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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

#51

Post by badgers »

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.

I'm not sure I'd want to live in an old mall, but I could see them being purposed for office space. Parking is already taken care of, and most have bus routes already in place. The existing food court would be ready for new tenants. Other types of tenants could fill where other retail (e.g. clothing, toys) once occupied, such as a gym/fitness company, FedEx/UPS offices, office supply stores, etc.

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

#52

Post by learc83 »

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.

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

#53

Post by Chinjut »

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.

Love too live in the VC mall, "The Company Town, But Tech!™".

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

#55

Post by schnevets »

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…

I'm surprised no one has proposed a vertical farm yet. You've got plenty of storage/shipment zones, diverse levels of sunlight, an intricate climate-control system, and plenty of parking to expand/convert into a solar farm. Then you maintain the food court as a locavore destination

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

#56

Post by stevenwoo »

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…

On the Bay Area peninsula we saw :

a.) San Antonio/El Camino outdoor mall rebuilt as mixed used retail/residential

b.) Sunnyvale Town Center mall - mixed use retail/residential?

c.) Cupertino Vallco Mall - in litigation/negotiation for mixed use retail/residential

d.) some 50 year old movie theaters with huge parking lots on the edge of existing Santana Row mixed use development were torn down recently to make room for more mixed use development

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

#57

Post by dredmorbius »

heckanoobs wrote: post #16
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…

The land is probably more valuable than the building configuration. It's a little different from the pipe example in that way. You can't easily tear up the pipes and do something else with the pipeway, but you could demolish a mall and build an entire live/work district.

Pipelines offer uninterrupted right-of-way continuity from point to point. Shopping malls are distinctly noncontinuous, and better resemble ports (which is what they are).

That's the tricky bit in physically-routed infrastructure: pipelines, canals, rail, expressways, media (vs. transmission-based) comms links. None of them abide well with airgapping.

The comms-transport link goes back at least to the rail era when telegraph lines sprang up along them. You might have heard of one such venture: the Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications, better known as SPRINT.

https://www.npr.org/2012/10/15/162963607/sprint-born-from-ra...

A delivery-based fulfillment service, say, Amazon, might have interest in some (though hardly all) of these as local distribution hubs.

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

#58

Post by excalibur »

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.

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

#59

Post by megaframe »

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…

Apartments on the second floor, it's worked in some places, but mostly where the mall was already centrally located http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-first-shopping-mall-...

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

#60

Post by toomuchtodo »

mbreese wrote: post #40
codingdave wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Indianapolis, one defunct mall was turned into datacenter space [0]... so you could have it all in one place. [0] http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/10/30/lifel...

Rackspace's HQ in San Antonio, Texas was an old mall.

https://blog.rackspace.com/get-an-inside-look-at-the-rackspa...

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/realestate/commercial/rac...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzXDRBp68W4

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