cms#slideid=46556677 https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/10-mind-blowing-facts-ab...
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  It's certainly the only reason I've ever gone to the mall around here.
  - thepasswordis 4y ago
    Wow. I just realized the same.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Well are dead-ish to dead malls and then there are malls that are doing pretty well and then there are luxury malls. You tend to see mall Apple stores in the middle category; even though they're not traditional anchor stores they effectively are. Meanwhile, the former category has/had anchor stores like in the case of local mall such as it is at this point like Sears, JC Penney, and Macys.
  - kwanbix 4y ago
    Can I ask why? You don't buy things in malls anymore? Why? Thanks!
    - kayodelycaon 4y ago
      What would I buy? My clothing isn’t from any store in the mall. I don’t wear jewelry. I’m allergic to most food in the food court. (Literally anywhere in Cincinnati has better food anyway.) IKEA, Target, and Microcenter are in easy driving distance. I can get a lot of stuff from Amazon. I do know everything in the mall. It’s my backup location for walking when going to the park or zoo isn’t a viable. I might stop by the LEGO store sometime, but would be an expensive mistake. Otherwise, there isn’t any store that interests me.
omginternets 4y ago
Would anything of value be lost if it didn't? I cannot find it in me to cling to shopping malls.
- triceratops 4y ago
  I personally don't like shopping malls. But I can't deny that they're a social outlet, a "third place", a hangout location for a lot of people (senior citizens, teens and children). Not everywhere has Northern California climate.
  - dilyevsky 4y ago
    Malls can certainly be done right. For example, Ikea run ones (I mean the rest of the mall not just ikea store) are usually pretty nice. It’s just that in US they tend to be very low quality and there are too many of them and location usually sucks. West coast tends to be worse at this too
- rr888 4y ago
  Where I am they're an oasis in a hot humid summer, and freezing winter where people can hang out.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  It's nice to walk around in South Texas during the summer when heat indexes are pushing into the one-teens.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Would anything of value be lost if it didn't? Yeah: online shopping is terrible, especially for clothes. If shopping malls die, your options will be online or driving all around town between strip malls and the like.
  - omginternets 4y ago
    The choice isn’t between malls and the internet. There are plenty of brick-and-mortar stores in, say, town centers.
Nasrudith 4y ago
The one assertion is rather questionable. In fact I struggle to find a context where it makes sense. > In contemporary “ruin porn” photography, the empty shells of malls represent the just deserts of late-stage capitalism. Put aside the questionable ascribing of meaning to a photographic genre that has included everything from abandoned hospitals and schools to abandoned factories. Even by the standards of the leftist fundamentalist concept of late-stage capitalism (implicitly playing prophet declaring doom against foes). A mere collection of failures after a profitible heyday is supposed to be some sort of just retribution?
- bombcar 4y ago
  Yeah, those sets of photos are just as often large projects or other "commieblock"-style buildings, so you could say they're an inditement of modern socialism or something. I think it's much simpler, people like looking at ruins.
ctur 4y ago
The Decoder Ring podcast did an episode[1] recently about the supposed death of the mall. It's a fun listen and covers a lot of the history and evolution of the mall as a concept and how it shaped, and was shaped by, transportation changes in the US. It also goes into the social importance they have had over the years and how that has evolved. [1] - https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2022/07/is-the-shopping-mall-really-dead https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2022/07/is-the-shopp...
csdvrx 4y ago
Yes. I love going to the mall and spending a good half day there. And I see lots of people now that the pandemic is over. This may not be representative of the introvert male FANG coder who lurks on HN - it helps I'm not that lol Also, saying "things will be fine" don't write cool articles for the new republic, while doom and gloom certainly does.
polycaster 4y ago
Funny title. Funny because perspective. In my (European) home town people are worried if old-established retail on high street can survive now that an (American-style) mall opened gates outside the city center recently. So, yes, I can relate somehow.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  If you were to get the standard grouping of Costco/Target/Walmart/IKEA/Best Buy/Home Depot/Lowes/Staples/Nordstrom Rack stores near that mall, then the mall would also be threatened. Those businesses I listed have optimized delivering the most commonly needed items, and then the internet came along and provided access to the uncommonly needed items. So the mall is not needed for the uncommon items, and they cannot compete on margins for the common items at the other stores I mentioned, so they have no use.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Some malls (the smarter ones?) have integrated those stores listed into the malls themselves; I've certainly seen Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Staples, Nordstrom Rack, and IKEA built into a mall. Even more if you consider "strip malls" to be malls.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  Sweden's already been through that. Now both malls and the inner city shops are dying.
jamesbfb 4y ago
Whenever I hear about any American mall, I can't help but think of Dan Bell's Dead Mall series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NsVylQBWM&list=PLNz4Un92pGNxQ9vNgmnCx7dwchPJGJ3IQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NsVylQBWM&list=PLNz4Un92pG... Oddly enough, I live in Melbourne, Australia and the humble mall AKA shopping centre is well and truly alive.
- m000 4y ago
  Whenever I hear about any American mall, I can't help but think of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077402/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077402/
- jshier 4y ago
  Stayed in Melbourne across the street from the giant underground mall above the metro station. Quite the place! Has a whole bullet factory inside. Also, the open airflow structure of many places was so weird coming from the US, and I was there in the depth of winter. 32°F, 0°C the day I left.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
> The more you try to control the environment, the more stifling it becomes. I think this is why I turned on malls after spending my formative years inside them. As I got older, I yearned for the unpredictability of a less manicured and mass-produced reality, one more surprising than what a stop at the Gap or Sbarro could offer. Christ, isn't that the case. I remember as a child visiting different places in the U.S. and it was often like visiting foreign countries. Increasingly though, so much of the U.S. looks so much like the rest in terms of retail/food that I begin to feel the entire country is in fact a mall of sorts.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  Similar/ same is happening in Europe. George Carlin gave a tirade against the malls of america in the.....70s?
- bombcar 4y ago
  It's like the NIMBY problem - everyone claims to want the variation and difference, but they act so as to make everything uniform and identical.
- sidpatil 4y ago
  > Increasingly though, so much of the U.S. looks so much like the rest in terms of retail/food that I begin to feel the entire country is in fact a mall of sorts. Here's a good video on the subject: https://youtu.be/UX4KklvCDmg https://youtu.be/UX4KklvCDmg
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  This is one of the reasons why I can't stand being anywhere in the Suburban dead zone. Everything is devoid of uniqueness and every single one looks just about the same across the US. Both rural and urban areas at least retain some semblance of history or culture.
Damogran6 4y ago
It's not only Malls. We used to go _shopping_...Service Merchandise, Sears, Circuit City, La Belles, K-Mart, Borders...for better or worse, in a large metro area, you're more likely to only have Food (Kroeger), and Boutique Food (Whole Foods) as places to go hang out. Sure, there's the Movie Theatre, but having gone last week when they had $3 tickets, people have forgotten how to go to the Theatre...likewise, we went to Cirque de Soleil's OVO and it's clear we've lost a little in the 'how to entertain' and a lot of 'how to behave while being entertained'.
- sybercecurity 4y ago
  That seems to be the trend in suburbs too - a sort of planned development with single family homes and a denser "main street" area with commercial on the ground floor and condos or professional offices above. Some have apartment buildings alongside too. Sometimes there is a movie theater, library, or community space mixed in as well. Most of the commercial space is either restaurants/food or service places like hair salons, dry cleaners, etc. Very little in the way of retail stores. Mostly as the occasional Target/Walmart/etc. big retailer nearby. This seems to be the assumption for single professionals/married without kids demographic: more dining, but buying things is mostly online or big box general retail stores.
  - throwthroyaboat 4y ago
    I value the small amount of retail in my little downtown main street. There is a reasonably sized ace hardware within 5 minutes walk, and I'm there almost every week to pick up lightbulbs, screws, etc. The staff are friendly and helpful. It's so much more convenient than driving to a big box store, finding parking, walking through 20 isles. Sure, it doesn't have whiteware or a lumber yard, but I'll sorely miss it if it ever closes. Same thing with the office supply store. Most tech stuff they have is the same price as amazon, and they offer great printing services.
- jedberg 4y ago
  > people have forgotten how to go to the Theatre I went to see Top Gun a couple weeks ago, it was my first time in a theater in years. There were five different ads, the gist of all of which were, "Don't forget you're in public, so don't talk or pull out your phone or get up if you don't have to". One of them literally said, "We know it's been a while since you've watched a movie in public, and maybe you've forgotten how that works". It was sort of condescending but at the same time I totally get the need.
usbfingers 4y ago
I assume financially this would probably not be feasible or sustainable everywhere but I really wish malls could lean further into theme parks rather than shopping hubs Most of them are half way there with movie theaters, arcades, etc. I recently went to one with an attached Medieval Times. I'm curious how much filling in laser tag, rock climbing, and other in person only activities would generate turnout.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  > lean further into theme parks rather than shopping hubs And yet, it's still 'shopping' in a sense. You're mostly just buying experiences vs buying 'stuff'.
quartz 4y ago
It's kind of fun to see all the new takes on malls. In/around NYC we have a few that I actually use: - Hudson Yards - a pretty good destination with a small kid on a rainy day and easy to get to via the subway. Big and open, has a Camp store (with slide and play area), good sit down and take-away food options, and surrounded by some fun outdoor city stuff (my son LOVES watching the train yard across the street, and the highline is right there). - American Dream in NJ - More like an indoor collection of amusement parks, we use the Legoland Experience and the Aquarium reasonably often and when my son is a little older we'll likely use the Nickelodeon theme park and the indoor water park which looks pretty fun. This poor place opened right at the start of the pandemic, hope it survives. - Ridge Hill in Yonkers - Sort of an outdoor mall... has another Legoland experience, but also a pretty good mini golf and arcade (it's really hard to find a good arcade for little kids in NYC) and a trampoline park we might get to try one day. What really makes these malls work is they have unique and fun experiences rather than just the typical department-store-anchored "get your daily errands done like it's 1980 and amazon doesn't exist" experiences. I do miss the malls of my youth (RIP South Square [1]), but economically most of those stores don't make any sense anymore and I don't see why they'd come back. I'm sure not going to start driving to a mall to go to a Radio Shack anymore. [1] https://www.opendurham.org/buildings/south-square https://www.opendurham.org/buildings/south-square
- tricolon 4y ago
  and then there's the World Trade Center
- post_break 4y ago
  The American Dream is going to go belly up soon if I had to guess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ZcFguYn3U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ZcFguYn3U
  - quartz 4y ago
    It really was constructed strangely (feels like an 80s mall in the darker corridors). I feel like the actual attractions are cool but the connections between them are not inviting in a way that makes you want to explore our stick around.
fbn79 4y ago
Some data suggest that USA mall are still (slowing) growing https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/shopping-centers-market-report https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/shopping...
- quartz 4y ago
  Simon is hanging onto something like 93% occupancy despite the last few pandemic years which is pretty impressive.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I've noticed that at least some of the "buy online" things are being shipped from stores. So ordering something from Kohl's or Walmart or Home Depot actually has someone in a store (not a warehouse) pick and pack it and send it off. That may help keep the malls alive even as traffic dwindles.
rootusrootus 4y ago
Of course it can, by evolving with the times. Our local mall changed from being a typical indoor American mall to something that still has some indoor stores, but now with a lot more anchor stores facing outwards, along with newer standalone stores along the edges. The popularity of the place -was- declining, but nowadays they're doing quite well. The real problem was probably more about having a bunch of little stores that were not by themselves a big draw. The anchor stores are really important. I kinda wonder if the decline of the mall was more to do with Sears, JC Penny, Mongtomery Ward, and the like going out of business, and there was a slump while we collectively decided what to replace them with.
tdumitrescu 4y ago
This past weekend I found myself in a mall in the East Bay (Bishop Ranch in San Ramon) and holy carp was it bumping with people, like a mall from before the before times. A big open central courtyard with families hanging out all over this fake grass, kids riding the escalator to gawk at people from the second level, I was like "what year is this?" A lot of the shops and restaurants were more bougie than those of past malls, there was a big Williams Sonoma, eating options included The Slanted Door, Mendocino Farms, Delarosa Pizza, so a far cry from the Sbarro and Cinnabon style of the classic mall. Maybe that's their secret.
- phpthrowaway99 4y ago
  It's the location. San Ramon is a great town. Stick that same mall in Modesto, CA and it would be something else entirely.
- hindsightbias 4y ago
  You wouldn’t know there’s a recession at any of the Home Depots. Still short of cashiers.
NickC25 4y ago
I have no reason to think it can't - but the whole premise of malls needs to change. Outside of hyper-specialized, specific products (niche hobbyist sort of things) that require hands-on use/experience before purchase, it's impossible to compete with Amazon on general retail, so malls need to provide an experience. However, those same specific products and the like aren't big money-makers and can't sustain a large retail operation (for the most part - I'm excluding things like Tesla storefronts). I've seen malls with amusement rides, mini-golf, arcades, rock climbing walls, mom-and-pop food halls, etc. Those are the malls of the future. Nobody is going to congregate around big-box clothing stores or CD/DVD stores, or chain restaurants with crappy food. I would personally love to see a mall built around community experiences - think cooking classes, LAN gaming centers, woodworking classes, gyms, etc..
- Loughla 4y ago
  I've spent the last 5 years arguing with one of the colleges that I consult with about just that. They are trying to grow their adult education/community education (think GED, ESL, and 'interest classes' like woodworking, cooking, etc). I have said for at least 5 years they need to rent (cheap) the space in the nearly defunct mall. It's right in the middle of town, with multiple bus routes. It's within walking distance of the community housing where elderly/low income folks live. It's perfect. But they won't go for it because "the optic of us living in a retail space is not good". That's a quote from one of the administrators. I don't get it. Community/junior colleges could absolutely saturate that kind of space with community based and educational events.
  - arkitaip 4y ago
    They are probably right about the optics. Who would want to take, say, craft classes inside a dying building symbolizing the cons of modern life.
    - Groxx 4y ago
      Personally, and for many family friends who live where I grew up, near a smallish mall that has been dead for over a decade: tons of people. We'd all love to see the space being used, rather than rotting slowly. There was a lot of community activity when it temporarily reopened for a few events and as an indoor walking space (in between events) several years ago. edit: bulldozing it and putting something else in that place would also be fine, but that costs a fair bit. and really, even just having a big indoor walking space was quite popular, there were several meetups using it, lots of elderly walkers and readers, etc. it was nowhere near as popular as a Walmart of course, but it transformed into a pseudo-public space for a while and it made me realize that "indoor parks" are kinda not a thing, but maybe they should be. particularly in places with a lot of rain or cold. that, and a big rotting building in the middle of town is rather unambiguously worse optics for the area than even small use. it inevitably gets covered in graffiti and damage, and even minor use prevents that a lot.
yazaddaruvala 4y ago
The American style mall should end. We need more superblocks. Roughly on a 10 city-block sq area - a giant parking lot underneath, a floor for public transit (eg train station), 2 floors of mall (theater, groceries, bars, food, gyms, sports centers), with residential living towers the rest of the way up, with green space above the mall between the towers. e.g. https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18273894/barcelona-urban-planning-superblocks-poblenou https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/energy-and-environment/2019...
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  The bazaar is dead, long live the bazaar!
- Tade0 4y ago
  I'll do you one better. Behold - the communist superblock where I spent half of my childhood: https://www.google.pl/maps/@52.1409132,21.0491488,16z/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.pl/maps/@52.1409132,21.0491488,16z/data=!... Without going over a single pedestrian crossing you can reach a: -school(grades 1-8, with a soccer and basketball field available to the public) and kindergarten -mini-mart -clinic -dentist -playground -culture center -hairdresser/barber -tire shop/car wash -mini spa which somehow is still there after 25 years. Bars and cafes are across the street. The grassy area in the northern part is used for festivals and the like in the summer. Note how almost all the parking spots are around the superblock. All that without being a human pile-up like Barcelona because - and I can't stress this enough - that is not a requirement for having a decent, walkable neighbourhood.
  - jltsiren 4y ago
    I also grew up in areas like that in Finland. They still worked as intended when I was a kid in the 80s and early 90s. Then most services went away. As living standards increased, population density decreased, as people could afford more space. And as real wages increased, businesses needed more sales per employee to be profitable. Medium-density areas no longer had enough people to support local services.
asdff 4y ago
They seem to do pretty well in the denser parts of socal. Glendale even has two across the street from eachother, each with a separate apple store. I'm not sure what the secret sauce is for southern californian malls. Denser population perhaps? Better/unique food options drawing people into the mall just for that?
GenerocUsername 4y ago
The malls in my area that have died over the last 20 years all share 1 thing in common... violence. I will not go to a mall that has 6 shootings a year.
- jafo 4y ago
  The mall near where I grew up suffered from that problem 50 years ago, and was shut down by the late 1970s...
  - tenebrisalietum 4y ago
    And was finally demolished in 2012. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Square_Mall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Square_Mall
    - jafo 4y ago
      I'd argue it was actually demolished in 1980[1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIdGxR-aU6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIdGxR-aU6o
  - GenerocUsername 4y ago
    I didn't want to assume Chicago or Detroit, but wiki says Dixie mall is in Chicago. Timeline matches my preconceived ideas.
- bluedino 4y ago
  We had way more violence at malls in the 90's when malls were far more popular.
  - GenerocUsername 4y ago
    'Were' That's the thing with decline... Something WAS good until it wasn't.
- bombcar 4y ago
  > I will not go to a mall that has 6 shootings a year. Agreed, a mall needs to be up around 12 shootings a year to even be considered these days.
caradine 4y ago
I hope not. Malls exist to satisfy people's need to walk around in their environment in our otherwise un-walkable cities. Maybe without malls, we will start to demand more walkable areas in our cities and towns.
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  It sounds funny, but there's something to your comment. I'm visiting my girlfriend's parents in Monterrey (MX) and we have incorporated the nearby mall into our daily 10k-steps walking habit. It's air-conditioned in this awful heat. It's fun to people-watch. It's more interesting than doing yet another stroll around the neighborhood/park in gym clothes. Maybe while there we incidentally buy an icecream, coffee, or a new t-shirt as a bonus, or maybe not. We joke (darkly) that when we buy a house, we'll need to be sure it's near a mall so that we stay in shape. I would add that the mall is also a destination to be around people, to see and be seen. There aren't a lot of places to do that. At the upscale one near me, people dress up. They aren't just romping through it to buy some shoes from Macy's and gtfo. They are walking with loved ones and lovers. Teens and quinceañeras are meeting up in it. That said, the semi-upscale mall in my hometown in Texas was also thriving the last time I was there. Clearly, not all malls are doomed. "Why not just use Amazon?" seems to miss something that malls have that Amazon.com can never have. Hopefully malls build on that. The mall next to me in Monterrey just built a new section with an indoor jungle gym for kids (basically a local park with A/C, imagine), a museum, roller-blading, and it has various community events. That seems to be the right direction. It's people things. We need more people things! I suspect we are desperate for it.
  - RajT88 4y ago
    Seconded. Walking around without much goal in mind other than to walk around where people are is the strong suit of a mall. It's just a shame in much of NA, there's no malls open late night for night owls. I gather it's more of a thing in Asia.
  - caradine 4y ago
    Yeah, exactly. There aren't many places to just enjoy existing and walking around in public in most U.S. cities because we've built most of our cities around automobiles. U.S. cities consist of islands to hop between in a sea of traffic, instead of places to just be. Malls satisfy that very human need. Dense, walkable, neighborhoods also satisfy that need.
lxe 4y ago
Let's not forget the safety factor as well. Mall shootings are a thing, especially in the "dying" malls. No matter the strategy, families avoid places with violent crime.
- jrnichols 4y ago
  This is the #1 problem for our local malls. the gangs that have decided the mall is their turf and causing criminal activities in and around it. car thefts, catalytic converter thefts, strong-arm robberies outside, etc. People don't want to go to the mall because they're sitting ducks for the criminal element that surrounds it.
bcrosby95 4y ago
It's interesting how much of my childhood is obsolete these days. Malls, arcades, and theaters.
- standardUser 4y ago
  I'd be hard-pressed to imagine a reason I would ever step foot in an old-fashioned indoor mall again. But arcades and theaters? They are thriving. Look at the spread of arcade bars in every hip American city and college town, and the popularity of Alamo Drafthouse and other alternative movie theaters. It's not the same as in the 80's and 90's, though I'd argue theater and arcade options are actually much better now.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Alcohol seems to be the common factor in those thriving establishments, and unfortunately for malls, alcohol probably doesn't mix well with an indoor mall format.
bluedino 4y ago
Our local mall has been bought, bankrupted, and auctioned off every couple years for the last 20. There's a Macys and a JC Penny as the anchor stores. The old Sears was a COVID testing center for a while, now it has been turned into a Halloween store for the season. The food court once had Subway, Panda Express, McDonald's, and Taco Bell. They're all long gone, there is a Bourbon Chicken, cookie place, and a pizza place where the Sbarro was. They flipped the signs around but kept all the pictures and menus. Inside, it's about half-empty. They've been trying to attract smaller mom and pop stores, but it has had the side effect of giving the place a "flea market" feel. The next town over has mall that's doing a lot better. There's a Target, Barnes and Noble, Planet Fitness, and a much more vibrant food court. There's still only about half occupancy when it comes to the stores, but the parking lot doesn't look like there's been and earthquake and the bathrooms aren't disgusting. There was a push to convert the empty anchor stores to office space, but with WFH that option is off the table.
- snarf21 4y ago
  I think we need to re-think and re-zone these. I think the anchor stores could be great senior living centers for independent and assisted living. The stores could all become medical and senior focused stores. You have a nice area for walking and being active, etc. You could also do the same as low-income apartments where people have all the stores they would frequent without needing public transport or bus/Uber to get the things they need. It could also have job training and other services as needed.
  - bluedino 4y ago
    Putting low income apartments near in or near the mall would drive people away and increase crime.
    - tuatoru 4y ago
      Hell's Grannies terrorising the neighborhood and dealing drugs on their mobility scooters?
- 4y ago
kube-system 4y ago
I have found that (some) malls can be a good place to work remote. I can grab some food, a latte, get in a quick walk, and do a bit of shopping at the end of my work day. There's a variety of places to sit and wifi is generally just fine (and even better if there's a Starbucks in the mall). If I owned a mall right now, I'd be focusing on this angle.
twblalock 4y ago
Westfield seems to have figured out how to make malls profitable. Everyone else, not so much. The secret sauce seems to be high-end luxury stores. Nordstrom and Bloomingdales, not Sears or JC Penney. Around the SF Bay Area, all the non-Westfield malls are dying and the Westfield malls are so crowded you can't park on a weekend.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  Or, much more pithily, "stores with stuff you can't reasonably get off Amazon".
  - twblalock 4y ago
    Not just that -- people like the luxury shopping experience. Even if you could buy an LV bag or a Rolex on Amazon, people would still do it in person if they could.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      If you buy a Rolex on Amazon, it's almost guaranteed to be a counterfeit.
- anonAndOn 4y ago
  Keeping Sears out of the mall may be one of the biggest reasons why they're doing so well. Sears was poisonous for the Vallco Mall in Cupertino and why Westfield bailed on it. [0] [0]https://www.unitedcupertino.org/single-post/2017/06/01/history-of-vallco-westfield-owned-vallco-and-it-still-failed https://www.unitedcupertino.org/single-post/2017/06/01/histo...
- shagie 4y ago
  I recall watching a program on KQED many, many years ago about the mall. This one was focusing on the Metreon. It's premise was that that malls needed to be mini-vacations and what we are witnessing is a change in what people want from a vacation. There was a time when going to the Metreon was a mini vacation. I recall a Discovery store on the first floor, Sony and Microsoft, the Airtight garage with games that you'd never find at the arcade, a "how things work" store where I got a tensirigitoy, Expandagon Construction System, and other cube things that still find their way into the back of my video calls. There was that kids area at the top which I believe I would have loved if I was in the mid single digits. But things changed and the vacation feel left. I recall the last time I was there there was a pop up store where the discovery store was and the comic book store that was in the place of the how things work store was struggling. Sony and Microsoft had their spat. The other examples they had were of big outdoor gear stores - Bass Pro Shop or similar with in in store aquarium or the REI store with rock climbing. Going to a bunch of stores that are under the same roof and scraping by with a flea market like atmosphere isn't the type of thing that I enjoy as a vacation. I'm sure some do, but that's not what I'm after. At one time, the malls were something that just having Aladin's arcade, KB Toys, a hobby shop (that had model rockets and plastic models), a small book store, a few restaurants with better than acceptable food (but not a food court), Spencer's (with those weird posters that had a different image under a black light in the back)... that was enough of a vacation for a pre-teen or teenager and a place you asked to go.
tharne 4y ago
The better question is, "Should it?". Malls are awful and in their heyday, they decimated downtowns and small businesses. Good riddance.
jkeddo 4y ago
I suspect malls will be more economically viable in developing countries than in the first world. Payroll at $15 an hour is a high bar to meet for outlet stores which already struggle with high rent.
honkycat 4y ago
"Hey honey, do you want to go to the giant aircraft hanger filled with stores that sells junk we don't want, surrounded by a giant parking lot? Maybe we can go to one of the chain restaurants inside staffed by people who don't give a shit, and have a microwaved slice of pizza!" Or I can go have a nice hike in the park, go to an actual restaurant afterwards, and buy the shit I don't need off of amazon. For me the greatest disdain I have for malls is the lack of green space. I spend all day indoors. I don't want to go to a larger, more expensive room.
bilsbie 4y ago
Has anyone else found large indoor spaces just feel kind of artificial? I always got a weird vibe from malls. I’m not sure how to explain it.
zeruch 4y ago
Hopefully no, and good riddance. As edifices, they are better suited to being campuses for any number of other things, and the sooner we get out of the habit of creating endless ziggurats for mindless bland LCD consumerism the better. I'm all for the model of town/city planning that actually builds communities and neighborhoods; use the building for affordable art studios, performing spaces, community centers, small business incubation, etc. Pure feckless retail doesn't cut it.
lampshades 4y ago
We have outdoor malls around Atlanta that are incredibly active. We also have Lenox where people get shot over shoes on what seems like a weekly basis. It’s still very pretty active, though.
ardel95 4y ago
I think they can, but they may need to evolve away from a goods marketplace and more towards entertainment centers. Most of the times we find ourselves going to a mall it’s to do something (eat out, watch a movie, engage in some kids activity) rather than to buy something.
JohnFen 4y ago
If the American mall goes into the dustbin of history, would that be a good or bad thing overall? I lean toward "good".
anotherrandom 4y ago
For general commerce? No, malls are dead in that respect. Online shopping will dance circles around it in 100 out of 100 universes. For purposes like food, entertainment, physical arts, social functions, and very niche goods you may not find as much of online? That is where the mall may pivot to survive.
flubert 4y ago
Is it that time of year already? "Dying malls" is like the "The suit is back" type of meme. Malls have been dying for most of my adult life (and I'm old enough to have used an 8088 processor on our home computer as a kid). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944850
jhoelzel 4y ago
Yes absolutely, just the way foodcourts are, malls are the center of a small town circle. The question is, what kid of stores will be in them? My naive idea is. that the winner of the each branch will absolutely do stores. Imagine an amazon outlet, for everything Kitchen related. or everything tech related, with prices that you have online as well.... hopefully very carefully regulated.

78 points by 0x54MUR41 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Most American malls are so badly designed -- they aren't places where people are hanging out but just shopping and leaving. Well, most folks shop online nowadays, what's the point of coming to the mall? There's no place to sit or talk or create a community.

kube-system 4y ago
When I was a kid in the US, the mall was the #1 place to hang out. We could see a movie, grab some food, and browse some clothing stores, and our parents knew where to find us. I suppose this is less of an advantage with cell phones these days, and teenagers don't really have much disposable income.
- brigade 4y ago
  How long ago? Malls have spent the last two decades discouraging or even outright banning teenage loiterers.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Yeah, they have. But I still see kids hanging out at malls in my area, although well behaved and in not in gigantic groups.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

midislack 4y ago

What's that law where you can answer any headline question with "no?"

askafriend 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
Nasrudith 4y ago
Bertridge's law of headlines. Malls have been doing just fine at the high end boutique level though, at least last I checked.
- classified 4y ago
  *Betteridge* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
- slothtrop 4y ago
  Those are the only variation I see around now. Unless you could strip-malls, which do fine owing to density/accessibility.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  I’m my area we have high end and ethnic malls, both approaches do well but ethnic (eg Chinese, Filipino) needs much cheaper rent to thrive.

chaosbutters314 4y ago

multi level parking, 2-3 story housing built over existing mall, build high rise housing in unnecessary parking areas, put some grass/parks in. not sure why this is complicated. starts with rezoning

epistasis 4y ago
They're trying to do that with a local mall. One of the main objections of the city council is that new residents cost them money in terms of necessary services like schools, whereas the mall itself is a cash cow because of the sales tax, with minimal city services for the mall. It's taken as a given that housing is generally too expensive for the mall workers to live nearby...
tpm 4y ago
That would probably require demolishing or substantially remodelling existing buildings. At which point it's probably cheaper to build on an empty lot.
schnevets 4y ago
To start, malls tend to be built on highways removed from a municipality's center. Many of the people in this area will need certain amenities (for example, schools) and will have commutes. The entire surrounding area would have to be redesigned before you can plop 2,000 new residents in an empty lot. I'm not saying it can't be done, but making something more desirable is more complicated than just rezoning. And making something less desirable could be absolutely dystopian.
- jghn 4y ago
  In areas I've seen, the older malls are effectively closer in due to decades of sprawl. If one converts those, the effect isn't as stark.
- epistasis 4y ago
  The mall is perfectly suited to adapt to 2000 new residents; shift one store to a grocery, one to a daycare, and you're 90% of the way to rebuilding a nice little town center that lets people live most of their lives without a car. The real problem is the planning profession, which has taken to such micromanagement of central planning that there's no way to dynamically adjust spaces to better uses. In my local downtown area, there are extremely strict rules about which type of retail are allowed where. And how close to which corners. It's a disaster.

alberth 4y ago

It’s also been shown that Apple drives so much traffic to malls where they are located (incremental 10% higher total mall sales), that Apple is able to negotiate cheaper rent. https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/10-mind-blowing-facts-about-the-apple-store/slidelist/46556676.cms#slideid=46556677 https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/10-mind-blowing-facts-ab...

kayodelycaon 4y ago
It's certainly the only reason I've ever gone to the mall around here.
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  Wow. I just realized the same.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Well are dead-ish to dead malls and then there are malls that are doing pretty well and then there are luxury malls. You tend to see mall Apple stores in the middle category; even though they're not traditional anchor stores they effectively are. Meanwhile, the former category has/had anchor stores like in the case of local mall such as it is at this point like Sears, JC Penney, and Macys.
- kwanbix 4y ago
  Can I ask why? You don't buy things in malls anymore? Why? Thanks!
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    What would I buy? My clothing isn’t from any store in the mall. I don’t wear jewelry. I’m allergic to most food in the food court. (Literally anywhere in Cincinnati has better food anyway.) IKEA, Target, and Microcenter are in easy driving distance. I can get a lot of stuff from Amazon. I do know everything in the mall. It’s my backup location for walking when going to the park or zoo isn’t a viable. I might stop by the LEGO store sometime, but would be an expensive mistake. Otherwise, there isn’t any store that interests me.

omginternets 4y ago

Would anything of value be lost if it didn't? I cannot find it in me to cling to shopping malls.

triceratops 4y ago
I personally don't like shopping malls. But I can't deny that they're a social outlet, a "third place", a hangout location for a lot of people (senior citizens, teens and children). Not everywhere has Northern California climate.
- dilyevsky 4y ago
  Malls can certainly be done right. For example, Ikea run ones (I mean the rest of the mall not just ikea store) are usually pretty nice. It’s just that in US they tend to be very low quality and there are too many of them and location usually sucks. West coast tends to be worse at this too
rr888 4y ago
Where I am they're an oasis in a hot humid summer, and freezing winter where people can hang out.
hotpotamus 4y ago
It's nice to walk around in South Texas during the summer when heat indexes are pushing into the one-teens.
tablespoon 4y ago
> Would anything of value be lost if it didn't? Yeah: online shopping is terrible, especially for clothes. If shopping malls die, your options will be online or driving all around town between strip malls and the like.
- omginternets 4y ago
  The choice isn’t between malls and the internet. There are plenty of brick-and-mortar stores in, say, town centers.

Nasrudith 4y ago

The one assertion is rather questionable. In fact I struggle to find a context where it makes sense. > In contemporary “ruin porn” photography, the empty shells of malls represent the just deserts of late-stage capitalism. Put aside the questionable ascribing of meaning to a photographic genre that has included everything from abandoned hospitals and schools to abandoned factories. Even by the standards of the leftist fundamentalist concept of late-stage capitalism (implicitly playing prophet declaring doom against foes). A mere collection of failures after a profitible heyday is supposed to be some sort of just retribution?

bombcar 4y ago
Yeah, those sets of photos are just as often large projects or other "commieblock"-style buildings, so you could say they're an inditement of modern socialism or something. I think it's much simpler, people like looking at ruins.

ctur 4y ago

The Decoder Ring podcast did an episode[1] recently about the supposed death of the mall. It's a fun listen and covers a lot of the history and evolution of the mall as a concept and how it shaped, and was shaped by, transportation changes in the US. It also goes into the social importance they have had over the years and how that has evolved. [1] - https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2022/07/is-the-shopping-mall-really-dead https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2022/07/is-the-shopp...

csdvrx 4y ago

Yes. I love going to the mall and spending a good half day there. And I see lots of people now that the pandemic is over. This may not be representative of the introvert male FANG coder who lurks on HN - it helps I'm not that lol Also, saying "things will be fine" don't write cool articles for the new republic, while doom and gloom certainly does.

polycaster 4y ago

Funny title. Funny because perspective. In my (European) home town people are worried if old-established retail on high street can survive now that an (American-style) mall opened gates outside the city center recently. So, yes, I can relate somehow.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
If you were to get the standard grouping of Costco/Target/Walmart/IKEA/Best Buy/Home Depot/Lowes/Staples/Nordstrom Rack stores near that mall, then the mall would also be threatened. Those businesses I listed have optimized delivering the most commonly needed items, and then the internet came along and provided access to the uncommonly needed items. So the mall is not needed for the uncommon items, and they cannot compete on margins for the common items at the other stores I mentioned, so they have no use.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Some malls (the smarter ones?) have integrated those stores listed into the malls themselves; I've certainly seen Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Staples, Nordstrom Rack, and IKEA built into a mall. Even more if you consider "strip malls" to be malls.
kzrdude 4y ago
Sweden's already been through that. Now both malls and the inner city shops are dying.

jamesbfb 4y ago

Whenever I hear about any American mall, I can't help but think of Dan Bell's Dead Mall series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NsVylQBWM&list=PLNz4Un92pGNxQ9vNgmnCx7dwchPJGJ3IQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NsVylQBWM&list=PLNz4Un92pG... Oddly enough, I live in Melbourne, Australia and the humble mall AKA shopping centre is well and truly alive.

m000 4y ago
Whenever I hear about any American mall, I can't help but think of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077402/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077402/
jshier 4y ago
Stayed in Melbourne across the street from the giant underground mall above the metro station. Quite the place! Has a whole bullet factory inside. Also, the open airflow structure of many places was so weird coming from the US, and I was there in the depth of winter. 32°F, 0°C the day I left.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

> The more you try to control the environment, the more stifling it becomes. I think this is why I turned on malls after spending my formative years inside them. As I got older, I yearned for the unpredictability of a less manicured and mass-produced reality, one more surprising than what a stop at the Gap or Sbarro could offer. Christ, isn't that the case. I remember as a child visiting different places in the U.S. and it was often like visiting foreign countries. Increasingly though, so much of the U.S. looks so much like the rest in terms of retail/food that I begin to feel the entire country is in fact a mall of sorts.

InCityDreams 4y ago
Similar/ same is happening in Europe. George Carlin gave a tirade against the malls of america in the.....70s?
bombcar 4y ago
It's like the NIMBY problem - everyone claims to want the variation and difference, but they act so as to make everything uniform and identical.
sidpatil 4y ago
> Increasingly though, so much of the U.S. looks so much like the rest in terms of retail/food that I begin to feel the entire country is in fact a mall of sorts. Here's a good video on the subject: https://youtu.be/UX4KklvCDmg https://youtu.be/UX4KklvCDmg
fzeroracer 4y ago
This is one of the reasons why I can't stand being anywhere in the Suburban dead zone. Everything is devoid of uniqueness and every single one looks just about the same across the US. Both rural and urban areas at least retain some semblance of history or culture.

Damogran6 4y ago

It's not only Malls. We used to go _shopping_...Service Merchandise, Sears, Circuit City, La Belles, K-Mart, Borders...for better or worse, in a large metro area, you're more likely to only have Food (Kroeger), and Boutique Food (Whole Foods) as places to go hang out. Sure, there's the Movie Theatre, but having gone last week when they had $3 tickets, people have forgotten how to go to the Theatre...likewise, we went to Cirque de Soleil's OVO and it's clear we've lost a little in the 'how to entertain' and a lot of 'how to behave while being entertained'.

sybercecurity 4y ago
That seems to be the trend in suburbs too - a sort of planned development with single family homes and a denser "main street" area with commercial on the ground floor and condos or professional offices above. Some have apartment buildings alongside too. Sometimes there is a movie theater, library, or community space mixed in as well. Most of the commercial space is either restaurants/food or service places like hair salons, dry cleaners, etc. Very little in the way of retail stores. Mostly as the occasional Target/Walmart/etc. big retailer nearby. This seems to be the assumption for single professionals/married without kids demographic: more dining, but buying things is mostly online or big box general retail stores.
- throwthroyaboat 4y ago
  I value the small amount of retail in my little downtown main street. There is a reasonably sized ace hardware within 5 minutes walk, and I'm there almost every week to pick up lightbulbs, screws, etc. The staff are friendly and helpful. It's so much more convenient than driving to a big box store, finding parking, walking through 20 isles. Sure, it doesn't have whiteware or a lumber yard, but I'll sorely miss it if it ever closes. Same thing with the office supply store. Most tech stuff they have is the same price as amazon, and they offer great printing services.
jedberg 4y ago
> people have forgotten how to go to the Theatre I went to see Top Gun a couple weeks ago, it was my first time in a theater in years. There were five different ads, the gist of all of which were, "Don't forget you're in public, so don't talk or pull out your phone or get up if you don't have to". One of them literally said, "We know it's been a while since you've watched a movie in public, and maybe you've forgotten how that works". It was sort of condescending but at the same time I totally get the need.

usbfingers 4y ago

I assume financially this would probably not be feasible or sustainable everywhere but I really wish malls could lean further into theme parks rather than shopping hubs Most of them are half way there with movie theaters, arcades, etc. I recently went to one with an attached Medieval Times. I'm curious how much filling in laser tag, rock climbing, and other in person only activities would generate turnout.

mgkimsal 4y ago
> lean further into theme parks rather than shopping hubs And yet, it's still 'shopping' in a sense. You're mostly just buying experiences vs buying 'stuff'.

quartz 4y ago

It's kind of fun to see all the new takes on malls. In/around NYC we have a few that I actually use: - Hudson Yards - a pretty good destination with a small kid on a rainy day and easy to get to via the subway. Big and open, has a Camp store (with slide and play area), good sit down and take-away food options, and surrounded by some fun outdoor city stuff (my son LOVES watching the train yard across the street, and the highline is right there). - American Dream in NJ - More like an indoor collection of amusement parks, we use the Legoland Experience and the Aquarium reasonably often and when my son is a little older we'll likely use the Nickelodeon theme park and the indoor water park which looks pretty fun. This poor place opened right at the start of the pandemic, hope it survives. - Ridge Hill in Yonkers - Sort of an outdoor mall... has another Legoland experience, but also a pretty good mini golf and arcade (it's really hard to find a good arcade for little kids in NYC) and a trampoline park we might get to try one day. What really makes these malls work is they have unique and fun experiences rather than just the typical department-store-anchored "get your daily errands done like it's 1980 and amazon doesn't exist" experiences. I do miss the malls of my youth (RIP South Square [1]), but economically most of those stores don't make any sense anymore and I don't see why they'd come back. I'm sure not going to start driving to a mall to go to a Radio Shack anymore. [1] https://www.opendurham.org/buildings/south-square https://www.opendurham.org/buildings/south-square

tricolon 4y ago
and then there's the World Trade Center
post_break 4y ago
The American Dream is going to go belly up soon if I had to guess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ZcFguYn3U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ZcFguYn3U
- quartz 4y ago
  It really was constructed strangely (feels like an 80s mall in the darker corridors). I feel like the actual attractions are cool but the connections between them are not inviting in a way that makes you want to explore our stick around.

fbn79 4y ago

Some data suggest that USA mall are still (slowing) growing https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/shopping-centers-market-report https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/shopping...

quartz 4y ago
Simon is hanging onto something like 93% occupancy despite the last few pandemic years which is pretty impressive.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I've noticed that at least some of the "buy online" things are being shipped from stores. So ordering something from Kohl's or Walmart or Home Depot actually has someone in a store (not a warehouse) pick and pack it and send it off. That may help keep the malls alive even as traffic dwindles.

rootusrootus 4y ago

Of course it can, by evolving with the times. Our local mall changed from being a typical indoor American mall to something that still has some indoor stores, but now with a lot more anchor stores facing outwards, along with newer standalone stores along the edges. The popularity of the place -was- declining, but nowadays they're doing quite well. The real problem was probably more about having a bunch of little stores that were not by themselves a big draw. The anchor stores are really important. I kinda wonder if the decline of the mall was more to do with Sears, JC Penny, Mongtomery Ward, and the like going out of business, and there was a slump while we collectively decided what to replace them with.

tdumitrescu 4y ago

This past weekend I found myself in a mall in the East Bay (Bishop Ranch in San Ramon) and holy carp was it bumping with people, like a mall from before the before times. A big open central courtyard with families hanging out all over this fake grass, kids riding the escalator to gawk at people from the second level, I was like "what year is this?" A lot of the shops and restaurants were more bougie than those of past malls, there was a big Williams Sonoma, eating options included The Slanted Door, Mendocino Farms, Delarosa Pizza, so a far cry from the Sbarro and Cinnabon style of the classic mall. Maybe that's their secret.

phpthrowaway99 4y ago
It's the location. San Ramon is a great town. Stick that same mall in Modesto, CA and it would be something else entirely.
hindsightbias 4y ago
You wouldn’t know there’s a recession at any of the Home Depots. Still short of cashiers.

NickC25 4y ago

I have no reason to think it can't - but the whole premise of malls needs to change. Outside of hyper-specialized, specific products (niche hobbyist sort of things) that require hands-on use/experience before purchase, it's impossible to compete with Amazon on general retail, so malls need to provide an experience. However, those same specific products and the like aren't big money-makers and can't sustain a large retail operation (for the most part - I'm excluding things like Tesla storefronts). I've seen malls with amusement rides, mini-golf, arcades, rock climbing walls, mom-and-pop food halls, etc. Those are the malls of the future. Nobody is going to congregate around big-box clothing stores or CD/DVD stores, or chain restaurants with crappy food. I would personally love to see a mall built around community experiences - think cooking classes, LAN gaming centers, woodworking classes, gyms, etc..

Loughla 4y ago
I've spent the last 5 years arguing with one of the colleges that I consult with about just that. They are trying to grow their adult education/community education (think GED, ESL, and 'interest classes' like woodworking, cooking, etc). I have said for at least 5 years they need to rent (cheap) the space in the nearly defunct mall. It's right in the middle of town, with multiple bus routes. It's within walking distance of the community housing where elderly/low income folks live. It's perfect. But they won't go for it because "the optic of us living in a retail space is not good". That's a quote from one of the administrators. I don't get it. Community/junior colleges could absolutely saturate that kind of space with community based and educational events.
- arkitaip 4y ago
  They are probably right about the optics. Who would want to take, say, craft classes inside a dying building symbolizing the cons of modern life.
  - Groxx 4y ago
    Personally, and for many family friends who live where I grew up, near a smallish mall that has been dead for over a decade: tons of people. We'd all love to see the space being used, rather than rotting slowly. There was a lot of community activity when it temporarily reopened for a few events and as an indoor walking space (in between events) several years ago. edit: bulldozing it and putting something else in that place would also be fine, but that costs a fair bit. and really, even just having a big indoor walking space was quite popular, there were several meetups using it, lots of elderly walkers and readers, etc. it was nowhere near as popular as a Walmart of course, but it transformed into a pseudo-public space for a while and it made me realize that "indoor parks" are kinda not a thing, but maybe they should be. particularly in places with a lot of rain or cold. that, and a big rotting building in the middle of town is rather unambiguously worse optics for the area than even small use. it inevitably gets covered in graffiti and damage, and even minor use prevents that a lot.

yazaddaruvala 4y ago

The American style mall should end. We need more superblocks. Roughly on a 10 city-block sq area - a giant parking lot underneath, a floor for public transit (eg train station), 2 floors of mall (theater, groceries, bars, food, gyms, sports centers), with residential living towers the rest of the way up, with green space above the mall between the towers. e.g. https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18273894/barcelona-urban-planning-superblocks-poblenou https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/energy-and-environment/2019...

slowmovintarget 4y ago
The bazaar is dead, long live the bazaar!
Tade0 4y ago
I'll do you one better. Behold - the communist superblock where I spent half of my childhood: https://www.google.pl/maps/@52.1409132,21.0491488,16z/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.pl/maps/@52.1409132,21.0491488,16z/data=!... Without going over a single pedestrian crossing you can reach a: -school(grades 1-8, with a soccer and basketball field available to the public) and kindergarten -mini-mart -clinic -dentist -playground -culture center -hairdresser/barber -tire shop/car wash -mini spa which somehow is still there after 25 years. Bars and cafes are across the street. The grassy area in the northern part is used for festivals and the like in the summer. Note how almost all the parking spots are around the superblock. All that without being a human pile-up like Barcelona because - and I can't stress this enough - that is not a requirement for having a decent, walkable neighbourhood.
- jltsiren 4y ago
  I also grew up in areas like that in Finland. They still worked as intended when I was a kid in the 80s and early 90s. Then most services went away. As living standards increased, population density decreased, as people could afford more space. And as real wages increased, businesses needed more sales per employee to be profitable. Medium-density areas no longer had enough people to support local services.

asdff 4y ago

They seem to do pretty well in the denser parts of socal. Glendale even has two across the street from eachother, each with a separate apple store. I'm not sure what the secret sauce is for southern californian malls. Denser population perhaps? Better/unique food options drawing people into the mall just for that?

GenerocUsername 4y ago

The malls in my area that have died over the last 20 years all share 1 thing in common... violence. I will not go to a mall that has 6 shootings a year.

jafo 4y ago
The mall near where I grew up suffered from that problem 50 years ago, and was shut down by the late 1970s...
- tenebrisalietum 4y ago
  And was finally demolished in 2012. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Square_Mall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Square_Mall
  - jafo 4y ago
    I'd argue it was actually demolished in 1980[1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIdGxR-aU6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIdGxR-aU6o
- GenerocUsername 4y ago
  I didn't want to assume Chicago or Detroit, but wiki says Dixie mall is in Chicago. Timeline matches my preconceived ideas.
bluedino 4y ago
We had way more violence at malls in the 90's when malls were far more popular.
- GenerocUsername 4y ago
  'Were' That's the thing with decline... Something WAS good until it wasn't.
bombcar 4y ago
> I will not go to a mall that has 6 shootings a year. Agreed, a mall needs to be up around 12 shootings a year to even be considered these days.

caradine 4y ago

I hope not. Malls exist to satisfy people's need to walk around in their environment in our otherwise un-walkable cities. Maybe without malls, we will start to demand more walkable areas in our cities and towns.

hombre_fatal 4y ago
It sounds funny, but there's something to your comment. I'm visiting my girlfriend's parents in Monterrey (MX) and we have incorporated the nearby mall into our daily 10k-steps walking habit. It's air-conditioned in this awful heat. It's fun to people-watch. It's more interesting than doing yet another stroll around the neighborhood/park in gym clothes. Maybe while there we incidentally buy an icecream, coffee, or a new t-shirt as a bonus, or maybe not. We joke (darkly) that when we buy a house, we'll need to be sure it's near a mall so that we stay in shape. I would add that the mall is also a destination to be around people, to see and be seen. There aren't a lot of places to do that. At the upscale one near me, people dress up. They aren't just romping through it to buy some shoes from Macy's and gtfo. They are walking with loved ones and lovers. Teens and quinceañeras are meeting up in it. That said, the semi-upscale mall in my hometown in Texas was also thriving the last time I was there. Clearly, not all malls are doomed. "Why not just use Amazon?" seems to miss something that malls have that Amazon.com can never have. Hopefully malls build on that. The mall next to me in Monterrey just built a new section with an indoor jungle gym for kids (basically a local park with A/C, imagine), a museum, roller-blading, and it has various community events. That seems to be the right direction. It's people things. We need more people things! I suspect we are desperate for it.
- RajT88 4y ago
  Seconded. Walking around without much goal in mind other than to walk around where people are is the strong suit of a mall. It's just a shame in much of NA, there's no malls open late night for night owls. I gather it's more of a thing in Asia.
- caradine 4y ago
  Yeah, exactly. There aren't many places to just enjoy existing and walking around in public in most U.S. cities because we've built most of our cities around automobiles. U.S. cities consist of islands to hop between in a sea of traffic, instead of places to just be. Malls satisfy that very human need. Dense, walkable, neighborhoods also satisfy that need.

lxe 4y ago

Let's not forget the safety factor as well. Mall shootings are a thing, especially in the "dying" malls. No matter the strategy, families avoid places with violent crime.

jrnichols 4y ago
This is the #1 problem for our local malls. the gangs that have decided the mall is their turf and causing criminal activities in and around it. car thefts, catalytic converter thefts, strong-arm robberies outside, etc. People don't want to go to the mall because they're sitting ducks for the criminal element that surrounds it.

bcrosby95 4y ago

It's interesting how much of my childhood is obsolete these days. Malls, arcades, and theaters.

standardUser 4y ago
I'd be hard-pressed to imagine a reason I would ever step foot in an old-fashioned indoor mall again. But arcades and theaters? They are thriving. Look at the spread of arcade bars in every hip American city and college town, and the popularity of Alamo Drafthouse and other alternative movie theaters. It's not the same as in the 80's and 90's, though I'd argue theater and arcade options are actually much better now.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Alcohol seems to be the common factor in those thriving establishments, and unfortunately for malls, alcohol probably doesn't mix well with an indoor mall format.

bluedino 4y ago

Our local mall has been bought, bankrupted, and auctioned off every couple years for the last 20. There's a Macys and a JC Penny as the anchor stores. The old Sears was a COVID testing center for a while, now it has been turned into a Halloween store for the season. The food court once had Subway, Panda Express, McDonald's, and Taco Bell. They're all long gone, there is a Bourbon Chicken, cookie place, and a pizza place where the Sbarro was. They flipped the signs around but kept all the pictures and menus. Inside, it's about half-empty. They've been trying to attract smaller mom and pop stores, but it has had the side effect of giving the place a "flea market" feel. The next town over has mall that's doing a lot better. There's a Target, Barnes and Noble, Planet Fitness, and a much more vibrant food court. There's still only about half occupancy when it comes to the stores, but the parking lot doesn't look like there's been and earthquake and the bathrooms aren't disgusting. There was a push to convert the empty anchor stores to office space, but with WFH that option is off the table.

snarf21 4y ago
I think we need to re-think and re-zone these. I think the anchor stores could be great senior living centers for independent and assisted living. The stores could all become medical and senior focused stores. You have a nice area for walking and being active, etc. You could also do the same as low-income apartments where people have all the stores they would frequent without needing public transport or bus/Uber to get the things they need. It could also have job training and other services as needed.
- bluedino 4y ago
  Putting low income apartments near in or near the mall would drive people away and increase crime.
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    Hell's Grannies terrorising the neighborhood and dealing drugs on their mobility scooters?
4y ago

kube-system 4y ago

I have found that (some) malls can be a good place to work remote. I can grab some food, a latte, get in a quick walk, and do a bit of shopping at the end of my work day. There's a variety of places to sit and wifi is generally just fine (and even better if there's a Starbucks in the mall). If I owned a mall right now, I'd be focusing on this angle.

twblalock 4y ago

Westfield seems to have figured out how to make malls profitable. Everyone else, not so much. The secret sauce seems to be high-end luxury stores. Nordstrom and Bloomingdales, not Sears or JC Penney. Around the SF Bay Area, all the non-Westfield malls are dying and the Westfield malls are so crowded you can't park on a weekend.

crooked-v 4y ago
Or, much more pithily, "stores with stuff you can't reasonably get off Amazon".
- twblalock 4y ago
  Not just that -- people like the luxury shopping experience. Even if you could buy an LV bag or a Rolex on Amazon, people would still do it in person if they could.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    If you buy a Rolex on Amazon, it's almost guaranteed to be a counterfeit.
anonAndOn 4y ago
Keeping Sears out of the mall may be one of the biggest reasons why they're doing so well. Sears was poisonous for the Vallco Mall in Cupertino and why Westfield bailed on it. [0] [0]https://www.unitedcupertino.org/single-post/2017/06/01/history-of-vallco-westfield-owned-vallco-and-it-still-failed https://www.unitedcupertino.org/single-post/2017/06/01/histo...
shagie 4y ago
I recall watching a program on KQED many, many years ago about the mall. This one was focusing on the Metreon. It's premise was that that malls needed to be mini-vacations and what we are witnessing is a change in what people want from a vacation. There was a time when going to the Metreon was a mini vacation. I recall a Discovery store on the first floor, Sony and Microsoft, the Airtight garage with games that you'd never find at the arcade, a "how things work" store where I got a tensirigitoy, Expandagon Construction System, and other cube things that still find their way into the back of my video calls. There was that kids area at the top which I believe I would have loved if I was in the mid single digits. But things changed and the vacation feel left. I recall the last time I was there there was a pop up store where the discovery store was and the comic book store that was in the place of the how things work store was struggling. Sony and Microsoft had their spat. The other examples they had were of big outdoor gear stores - Bass Pro Shop or similar with in in store aquarium or the REI store with rock climbing. Going to a bunch of stores that are under the same roof and scraping by with a flea market like atmosphere isn't the type of thing that I enjoy as a vacation. I'm sure some do, but that's not what I'm after. At one time, the malls were something that just having Aladin's arcade, KB Toys, a hobby shop (that had model rockets and plastic models), a small book store, a few restaurants with better than acceptable food (but not a food court), Spencer's (with those weird posters that had a different image under a black light in the back)... that was enough of a vacation for a pre-teen or teenager and a place you asked to go.

tharne 4y ago

The better question is, "Should it?". Malls are awful and in their heyday, they decimated downtowns and small businesses. Good riddance.

jkeddo 4y ago

I suspect malls will be more economically viable in developing countries than in the first world. Payroll at $15 an hour is a high bar to meet for outlet stores which already struggle with high rent.

honkycat 4y ago

"Hey honey, do you want to go to the giant aircraft hanger filled with stores that sells junk we don't want, surrounded by a giant parking lot? Maybe we can go to one of the chain restaurants inside staffed by people who don't give a shit, and have a microwaved slice of pizza!" Or I can go have a nice hike in the park, go to an actual restaurant afterwards, and buy the shit I don't need off of amazon. For me the greatest disdain I have for malls is the lack of green space. I spend all day indoors. I don't want to go to a larger, more expensive room.

bilsbie 4y ago

Has anyone else found large indoor spaces just feel kind of artificial? I always got a weird vibe from malls. I’m not sure how to explain it.

zeruch 4y ago

Hopefully no, and good riddance. As edifices, they are better suited to being campuses for any number of other things, and the sooner we get out of the habit of creating endless ziggurats for mindless bland LCD consumerism the better. I'm all for the model of town/city planning that actually builds communities and neighborhoods; use the building for affordable art studios, performing spaces, community centers, small business incubation, etc. Pure feckless retail doesn't cut it.

lampshades 4y ago

We have outdoor malls around Atlanta that are incredibly active. We also have Lenox where people get shot over shoes on what seems like a weekly basis. It’s still very pretty active, though.

ardel95 4y ago

I think they can, but they may need to evolve away from a goods marketplace and more towards entertainment centers. Most of the times we find ourselves going to a mall it’s to do something (eat out, watch a movie, engage in some kids activity) rather than to buy something.

JohnFen 4y ago

If the American mall goes into the dustbin of history, would that be a good or bad thing overall? I lean toward "good".

anotherrandom 4y ago

For general commerce? No, malls are dead in that respect. Online shopping will dance circles around it in 100 out of 100 universes. For purposes like food, entertainment, physical arts, social functions, and very niche goods you may not find as much of online? That is where the mall may pivot to survive.

flubert 4y ago

Is it that time of year already? "Dying malls" is like the "The suit is back" type of meme. Malls have been dying for most of my adult life (and I'm old enough to have used an 8088 processor on our home computer as a kid). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944850

jhoelzel 4y ago

Yes absolutely, just the way foodcourts are, malls are the center of a small town circle. The question is, what kid of stores will be in them? My naive idea is. that the winner of the each branch will absolutely do stores. Imagine an amazon outlet, for everything Kitchen related. or everything tech related, with prices that you have online as well.... hopefully very carefully regulated.