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Are Malls Over?

newyorker.com

201–210 of 242 posts

Re: Are Malls Over?

#201
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…

Great write up. What I can't tell is whether the change in behavior is class based or culturally based. Do Hispanics not visit the Mall because they're poorer (class) or do they not visit the mall because the Mall is more of a white person invention (cultural)

Re: Are Malls Over?

#202
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ontario mills, Montclair mall, Brea mall, all mind numbing indeed. The only malls I enjoy in socal are the ultra high end ones like southcoast plaza, simply because they sell nice things that I can tangibly handle. All the other dingy, musty malls (ie. Ontario mills) are the absolute last choice for me, opting for open air alternatives such as Victoria Gardens.

To be fair, Ontario Mills is an outlet mall and can't really be compared to Southcoast plaza - the highest of high end malls.

thanks for the clarification, it's been so long since I've been to any indoor malls in socal.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#203
I feel like the article was trying to make the point "traditional malls from the 80's are dying" but didn't do a good job at that (the title for example). So that's leading to a lot of comments saying "Well some malls are flourishing and some are dying" I suspect the flourishing ones are the newer malls that have a lot of unique features you can't get online (food/cinema/furniture)

Re: Are Malls Over?

#204
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mall…

> 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. I would argue this is exactly why malls are dying, that they can't keep up with more and more rapidly evolving socio-economic trends and shifting demographics across geographies. Another by…

>Malls aren't dying. Cities are. Certain "rustbelt" cities and towns to be more specific. The malls that die are invariably in areas of decline.

Caruso may be shifting the game with his paradigm of outdoor faux townscapes [sic] but he is making malls that do not look like malls with the same single ownership structure--and this is the real problem: single entities developing millions of square feet, risking lots of capital and building as cheaply as possible because of the risk. He's just using modern design methods to emmulate old downtowns, as anachronistic as that may seem. But the style is just that. Style.

He does not build in places like Matteson, IL, for example because Lincoln Mall in Matteson is dying due to demographic trends (mostly white flight) and the thriving of another ...mall of the same - style - and vintage but with a shinny Apple store. Places like Matteson are unlucky because other malls in and around the Chicagoland are doing quite fine despite their tired, mid-century-gray motifs.

In places like Chicago where the weather is miserable most of the time winter and summer (IMHO), indoor malls still make a lot of sense. The "Gold Coast" downtown does well because it's a tourist attraction in one a wealthy zip code. But when it's 34-below an indoor mall is a nice respite.

Perhaps I am just venting because my thesis was on these greyfield malls and how to save them without starting from scratch or following the next trend in retail development because many places do not have the luxury to start fresh. Mall typologies are like hairstyles: you may not like afros, comb-overs or mullets, but each one had its day and will have its wearer and they are all here to stay. It's just a matter of how you maintain them.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#205

The thing I found most surprising about this article >Internet sales reached six per cent of total retail spending in the fourth quarter of 2013 I thought that would be a bit higher.

Remember that the fashion industry has revenue that absolutely dwarfs the tech industry. It's so far beyond that it's not even funny. People can't go naked, they need clothes, and most of the time they prefer to try them on, see how they look and fit, then purchase in person. Then there's food which is even larger. The online ordering of groceries is a drop in the bucket. You want fresh food, you're going to have to…

Does the fashion industry really "dwarf" the tech industry?

Random googling tells me that the global fashion industry does about $1.2 trillion in revenue per year. Microsoft, Google, Apple, and IBM together do a bit over $400 billion per year, so about a third of that, and that's only four (albeit large) tech companies. I'd be surprised if you couldn't more than triple that number after you accounted for all the other tech companies in the world.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#206
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mall…

Great point. The article's example of the Apple store as a model of a retailer that "just plunks a glass cube on busy shopping streets" is pretty clueless. Most Apple stores are in malls! I think the issue with Malls is that in 1980-something, your choices were dying downtowns, department stores or the Sears/LL Bean/whatever catalog. For food it was local places, McDonalds/Burger King/Wendy's. The mall offered more c…

> Most Apple stores are in malls!

Are they? Do you have data on that? I am by no means an expert on Apple stores but of the ones I've seen, only one was in a traditional enclosed mall.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#207
post #109

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…

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. Exactly. Take for example the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan[1]. It's in the city center, it's…

Being next to one of the main tourist attractions of the city has probably helped. All of those damned pigeons...

Re: Are Malls Over?

#208
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…

Great write up. What I can't tell is whether the change in behavior is class based or culturally based. Do Hispanics not visit the Mall because they're poorer (class) or do they not visit the mall because the Mall is more of a white person invention (cultural)

I think it's class based more than anything, but it's more complex than assigning a single cause.

Mexico City, for example, has plenty of malls, and a decent number of immigrants are from other countries in Central and South America, all places that have malls in the cities.

From the immigrant laborers I've talked to, they mostly seem to come from small towns and village in their home countries and remit as much money as they can back home. On top of that, they usually command lower pay than the domestic laborers in the same market, so this leaves them with very little in the way of spending money. They also work relentless hours, 7 days a week. So their life is basically wake, work, sleep with stops for meals 3 times a day.

There are more than just workers though, the women who come tend to end up in lower-end service jobs, house cleaners, cheap day care etc. And some of them have kids who are right now, very young and not in the job market (meaning no disposable income).

Both groups are well serviced by their local Mercado Latino and Walmart in terms of most needs and their children, if they've brought them here, are usually too young to want to shop at stylish mall shops.

If you look at the kinds of places that service the community, they aren't high-end restaurants and retail shops offering comforts from home. It's cheap fast food, pupusa shops, check cashing, cheap phone calls home etc. A visit to local pawn shops in and around Manassas will reveal shelf after shelf full of tools laborers have sold as they head back home after the housing bust, and are usually in shopping centers full of Spanish language shops. It's very much a temporary laborer blue collar demographic.

I suspect this will change. Folks I know who came here during the early parts of the Salvadoran Civil War now have kids old enough to care about such things and are generally well integrated, educated and affluent.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#209

The US is lucky to have its malls. TFA mentions growth coming from Asia, where pretty much every new development - and there are a lot - is a luxury mall that positions itself as an 'integrated' destination i.e. retail, entertainment, lifestyle, office space and residential. The problem is worst in Hong Kong where MTR Corporation, which owns the underground network, also owns the land that its stations sit underneath…

> Chinese malls in particular have a lot of made-up Chinese-owned store brands with foreign sounding names, selling utter rubbish at wildly inflated prices.

I find this comical whenever I see it in China - especially brand names with western geographies on their merchandise. "California 1973", "Cambridge".

Re: Are Malls Over?

#210
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the walmart/mall in Manassas?

That's the one.

That was "our" mall in the 90's/very early 2000's. You're spot on the description. "The walmart's moving to the mall!?" was the death rattle of 'assas.

I used to work in that little business park across from where they put the UNO's up on the north end.

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