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Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

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Re: Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

#171

Post by refurb »

cageface wrote: post #51
mistrial9 wrote: post #38

USA Malls are a symptom of car sprawl, and are textbook terrible landuse planning; they happen to have a super-simple business formula and appeal to certain fiefdom's egos.. cannot be fast enough for these formats to dry up, in my opinion

Malls here in Bangkok are crowded, vibrant places. I think it makes a big difference that most of them are directly accessible from train system.

Malls in Asia are also publicly accessible places with air conditioning and lots of food options. When kids want a place to hang out they work pretty well as a meeting place. When I lived in Asia the malls were packed with teens on weekends. Similar to the US 30-40 years ago. I’d be curious if it changes in Asia too.

Re: Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

#172

Post by bobthepanda »

ryukafalz wrote: post #130
ilyanep wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how in the US, instead of building all these services and offices near each other and walkable from people's homes, we insist on ideas that force people to drive dozens of miles to get a walkable and convenient experience.

Right - I moved to the city because here in the US it's the only option to get any human-scale density. The next level down that you can commonly find is car-centric suburbia. The remaining human-scale places in the US outside of city centers are mostly isolated remnants from before we started knocking them all down to make room for cars. Nobody's building new ones. (Unlike some other countries.)

The neat thing about malls is that they are

1. Usually already located at a crossroads; you want a mall at a busy junction to attract custom

2. Usually already a local transit hub, since they tend to be a major concentration of jobs

3. Are separated from any pesky residential neighbors by major roads and/or large swathes for parking

4. Have a lot of land in the form of said large swathes of parking

These characteristics actually make them ideal for densification into a more walkable oasis; they already have some mixed uses, and the parking lots are developable without much fuss from neighbors. And you can do the whole thing in phases.

A bunch of malls in the Seattle area are getting redeveloped in this manner.

Re: Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

#173

Post by TylerE »

sergiomattei wrote: post #123
naturalauction wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW this isn't necessarily indicative of the number of ones in airports. For example "Istanbul Havalimani H-42 HPS Sbarro" only says airport in Turkish and "Aeropuerto Los Cabos" is in Spanish (though maybe these are the exception, not the rule). Looking at it further, it does go both ways as well - for example "Gurnee Mills" is in a mall. There also seem to be a surprising number of Sbarros outside of the U.S thoug…

I actually ate at the Havalimani Sbarro! It was my first taste of European pizza. It had no tomato sauce inside it. I went to the staff to signal that I wanted sauce in the pizza and they had no clue what I was saying. That day I came to the shocking realization that that's how the rest of the world ate pizza.

Olive Oil > Tomato Sauce on a pizza.

Re: Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

#174

Post by circleit »

beambot wrote: post #98
freddie_mercury wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malls as coworking space would be literally the arcologies of dystopian cyberpunk. No windows, no natural light, never going outside in the real, natural world. Just one giant homogenised hermetically sealed world. It wouldn't be "best" for many people. Maybe "convenient" for bosses who don't like how much productivity they lose when a Meat Flavoured Productivity Unit has to go get a haircut or imbibe sustenance....

Malls can definitely obtain natural lighting if architected properly (eg sky lights and light pipes) -- malls are no different than other commercial offices. For example: I used to work at GoogleX's "San Antonio station", which was a converted shopping mall, and it had great lighting, even on lower floors. With multiple employers in same building, you'd also have many more socializing options -- including random coll…

Vertical aquaponics farms. Organic fresh produce and protein for every area produced locally.

Re: Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

#175

Post by Shounak »

acomjean wrote: post #165
beambot wrote: post #79

Malls could be the best co-working offices. Ample daytime parking, baller food courts, medical facilities, hair dressers, dentists, cafes, movie theaters, entertainment, etc all under one roof.

In Natick Mass they build a condo on top of the mall. https://patch.com/massachusetts/natick/see-inside-natick-mal... "This condo building was built in 2008 overlooking the Natick Mall. For just $925,000 you get sweeping views, 3 bedrooms, and access to all the shopping you can do (if you have any cash left over)." But massachusetts has a weird relationship with Malls. I visited the Wayfair Offices, which sit above a…

In Providence, RI, America’s oldest mall was converted to micro-apartments with some retail on the 1st floor

https://youtu.be/HmL2l-bcuUQ

Re: Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

#176

Post by cabacon »

Spooky23 wrote: post #137
emkoemko wrote: post #107

is this a American thing? here in Canada malls are doing well and we keep building even more sometimes next to busy malls... its strange even they tell us Toys R Us is gone? yet they are not closed here basically all the malls have a Toys R Us.. whats up with the states?

They overbuilt 20-30 years ago and buildings are designed to go 20-30 years between major capital expenditure. A big part of that business is syndicating and selling tax write offs... no capital investment breaks that. So now malls are facing envelopement from discount stores and big box, plus the ever growing threat of Amazon and other e-commerce. The malls that get investment are pivoting to supermarket anchors and…

The story I read (https://andrewdamitio-92271.medium.com/the-decline-of-the-am...) says that there was a shift post-WWII that encouraged building real estate, the accelerated depreciation from the article.

Then as things shifted back to linear depreciation, it made building/running malls much less attractive, and we're seeing that play out over the 20-30 year capital lifecycle you mention.

Re: Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

#177

Post by emkoemko »

agogdog wrote: post #161
emkoemko wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and yet i don't see any of this in Canada, malls packed, more malls built and Toys R Us still in all of them. What could be the difference between Canada and USA?

I'd wager that Canada has/had many fewer malls than USA (per capita). Even many small nowhere cities would have a mall.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/CrossIro...

that was built out of the city middle of no where because there was not enough water and land to do it in the city, and yet still full and now Costco and others opened next to it, plus a new mall built across it. there are like 10+ malls withing 20km

something is different maybe the weather leads more people to liking to go to a warm place in the winter? but then again many parts of the world malls are doing well.

Re: Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

#178

Post by cortesoft »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #88
beambot wrote: post #79

Malls could be the best co-working offices. Ample daytime parking, baller food courts, medical facilities, hair dressers, dentists, cafes, movie theaters, entertainment, etc all under one roof.

Malls as coworking space would be literally the arcologies of dystopian cyberpunk. No windows, no natural light, never going outside in the real, natural world. Just one giant homogenised hermetically sealed world. It wouldn't be "best" for many people. Maybe "convenient" for bosses who don't like how much productivity they lose when a Meat Flavoured Productivity Unit has to go get a haircut or imbibe sustenance....

Most of the malls here in Los Angeles are outdoors. The shops are indoors, but the walkways are outdoors.

Re: Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

#179

Post by admax88q »

beambot wrote: post #98
freddie_mercury wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malls as coworking space would be literally the arcologies of dystopian cyberpunk. No windows, no natural light, never going outside in the real, natural world. Just one giant homogenised hermetically sealed world. It wouldn't be "best" for many people. Maybe "convenient" for bosses who don't like how much productivity they lose when a Meat Flavoured Productivity Unit has to go get a haircut or imbibe sustenance....

Malls can definitely obtain natural lighting if architected properly (eg sky lights and light pipes) -- malls are no different than other commercial offices. For example: I used to work at GoogleX's "San Antonio station", which was a converted shopping mall, and it had great lighting, even on lower floors. With multiple employers in same building, you'd also have many more socializing options -- including random coll…

They're already a suburban blight. Just teat them down. Put a park there instead.

Re: Mall department stores were struggling; the pandemic has pushed them to the edge

#180

Post by swiley »

abfan1127 wrote: post #25

Malls seem like the perfect mixed use type property. Stores on 1 floor, offices on 2nd floor, then 2-3 floors of housing. 1 of the big department stores could be a grocery store.

I live in a mall like this. They're pretty great and it looks like they're starting to build more on the east coast anyway.
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