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Are Malls Over?

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Re: Are Malls Over?

#191

Post by meddlepal »

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…

So they basically want downtowns? Great let's fix that problem rahther than continuing to create artificial shopping locations.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#192

Post by mwfunk »

I have fond memories of hanging out in malls when I was a kid, but my fondest memories are about things that I don't find in malls anymore. Arcades, toy stores, book stores, hobby shops, electronics, music shops, etc. Those things still exist but it seems like there's a lot less of them now.

When I go to malls now it seems like nothing but designer clothing stores. I swear there used to be a lot more diversity in the the types of stores you'd find. I'm not sure if this is a real trend or just the haze of childhood memories.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#193

Post by WalterBright »

dagw wrote: post #167
WalterBright wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I lived in Germany around 1970 when there were no malls or McDonald's there. What was fun was even department stores were palpably different than in the US. Everything was different, and that made it much more fun. Even the grocery stores were way, way different (I sure loved the German cheese selection!).

Re: Are Malls Over?

#195

Post by tbirdz »

I only went to the local mall to go to the movie theater, which was located inside the mall. Then the movie theater shut down, so now I never go to the mall.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#196

Post by bane »

rkudeshi wrote: post #142
bane wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the one.

Out of curiosity, what are the other malls you're talking about? The pair of high-end luxury malls sound like they could be Tyson's/Tyson's II.

Yup. Both malls are packed any given night of the week whenever I've been there. Definitely as far from dead as a mall can be.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#197

Post by bane »

slashedzero wrote: post #185
bane wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't been there in years, and went back recently and really found it depressing. The city, Manassas, has a bigger population than ever, but can't sustain the mall. The mall is in a death spiral. Nobody goes there because it's a dump with no place to shop, and they can't get businesses there because nobody goes there and it's a dump. People from Manassas don't even go there, they just go to other nearby malls for…

Manassas is an example of white flight (which is a big theme of the communities in NoVA period). Mike O'Meara refers to it as "deviltown" for a reason: it's pretty much been abandoned by its residents. Though many communities in that region suffer from it, I think Manassas has had very very bad urban planning. Very little is walkable, there's no character to the town, and you see very little green space. It's a case…

The downtown of Manassas is nice enough, but almost nobody thinks of that as "Manassas". Locals almost all call that strip of old Sudly Rd. from 66 to 28 "Manassas" even though I don't think it's part of the municipality in any meaningful way and hence grew without plan or structure. I think probably the only groups with any say-so in the direction it grew were the Battlefield protectionist groups.

But all that was very much a product of the Western expansion of 66. Most of the older folks in the area remember when 66 didn't come out that far and Manassas was just the 234/28 intersection and 28 East to Manassas Park.

When something was done, we end up with bizarreness like two entirely different roads called "234", one that goes through the main strip of town, and the other that goes through countryside and bypasses the commercial center entirely...which no doubt hasn't helped the commercial interests of that area at all.

I know from growing up out there that the anti-battlefield people put a really bad taste in lots of big commercial company's mouths. For example, just a few miles away near Haymarket, the Walt Disney company was even going to open up a theme park and were basically driven out of town.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_America

also

http://www.deadmalls.com/malls/manassas_mall.html

Re: Are Malls Over?

#198

Post by djKianoosh »

ryanSrich wrote: post #143
bane wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, not Nashville. About 750 miles East of there in the D.C. area.

Landmark mall? Just walking in the place gives you an empty feeling.

haven't been there in years, but I work near there and see some construction.. location-wise it's really a very good location. right off the highway, lots of businesses nearby and lots of residential too. i bet if they make a really good food court a lot of the local business folks would go there.. if getting in and out were easy. might be more of a civil engineering/architecture type issue...

Re: Are Malls Over?

#199

Post by djKianoosh »

bane wrote: post #196
rkudeshi wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what are the other malls you're talking about? The pair of high-end luxury malls sound like they could be Tyson's/Tyson's II.

Yup. Both malls are packed any given night of the week whenever I've been there. Definitely as far from dead as a mall can be.

Fair Oaks mall is closer than Tysons and isn't run-down. actually quite nice. but then again I've never been much of a mall person and dont go much. I prefer Fair Oaks to Tysons though, because those malls in Tysons are _too_ packed!

Re: Are Malls Over?

#200

Post by lucaspiller »

ulfw wrote: post #114

If US malls want to survive they need to start copying international malls, which are a lot more upscale, better looking (new or significantly renovated) and above all offer a much better mix between entertainment (movie theaters etc) and food (actual restaurants you would WANT to go to instead of chain/fast-food places) as well as stores. The problem with many malls is that they are copy cats of each other. Uninspir…

One of the big things about most malls outside the US is that they aren't usually built in the middle of nowhere. You don't need to drive for an hour then struggle to find a place to park just to buy some jeans. In some cases this is a because the transport links were built afterwards, but in most cases this is because they are built in areas that are already connected. Obviously space is restricted so they are smaller (250,000 sq ft is a pretty average size), this means you often end up with the same well known brands in each mall which can be a bit boring. Due to space and as malls are usually in the 'town centre' you don't always have cinemas in the mall, but they can usually be found nearby.
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