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Are Malls Over?

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Re: Are Malls Over?

#141

Post by bowlofpetunias »

flexie wrote: post #47
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…

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…

There is no such thing as "Europe".

I don't know of any malls being constructed in the Netherlands.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#142

Post by rkudeshi »

bane wrote: post #121
learc83 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the walmart/mall in Manassas?

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.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#143

Post by ryanSrich »

bane wrote: post #101
earino wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vis…

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.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#144

Post by greghinch »

maratd wrote: post #93
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 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 byproduct of globalization and technology-driven streamlining of commerce

Re: Are Malls Over?

#145

Post by ams6110 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #74
mgkimsal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agreed. back in the 80s, the closest mall to me was pretty good - a decent mix of entertainment stores (music, games) and arcades, and water slide for a while, movie theater, and a decent mix of food (well, some of the better food was anchor restaurants in the parking lot). My recollection is there was a lot of natural light on sunny days - large glass sections in the ceiling structure let in quite a lot of light. I…

The indoor style exists because of extreme weather. I personally suspect California got indoor shopping malls back then because most everywhere else had indoor malls too- and they had indoor malls for the same reason they have indoor highschools.

You refer to outdoor schools. My middle schoool was sort of like that. Of course the classrooms were indoors, but the campus was several small building not one big one. So to go to art, or music, or gym, or lunch you would walk outside to another building. It was nice to get outside four or five times a day even if just for a few minutes. Of course it kind of sucked in a heavy rain....

Re: Are Malls Over?

#146

Post by dictum »

gress wrote: post #96
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.

Most of the malls I've seen are closer to postmodern architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_architecture

Re: Are Malls Over?

#147

Post by twoodfin »

WalterBright wrote: post #122
flexie wrote: post #47

Earlier 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?

It's like eating at McDonald's in Tokyo. What's the point?

Shaka Shaka Chicken, of course.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#148

Post by EpicEng »

greghinch wrote: post #144
maratd wrote: 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…

Ehhh... it really depends on where the mall is located. Back home (podunk Rockford IL) malls are indeed dying. They are dilapidated and/or ghost towns. Ten years ago this was not the case.

Where I currently live (La Jolla CA) the opposite is true. Of course, the malls are filled with stores like Saks, Nordstrom, a Tesla show floor, etc. These places are packed. I know I'm not going to buy a $1200+ jacket online any time soon, so I go to the mall for high end stuff.

Re: Are Malls Over?

#149

Post by mikeash »

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…

Just to emphasize this, the term "brutalist" derives from the French "brut", not English "brutal". "Brut" means "raw", and is used to describe the exposed concrete central to this style. Although both words derive from the same Latin word brutus, that word means both "heavy" and "stupid", with the French word deriving from the former and the English word deriving from the latter. (Or so Wiktionary tells me.)

Re: Are Malls Over?

#150

Post by jarek »

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #94
theoh wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I know some people have a rather low opinion about SFU academics, but maybe calling it a college is a little harsh ;)

U of T did you one better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Robarts_Library.JPG

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