Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept • Hacker News Board

Re: Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept

#121

Post by seanp2k2 » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

badgers wrote: post #51

codingdave wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be a whole new flavor for YC or other incubators - don't come to SF and fight to find housing... come to the new Coding Mall - offices are in the East Wing, apartment in the West Wing, demos and sales kiosks in the former Sears, VC offices in the former JC Penney, and everyone meets up in the food court (which is still running, btw, to keep everyone fed) for informal discussions.

I'm not sure I'd want to live in an old mall, but I could see them being purposed for office space. Parking is already taken care of, and most have bus routes already in place. The existing food court would be ready for new tenants. Other types of tenants could fill where other retail (e.g. clothing, toys) once occupied, such as a gym/fitness company, FedEx/UPS offices, office supply stores, etc.

Yep, never understood why they don’t convert malls into office spaces. Then again, in the Bay Area (at least South Bay) there are TONS of empty office buildings for rent. I’m guessing that they all just want too much. Maybe it’s a zoning thing with the malls? Seems like they could do it with the one in Cupertino. For being Silicon Valley, sometimes this place really fails to impress with innovations like that. Instead, we have scooter startups.

Re: Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept

#122

Post by seanp2k2 » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

richmarr wrote: post #26

codingdave wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be a whole new flavor for YC or other incubators - don't come to SF and fight to find housing... come to the new Coding Mall - offices are in the East Wing, apartment in the West Wing, demos and sales kiosks in the former Sears, VC offices in the former JC Penney, and everyone meets up in the food court (which is still running, btw, to keep everyone fed) for informal discussions.

Arcology! I'm so glad we opted for the William Gibson distopian future. A Mad Max apolocalyptic hellscape would have been terrible for my skin.

Except instead of a bunch of bright lights and shady characters, there’s a Bowlmor, Coldstone, and a kind of neat eye glasses store. No offices or living spaces YET, but “luxury” (overpriced) apartments and townhouses are just down the street.

Re: Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept

#123

Post by jandrese » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 5:06 PM UTC

excalibur wrote: post #108

jandrese wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that probably works better in theory than practice. In the real world it's going to be sleazy and run down in a few short years. I'd also like to be at the city council meeting where you propose adding hooker hotel rooms in the original plans.

> I think that probably works better in theory than practice. Probably, but it's fun to think about. > In the real world it's going to be sleazy and run down in a few short years. Sleazy is desirable to a point, but it's easy to go too far in that direction. And getting run down is a definite concern. It's entirely possible that the economics required to keep the place safe and hygienic would price out a lot of custo…

No matter how progressive an area is the city council is full of crotchety old people.

Re: Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept

#124

Post by pascalxus » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 5:06 PM UTC

Malls, yuck! I find little attractive about them, and I'm not surprised no one's going any more. malls are dying because they're all based on materialist consumerism: something millennials want no part of.

Here's my suggestion. Fill them with Libraries, Gyms, yoga centers, Cafes, Restaurants, movie theaters, science museums, bike repair shops, ceramic hobby shops and indoor swimming pools, theaters and historic museums. That would get me going back in a heartbeat!

And for crying out loud, put those massive cement filled parking spaces underground. Replace all that extra space with Green trees, bushes, parks, bike lanes and outdoor gyms.

Re: Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept

#125

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #104

jdonaldson wrote: post #93

It's hard to explain how important malls were to some of my younger colleagues, or to folks who didn't grow up in some no-name midwestern suburb like I did. Malls were temples and town squares. They were facebook. They were the internet. Virtually all of your exposure to the "outside world" happened there. Malls were incredibly well built and thought through. They were the crown jewel for many mid-size towns (perhaps…

I think this might be US-centric phenomena. While we have some Malls in the UK, I believe most shops never really left the high-streets here (until the rise of the internet).

In much of Europe malls would have to be built on the outskirts of towns because city centers are obviously too densely populated and historically imported to raze things and build such a huge new structure. People could not get to those outskirts unless the city invested in new transportation connections, and this limited development.

Unfortunately, where I am in Eastern Europe, car ownership has risen high enough to make the creation of malls on the outskirts a viable business model. This has had the deleterious effect of now draining business from city centers (where, all these newly bourgeois car owners complain, there is insufficient parking), making once prosperous high streets into ghost towns. Basically we are going through the same historical period that many in Western Europe or North America now recognize as a big mistake.

Re: Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept

#126

Post by landryraccoon » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

excalibur wrote: post #108

jandrese wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that probably works better in theory than practice. In the real world it's going to be sleazy and run down in a few short years. I'd also like to be at the city council meeting where you propose adding hooker hotel rooms in the original plans.

> I think that probably works better in theory than practice. Probably, but it's fun to think about. > In the real world it's going to be sleazy and run down in a few short years. Sleazy is desirable to a point, but it's easy to go too far in that direction. And getting run down is a definite concern. It's entirely possible that the economics required to keep the place safe and hygienic would price out a lot of custo…

> We're gonna have to do it in a very progressively liberal area

In my experience, liberal areas are only permissive when it comes to national policy. When it comes to changing anything significant about their "historic" neighborhoods, you're going to fight tooth and nail with everyone. They'll find an endangered bird species that nests near your old mall to slow down development.

Re: Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept

#127

Post by rayiner » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

pascalxus wrote: post #124

Malls, yuck! I find little attractive about them, and I'm not surprised no one's going any more. malls are dying because they're all based on materialist consumerism: something millennials want no part of. Here's my suggestion. Fill them with Libraries, Gyms, yoga centers, Cafes, Restaurants, movie theaters, science museums, bike repair shops, ceramic hobby shops and indoor swimming pools, theaters and historic museu…

Funnily enough, the malls near where I live are packed. Go to a suburb of a with a large immigrant or minority population (the folks who are still having kids), and you’ll see tons of older millennial pushing strollers around the mall.

Re: Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept

#128

Post by seanp2k2 » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

ianferrel wrote: post #97

CharlesMerriam2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that mall. The usual happened; developers wanted to build lots of housing and no infrastructure. The builder had recently reneged on elderly housing units in another development and were not believed about building a park on top of the structure. Building density housing is cheap compared to building the schools, parks, fire, police stations, and transportation to support the new density housing.

> Building density housing is cheap compared to building the schools, parks, fire, police stations, and transportation to support the new density housing. Are developers expected to build those? Don't cities build roads, schools, parks, and police stations with the tax income from the people who live in the houses?

Yeah, and to be clear, we’re talking “luxury” apartments here, not anything single-family. Bay Area developers ALWAYS pull this: promise “affordable” housing and only sometimes get stuck accepting affordable housing programs into their otherwise-expensive apartments. Examples of the developers who lost: https://www.lowincomehousing.us/CA/santa_clara.html

Btw: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines "affordable" as housing that costs no more than 30 percent of a household's monthly income.

Re: Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept

#129

Post by seanp2k2 » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #114

ianferrel wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Building density housing is cheap compared to building the schools, parks, fire, police stations, and transportation to support the new density housing. Are developers expected to build those? Don't cities build roads, schools, parks, and police stations with the tax income from the people who live in the houses?

Can't collect tax income until people live there. Can't build fire stations or bus lines where there's no room. We've had this problem with developers as well - they want to build mega high-rise apartments with no parking whatsoever and force the city to deal with it, despite the city struggling to fill current transportation demand.

Crazy when apartments in the city have no parking and you have to factor in an additional $300/month for a parking space that might be a 10 minute walk from your apartment. It’s like US cities maybe aren’t actually the best in the world or something.

Re: Mall landlords struggling to find takers at a price they’ll accept

#130

Post by bcrescimanno » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

Here's an anecdote about my experience at a mall yesterday. I needed some new shoes:

I went to the Skechers store. There were 4 people working. Not a single one ever offered to help me. I had to walk up to the counter and the girl looked shocked when I asked her to get me my size to try on. She handed me the box and walked away. I never saw her again and walked out without making a purchase.

I went over to Macy's to the men's shoe section. The section was about 5x the size of the Skechers store. There was one person working who was busy with a customer at the checkout. After waiting for 10+ minutes with no one to help, I left without ever trying on a pair of shoes.

Then I went to Ecco--they are a small shop with only a small number of shoes. While the salesperson was quite attentive and helped me out, the one pair of shoes they had in the store that were interesting to me didn't fit right so I left.

Tried to go to one more store only to discover that this particular location only carried women's shoes.

All told, this adventure had me in the mall for about 90 minutes and I had managed to try on 2 pairs of shoes. Throw in the drive and it was over 2 hours for nothing.

I went home, spent 20 minutes on Amazon Wardrobe, and I have 8 pairs of shoes in my size arriving at my house in a few days to try on.

Stores in a mall have a real opportunity to win on personal service and instant gratification. Hire someone to help me find shoes that fit me well and go with my own sense of style and who makes sure I go home happy. But if my choices are spend over 2 hours for nothing or go online, I'm choosing the latter every time.