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

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201–210 of 275 posts

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

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Where does the money come from? Cities are cash-strapped, which makes demolition & park development unlikely. Existing property owners aren't exactly in the business of giving away prime realestate or operating charities -- they'd probably opt for more suburban housing developments.

Cities are cash strapped due to low density sprawl, of which malls are just one kind.

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

#202
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.

It's important not to underestimate how many customers a store in a mall needs to survive. Most need tens of thousands of people to visit the mall every week in order to generate sufficient customers to have enough revenue to be viable businesses. Food-based businesses are a bit different because the same customers can visit every day, but you can't operate a hairdresser or a movie theatre by serving the same few hun…

You're assuming that the economics that work for a mall would still work the same way when it's converted to "office space plus amenities". I know a few office buildings in Berlin that have a food court, barber shops/hairdressers, dry-cleaners etc. inside the building. And I doubt they're paying full price on the rent - they're advertised as amenities that make the office space more attractive, raising the price of the office space in the building.

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

#203

Malls (shopping centres here in Australia) are terrible experiences. I don't like shopping, but the general process for shopping at a such a place is: 1) Drive some distance to get there 2) Park in a cramped car park, where the size of the parks is generally as small as legally allowed 3) Walk through the same car park, which bizarrely doesn't have walking ways for people to safely go through 4) Go to the shop and se…

I quite like the shopping centre experience in Australia. I went down to the my local centre today. It was vibrant and absolutely teaming with people. We shopped around and the kids had a good time in the play area with other kids.

Despite it being really busy most stores had short to no queues and aside from JB Hifi had nobody anywhere near the doors checking receipts.

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

#204

Malls (shopping centres here in Australia) are terrible experiences. I don't like shopping, but the general process for shopping at a such a place is: 1) Drive some distance to get there 2) Park in a cramped car park, where the size of the parks is generally as small as legally allowed 3) Walk through the same car park, which bizarrely doesn't have walking ways for people to safely go through 4) Go to the shop and se…

Malls peaked decades ago in the US, but they haven't peaked at all yet in the developing world. In the Philippines, for instance, they can't build enough huge, 4-storey malls fast enough. They are significant meeting places for young people and people use them to get out of the tropical heat because many people here do not have A/C.

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

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the money come from? Cities are cash-strapped, which makes demolition & park development unlikely. Existing property owners aren't exactly in the business of giving away prime realestate or operating charities -- they'd probably opt for more suburban housing developments.

Cities are cash strapped due to low density sprawl, of which malls are just one kind.

So one person acquiesces to "no solution because it's a chicken and egg problem." Another says "let it rot into decaying blight."

Even if suboptimal, revitalizing the mall as a co-working space sounds like a less-bad solution to me. Still open to practical alternatives though. ;)

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

#206
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....

I would argue that there's very little of "natural world" when you are downtown of any decent sized city. And you don't see any of it on any week day.

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

#207

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 are already coworking spaces. People already work in them, full time, for different companies.

Let me be more concise: convert some of the dying big-box stores into open-office WeWork/Regus-style workspaces for white-collar desk workers.

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Where does the money come from? Cities are cash-strapped, which makes demolition & park development unlikely. Existing property owners aren't exactly in the business of giving away prime realestate or operating charities -- they'd probably opt for more suburban housing developments.

Somehow a small city I used to live in managed to do it. The mall declined to the point that all that was left were the anchor stores and a few other internal stores when they decided to demolish it.

They left the major anchor stores (Target, Von Maur, Hobby Lobby), turned most of the center of the mall into parking lots, and put up a few multi-store strips around it, and it went from empty to having thriving businesses that have mostly all remained the past 16 years.

This guy has more details and took some pictures of the mall just before they closed it:

http://www.labelscar.com/illinois/college-hills-mall

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

#209
post #148
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple solution is work from home because most people already have a home, and simple solutions win. The only reason you're mentioning malls is because they are there, but unless you're a mall-walker on the weekends, I'm pretty sure the average developer's definition of a good lunch break isn't "walking past the mall McDonald's 3 times before returning to your mall wework" or whatever.

> because most people already have a home Assuming that everyone has a comfortable and spacious home with a desk&chair area is, well, a bad assumption. A bunch of people I know are now working significantly more time from a couch, in a clearly non-ergonomic position. We will see and hear about the real damage 5 years from now.

OTOH, sometimes the budget needed to fix the ergonomic issue (if it can be fixed) is massive. Especially for those with already limited space. It may become a useless spending when companies back to WFO after pandemi over or changing company that don't support WFH.

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

#210
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because most people already have a home Assuming that everyone has a comfortable and spacious home with a desk&chair area is, well, a bad assumption. A bunch of people I know are now working significantly more time from a couch, in a clearly non-ergonomic position. We will see and hear about the real damage 5 years from now.

We are 3 up (two adults, 1 child) in a 2 bed flat (apartment) with no garden and for the last year both my partner and I have been WFH full time (in my case I changed job to one that is 100% remote forever). I couldn't agree more, the transition for me was trivial - I'm a developer who plays games, I already had a nice chair, two 27" 4K displays and a fast desktop so for me my hardware/comfort improved - for my partn…

Oooh, garden office pod sounds intriguing. Do you have a good example of what sort of office pod you'd like to have?
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