Half the problem is that every single mall where I live has basically the same shops. I find that often new malls seem to be built largely as speculative investments by property developers, rather than to fulfill an actual need. All that happens is that that the new mall is either a disaster, or gradually replaces an older one, simply because the demand doesn't exist for yet another collection of the same chain stores.
Are Malls Over?
161–170 of 242 posts
Re: Are Malls Over?
#162Earlier 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…
The way I'd heard it in school was that it was a style made to purposely be as unlikably soulless as possible as some kind of statement. That's apparently not true?
Re: Are Malls Over?
#163Or you know they could try to promote more mixed use properties, which is what most people actually want.
It's very clear that city centers are growing everywhere because that's what young people are gravitating towards. It's a lifestyle thing and if they don't consider the lifestyle people aspire to in their future plans, they are going to go bankrupt again.
Take a look at SF for an example. Many people would love to live in the few blocks surrounding the commercial areas of the Mission, the Haight (upper and lower), North Beach, Union Street, Hayes Valley, etc. Those areas are desirable because they are supremely convenient. They are the "modern mall" because they are also the "timeless mall", i.e. the mall that naturally forms when people decide where they want to shop instead of corporate overseers. It's a pattern that exists everywhere in the world in big modern cities to small towns designed before the advent of the car.
Betting on mixed use buildings creates "captive demand", since your commercial store customers conveniently live right upstairs. And they are happy to live in such buildings because they provide the ultimate access by foot to food, bars, supermarkets and other businesses that enrich their lifestyle.
There are a few thing they need to do to make such mixed use properties desirable.
* Mixed use properties need authentic business with unique identity instead of franchises (e.g. a building with a starbucks and a moe's underneath it isn't as desirable as one with a neighborhood coffee shop and a local burrito joint). * The deals struck by commercial owner's associations (COAs) need to consider the needs of the HOA which is often formed after the COA for any mixed use property. Any property (like the Beacon in SF) where the COA has unfair deals that prejudice the residents of a building often end up in litigation that suppresses the value of the the property in the building causing the building to move to having more renters than owners.
Unfortunately many of the new building projects in SF don't take this into account. There are a ton of new projects going up south of the ballpark. All those properties will be filled because of the extremely limited stock of housing, but they are not going to be desirable places to live because of how few of those properties are designed to be mixed use, which is what will make that area feel like a neighborhood instead of a vertical suburb that you need to leave in order to visit a commercial center.
Re: Are Malls Over?
#164Instead of "reinventing malls", how about "reinventing" what's left of the downtown shopping district in cities and towns? I think the only way to compete with online shopping and with Wal-Mart, is with an experience that goes beyond efficient commerce. Some people, some of the time, will gravitate toward an authentic in-person social environment that is interesting overall, and which happens to include interesting s…
>Instead of "reinventing malls", how about "reinventing" what's left of the downtown shopping district in cities and towns?
This is happening, big time.
It is insane, when I was growing up the downtown was scary. Not only were there very few places to go, it was crime ridden and a blight. If you wanted to go shopping or to a restaurant you had to go to the suburbs, mostly the suburban mall. In the last several years, downtown has completely transformed. I live far away and ever time I come back there is TONS of new stuff there. About 6-7 years ago I now see the few things that were starting to come in was the beginnings of this revitalization.
Re: Are Malls Over?
#165I'd like to mention three malls that don't purely fit the "greybox" model and may point to a likely future for malls in general. - West Edmonton Mall (Edmonton, AB). In one sense, it is the mother of all greybox malls, surrounded by an asphalt moat. But: it's accessible via local transit, and it's very much in the model of an artificial downtown: it contains hotels, apartments, a hockey rink, an aquarium, and a varie…
I think the Pioneer Place mall in Portland, OR would be another interesting example. It's made of four separate buildings in the middle of downtown (underground parking only), connected by underground sections and skywalks, and directly adjacent to tram and bus transit stops. The buildings have an open atrium-style design, with skylight roofs that provide natural light all the way down to the connecting basement level.
Re: Are Malls Over?
#166I hope they're dying - malls are miserable places to spend time.
As opposed to the DMV, the post office, the ER waiting room and other paragons of bureaucracy?
How are shopping malls paragons of bureaucracy? Paragons of shallow consumerism, if anything... and while the DMV et all are surely dehumanizing and Kafkaesque, the mall is a special and unique sort of revolting to me. But different strokes...
Re: Are Malls Over?
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Europe, malls are still constructed in many places and they have the advantage of being built a few decades after many of the US malls. Where I live summers are a bit too warm and winters a bit too cold to make outdoor shopping joyful. Also, streets are noisy and full of aggressive drivers and the sidewalks are full of holes and broken tiles. So in the last few years this 1.5M population city has seen the construc…
A few years ago I went to a mall in Stuttgart. The interesting thing was I could have been in any mall in America. The layout, architecture, parking garage, etc., was right out of the US, and even the advertising was all in English. It's like eating at McDonald's in Tokyo. What's the point?
What's the point?
To quote Pulp fiction "It's the little differences". I love going to malls and supermarkets when I'm in a new country or city. Sure they're 95% the same, but those other 5% are often unique for the area and quite telling.
Re: Are Malls Over?
#168If only there was some way to organically grow outdoor shopping areas, in central, easy to reach locations, with a distributed ownership structure ensuring that no single entity can ruin the whole area. Maybe some historically significant structures (town halls, parks, etc.) could even add a sense of civitas to the whole thing. We could call these things something catchy... like "downtowns".
Wouldn't be as profitable as "The Downtown™ by Westfield"
It would be if they also invested in the residential real estate around it. If you only focus on commercial properties, you're ignoring the value you are adding to other real estate investments in the area.
Re: Are Malls Over?
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Augmented reality won't tell me that two pairs of pants, from the same store, that say they are 30 inches long at the waist, are really 29 and 31. Different colors mean different suppliers and different results. The technology that will tell us if some pants are a good fit or not is still nowhere near where it need to be. Many other stores will die quickly though.
Actually technology will make sure that your pants fit just perfectly from the 1000s of measurement taken by the full body scanner in the retail store you ordered them from. The future of retail will be where it is fully integrated into the manufacturing chain to enable just in time manufacturing and delivery of the perfect item with the cost savings from such automation passed onto the consumer due to competition.
No.
It won't tell you if the fabric is too itchy/uncomfortable, just one example.
Re: Are Malls Over?
#170Malls as shopping centers may be over, but those who transmute into amusement parks will survive. I rarely go to the mall for shopping, but I go many times a week for a walk, a fancy dinner, or just to meet people.
When I bought a house just outside route 495, I had to plan grocery shopping carefully or I'd be stuck with no pizza delivery and a can of beans in the pantry. Now I have a new shopping center with a BJs, a supermarket, and soon a Cabelas so I can shoot all the food I won't be able to buy after Immanent Collapse (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404923) about 12 minutes away, door to door.
Clearly there was demand. The supermarket is often packed, even though it isn't as big or nice as the Wegmans that opened a bit farther away. There are malls even farther out that appear to be prospering, including some old ones that are less seedy than they used to be.
Curiously, there is still a lot of empty office space off 495. The newly built then mostly evacuated Sun campus off Route 3 is still very slack. So people out here are making and spending money, but not filling up the old Digital and HP buildings.