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

washingtonpost.com

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

#31

Post by bombcar »

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.

Things like this exist in some city centers - but I’ve never seen one in the normal areas malls lurk. The three types usually try to stay some distance from each other unless forced together by exorbitant land prices.

The surviving stores that used to be anchor candidates seem to be happy being on their own in a sea of dedicated parking.

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

#32

Post by kibwen »

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.

Most malls I've seen are one-story (rarely two), and given the natural cost-minimizing nature of their construction I doubt that you could just build more stories atop the existing structure (but I'd like for an engineer to chime in).

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

#33

Post by dredmorbius »

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.

Such proposals have been made.

San Francisco's Stonestown Galleria has a proosal for adding 3,000 housing units, in the outer Sunset: https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Stonestown-Galleri...

San Jose's Santana Row, completed in 2002, has over 1,200 residential units:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170107101031/https://westernit... (PDF)

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

#34

Post by fallingfrog »

Modest mouse called this one but probably not for the reasons they were thinking of.

“Here's the man with teeth like God's shoeshine He sparkles shimmers shines Let's all have another Orange Julius Thick syrup standing in lines The malls are the soon to be ghost towns So long, farewell, good-bye”

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

#36

Post by abfan1127 »

kibwen wrote: post #32
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.

Most malls I've seen are one-story (rarely two), and given the natural cost-minimizing nature of their construction I doubt that you could just build more stories atop the existing structure (but I'd like for an engineer to chime in).

I doubt they could do additions. They'd have to demo.

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

#37

Post by inopinatus »

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.

This suggestion put me in mind of George Romero’s seminal 1978 analysis of the potential for reallocation and repurposing of large-scale commercial property, and in 2021 the notion of high-density rehousing for communities displaced by a public health crisis seems all the more relevant.

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

#38

Post by mistrial9 »

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

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

#39

Post by tempest_ »

hokumguru wrote: post #11

It’s funny because anecdotally both malls near me are busier than I have ever seen them currently.

Pre-pandemic I had the opposite experience.

I remember malls during my childhood being packed on week nights November to Christmas. Now they are still kinda busy but not in even close to the same way.

Watching the Mall scene in Christmas vacation I don't think I have seen a store busy like that in years, maybe on black Friday.

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

#40

Post by WalterGR »

tyingq wrote: post #9

I imagine Sbarro, Orange Julius, Aunt Annies, etc, are probably also struggling.

I see a lot of Sbarros at airports. Which is absolutely not to say they're not struggling - they probably very much are - but only to say that they're not a mall-only place.
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