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

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

#101

Post by kcorbitt »

CharlesMerriam2 wrote: post #91
guyzero wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning can be an issue - there's an abandoned mall in Cupertino that's probably half a mile from the new Apple HQ. And to say it's prime land is an understatement - the entire area is desperate for new housing. Current proposal is for 2,400 housing units on the land. But previous zoning proposal that were ballot initiatives got defeated (hurray democracy) and it's required a state bill to force the city's hand for zo…

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.

And to close the circle, Prop 13 makes it impossible for towns in California to tax residents enough to pay for the required parks, schools etc. There is an obvious solution (repeal Prop 13, and bump local property taxes enough to cover the infrastructure the new residents will need) but it's politically infeasible.

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

#102

Post by Mithorium »

learc83 wrote: post #52

When I was a kid in the 90s, I remember malls being much more of a destination--they had big atriums with fountains and indoor trees. By the early 2000s, when I was in high school, they were much more utilitarian. This was way before online shopping was killing their profits. I'm assuming it had something to do with consolidation and the new owners trying to extract maximum short term profits.

I also distinctly remember enjoying going to the mall as a kid because of the fountains and glass ceiling atrium, lots of seating spaces, is that not a thing anymore?

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

#103

Post by jandrese »

excalibur wrote: post #58
projectramo wrote: post #2

I remember learning that in the 90s some companies had this useless asset: gas pipelines that spanned the country, but had dried up and were not being used. Other companies had a problem: how to acquire the rights to lay fiber from one end of the country to the other. Some very smart person realized you could lay the fiber in the old pipes. Question: what can be done with all that retail space? Is there a new use of…

Adults-only entertainment venue. Fill it with bars, bowling alleys, hookah lounges, marijuana dispensaries (where legal), dance clubs, adult bookstores, places that rent rooms by the hour, other places where you can sleep it off more cheaply with maybe less privacy. Car keys deposited at the door into a machine that won't release them until you pass a breathalyzer.

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.

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

#104

Post by nicoburns »

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).

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

#105

Post by futileboy »

honopu wrote: post #70

Just turn them into community colleges, or satellite university locations. Put up some apartments and offer the full experience. You have plenty of parking.. plenty of land.

I would be a big fan of them converting the locations in to mixed use housing and retail.

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

#106

Post by thrav »

codingdave wrote: post #7
projectramo wrote: post #2

I remember learning that in the 90s some companies had this useless asset: gas pipelines that spanned the country, but had dried up and were not being used. Other companies had a problem: how to acquire the rights to lay fiber from one end of the country to the other. Some very smart person realized you could lay the fiber in the old pipes. Question: what can be done with all that retail space? Is there a new use of…

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.

See Rackspace’s offices.

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

#107

Post by choward »

bsenftner wrote: post #36

“It’s a tough environment. I don’t think anybody really anticipated the decline of the department store to happen as quickly as it did,” Yeah, right, all you ostriches ignoring the advance of online retail for the last 15 years.

It's happening a lot slower than I expected.

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

#108

Post by excalibur »

jandrese wrote: post #103
excalibur wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adults-only entertainment venue. Fill it with bars, bowling alleys, hookah lounges, marijuana dispensaries (where legal), dance clubs, adult bookstores, places that rent rooms by the hour, other places where you can sleep it off more cheaply with maybe less privacy. Car keys deposited at the door into a machine that won't release them until you pass a breathalyzer.

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 customers, and it would struggle to do enough business to stay afloat. Which is actually not so different from the current situation, but at least it's interesting.

> I'd also like to be at the city council meeting where you propose adding hooker hotel rooms in the original plans.

We're gonna have to do it in a very progressively liberal area, or get Kevin Bacon to do it.

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

#109

Post by amdelamar »

H1Supreme wrote: post #61
learc83 wrote: post #52

When I was a kid in the 90s, I remember malls being much more of a destination--they had big atriums with fountains and indoor trees. By the early 2000s, when I was in high school, they were much more utilitarian. This was way before online shopping was killing their profits. I'm assuming it had something to do with consolidation and the new owners trying to extract maximum short term profits.

As a teen in the 90's, "the mall" was absolutely a destination. Our parents would drop us off on a Friday or Saturday, and we'd spend hours there with our friends.

Recently, a local mall near me (Lansing, MI) updated their policy to limit the number of "unsupervised youths" roaming their mall Fri/Sat evenings. Apparently the complaints have gone up, regarding teens and younger children running and being loud.

https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2016/02...

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

#110

Post by seanmcdirmid »

projectramo wrote: post #2

I remember learning that in the 90s some companies had this useless asset: gas pipelines that spanned the country, but had dried up and were not being used. Other companies had a problem: how to acquire the rights to lay fiber from one end of the country to the other. Some very smart person realized you could lay the fiber in the old pipes. Question: what can be done with all that retail space? Is there a new use of…

Many of China’s ghost malls were transformed into incubator workspaces over the last few years, including the one next to Microsoft’s office in Beijing. I’m not sure how successful they were, but since the mall was subterranean I wouldn’t think it would be a good place to code.
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