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Are Malls Over?

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Re: Are Malls Over?

#91

Post by rayiner »

bane wrote: post #84
analog31 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a brief but pleasant trip to Switzerland, I got around using their wonderful transit system. Every transit station was also a commercial hub. Big stations had big shops like supermarkets and department stores. Little stations had little shops like bakeries and banks. Any restructuring of retail shopping in the US would have to include thinking about how entire districts are laid out. It takes one person -- the own…

In some cases this is already happening. The best known example I can think of is Tyson's Corner in Northern Virginia. Already a shopping and commercial area, they're building the a new metro line out to it. This is coinciding with a restructuring of the entire area to be pedestrian friendly instead of car focused and it's absolutely transforming the entire city. It's probably the largest restructuring program in the…

Tysons is the suck. They're not restructuring it so much as trying to work around the piss-poor depressingly suburban "urban planning" of the place. Yes, it's got a metro line now, but it's a big concrete monstrosity along the middle of a huge multi-lane road, instead of the sleek, organic, integrated transit you see in places like Chicago or New York.[1] Most of the stops drop you off in a giant parking lot along side Route 7. The attempts to make Tyson's "pedestrian friendly" involve basically giving up on the existing street-level and building an elevated walking level connecting the mall and a few office buildings and apartment buildings.

A much better example is Atlantic Station in Atlanta: http://atlanticstation.com. They nuked the existing streets and put in a human-scale street grid: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Atlantic_.... All the parking is underground or at the periphery of the development. The only thing missing is a subway stop (the Arts Center stop is across that awful oppressive highway).

[1] Contrast http://wamu.org/sites/wamu.org/files/styles/headline_landsca... with http://mlmerillat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/chicago-el1.jp....

Re: Are Malls Over?

#92

Post by Patrick_Devine »

ams6110 wrote: post #80
Patrick_Devine wrote: post #68

Maybe it's because I live in Palo Alto, but it seems, at least here, that there is a hollowing out of the middle end of the spectrum. On the low end, there are still the Target's and the Walmart's, and on the high end you have things like Stanford Shopping Center, Union Square, Santa Row, etc. The middle has taken a real beating though, as has the low middle. I'm not sure who shops at JC Penny, Sears, or even K-Mart…

K-mart's problem is that their merchandise is no better than what Wal-Mart carries, their selection is worse, and the shopping experience in their stores is, in my experience, worse than at Wal-Mart as hard as that may be to believe. Target seems to be a step above Wal-Mart/K-Mart, and I'm guessing that has been a big part of JC-Pennys' and Sears' problem. The local JC Penny's here has gone, and going to Sears feels…

I definitely agree. I think Target has positioned themselves as the low end place you go to shop if you don't want to be associated with the crowd that shops at Walmart. I'm not sure anyone even knew that that segment existed.

You can see this playing out in the airlines as well. JetBlue/Virgin America/EasyJet are all low cost alternatives to the majors, but more upscale than RyanAir, Allegiant or Southwest. Actually, in many cases they're even nicer than the majors, but they can't offer great connections or as comprehensive business travel.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#93

Post by maratd »

bane wrote: post #81

This is really an important question as malls are usually massive holders of lots of valuable real estate in many towns. Where I live, there are...maybe around a dozen proper stereotypical malls within an hour drive. Of those, the two malls I literally grew up in have had very different trajectories. The one next to my highschool is a veritable empty shell. I think it sits at 40% occupancy, with entire wings boarded…

I think you hit the nail on the head and this is really region specific.

There was a mall next to me when I was growing up and it was dingy, just poorly maintained. Then the area became hot, Whole Foods moved in. Then Target. Then a bevy of smaller upscale retailers. Now that dingy mall is unrecognizable and filled to the brim. Not a single vacancy. Not a single open parking spot either.

Malls aren't dying. Some malls are, but that has nothing to do with the mall paradigm and has more to do with the local population. A mall can't get up and move. It's like a tree. It is where it is and it either thrives or dies.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#94

Post by Patrick_Devine »

theoh wrote: post #90
jimmaswell wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brutalist? Don't you think that's a little hyperbolic? Every mall I've witnessed has had interior and exterior design far from brutalist. Pretty nice-looking, really. A popular one around here actually has a large skylight spanning most of the middle of the roof. There are a lot of good reasons to prefer an indoor place. The weather's often not comfortable outside. It's only really perfectly comfortable for a time th…

Brutalism is a style, not a term of abuse. It does often refer to high modernist 1960s and 1970s buildings which are expensive to operate, having been constructed before environmental friendliness was on the agenda. Some people don't like the rectilinear boxes and raw concrete, but that's not why the term brutalism is applied to a particular subset of the buildings of that period: it was the popular name of an aesthe…

Here's a picture of where I went to college: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Courtyard...

You can think of it as Caprica from Battlestar Galactica, or the FBI HQ in the X Files. Brutalism in its full glory. Even crazier is the library: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Library-SFU-Burnaby-Britis...

Re: Are Malls Over?

#95

Post by meddlepal »

ams6110 wrote: post #58
meddlepal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get it. We need to fix a lot of American mass transit infrastructure though to make this feasible. Getting into the city is not easy or cheap in many places in the United States. And we cannot just rely on the cheap trick of using parking garages and highways to get people into the city anymore - that's part of what killed cities in the first place.

Mass transit is OK for commuters who can tolerate the homeless-shelter-on-wheels aspect of it, but not good for shoppers, since it limits your per-trip purchases to what you can carry.

Stores should offer purchase and deliver. Basically we should begin to treat stores as showrooms.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#96

Post by gress »

tsunamifury wrote: post #20

Forcing shopping activity and gathering into indoor brutalist buildings is dying, shopping centers are not. Look at union sq, 4th st, walnut creek, and many others in the sf bay. All are stronger than ever by offering very high end retail mixed with high quality independent offerings and unique chef-driven eateries. What people have abandoned is indoor, stale, sunlight less, copycat malls with the same awful pizza an…

It is extremely rare for malls to be housed in brutalist buildings.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#97

Post by bane »

rayiner wrote: post #91
bane wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cases this is already happening. The best known example I can think of is Tyson's Corner in Northern Virginia. Already a shopping and commercial area, they're building the a new metro line out to it. This is coinciding with a restructuring of the entire area to be pedestrian friendly instead of car focused and it's absolutely transforming the entire city. It's probably the largest restructuring program in the…

Tysons is the suck. They're not restructuring it so much as trying to work around the piss-poor depressingly suburban "urban planning" of the place. Yes, it's got a metro line now, but it's a big concrete monstrosity along the middle of a huge multi-lane road, instead of the sleek, organic, integrated transit you see in places like Chicago or New York.[1] Most of the stops drop you off in a giant parking lot along si…

Yeah Tysons is still a warzone right now. But they're on something like year 5 of a 35 year restructuring plan. I still have high hopes. There's lots of weirdness left over from the previous "design", like stations letting off into low density areas like next to a bunch of car dealerships. But the overall plan I think is still promising. If they can convert those low density areas into high density housing, offices and mixed-zone shopping.

I do wish it was more revolutionary like your examples, but there's not much reason to think that Tyson's won't look a bit more like Chicago's loop in 20 years.

I'm actually on the side of wishing our local politicians had gotten their heads out of their asses and buried the lines, but we get what we get and I'm of the ilk that still thinks elevated lines look retro futuristic and cool.

http://cooldcre.com/image_store/uploads/8/6/5/6/4/ar13436975...

http://dcmud.blogspot.com/2011/02/tysons-developers-plan-40-...

http://thetysonscorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Tysons...

TBH, it doesn't affect me at all, except that Tyson's, being so overly car centric, is a place I don't go because it's such a grind to get around right now. That and I'm still hoping they extend the line out to Dulles so we'll finally live in a fully connected urban area that befits the density of NoVA and D.C.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#98

Post by earino »

bane wrote: post #81

This is really an important question as malls are usually massive holders of lots of valuable real estate in many towns. Where I live, there are...maybe around a dozen proper stereotypical malls within an hour drive. Of those, the two malls I literally grew up in have had very different trajectories. The one next to my highschool is a veritable empty shell. I think it sits at 40% occupancy, with entire wings boarded…

You just described Nashville, TN perfectly. I don't know where you are describing, but you just gave a fantastic breakdown of the fall of the Hickory Hollow Mall and the rise and plateauing of either Green Hills or Cool Springs. It was a little uncanny. If it isn't Nashville, TN then this is a spectacular repeating pattern and now I hope I can find some good data sets regarding mall occupancy somewhere that I can visualize.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#99

Post by kalleboo »

dageshi wrote: post #83
greggman wrote: post #39

Come to Singapore. There's places where there are 7 or more malls all right next to each other and more being built. Kuala Lumpur seems to have lots of shopping centers being built and many of them get full as in the there's no parking left.

Probably the climate? I'd imagine in summer Singapore and KL are ferociously humid and hot?

Even outdoor malls in Singapore have air conditioning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke_Quay

Re: Are Malls Over?

#100

Post by Lewisham »

tsunamifury wrote: post #20

Forcing shopping activity and gathering into indoor brutalist buildings is dying, shopping centers are not. Look at union sq, 4th st, walnut creek, and many others in the sf bay. All are stronger than ever by offering very high end retail mixed with high quality independent offerings and unique chef-driven eateries. What people have abandoned is indoor, stale, sunlight less, copycat malls with the same awful pizza an…

I was going to come here to say this. I've lived in a couple of college towns in California (Davis and Santa Cruz), and they both have a Gap in the downtown area. Strolling downtown, especially in Santa Cruz, is just a Thing To Do, like going to the mall used to be. It's where you see the Santa Cruz character, grab a cookie from the cookie store, and mooch around looking in shop windows. Essentially the exact same mall activity.

That said, as the article focuses on Gap, I think their problems are far more pronounced than just malls or online. The Gap and Baby Gap store in Santa Cruz are almost always completely empty, and that seems to be the case for most places. I get the feeling Target is just dominating them, selling the same clothes cheaper.

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