
Reusing Abandoned Big-Box Superstores Across America - l33tbro
http://99percentinvisible.org/article/ghost-boxes-reusing-abandoned-big-box-superstores-across-america/
======
ideonexus
I lived in a small town in Northeast North Carolina for years and watched the
local Wal-mart turn a vibrant downtown there into a bunch of empty shops, then
create another giant empty building when they relocated miles outside of town
to capitalize on the interstate traffic, where they used their financial power
to force the town to create an annex so they could get government services or
they would move to the next town and take all the low-paying jobs with them.
The people there have no choice, nowhere to go. They're conquered.

Back in suburban Northern Virginia, when a Wal-mart down the street from me
closed up, the local (mostly immigrant) community converted it into a mall.
They setup dozens of shops separated with curtains, a huge thrift-shop, and an
amazing indoor playground. It's become a wonderful community resource and it
thrives despite all the big-box stores just up the street. I don't see how you
could do this with every empty store, but where communities have the resources
and will, this is a great idea.

~~~
brudgers
People have observed a correlation between the arrival of a Walmart and
changes to local downtown retail. I'm skeptical of assigning causation and
even more so of assigning blame because retail was undergoing massive
structural shifts in places where a new Walmart didn't matter or where there
were no Walmarts.

Way back when Walmart was mainly in Arkansas, I lived in Northern Virginia.
The Springfield Mall opened bringing department stores outside the Beltway.
Department stores have been in decline ever since. Malls have stopped being a
thing just as downtown shopping had stopped being one before them. Through the
80's and 90's I watched department stores go belly up in the Orlando malls.
Nothing to do with Walmart.

The Publix was the nearest grocery store to the house I grew up in in Orlando.
George Jenkins still set its tone from Lakeland even though it had begun
growing across state lines. The tone old George set was 9-5 Monday to
Thursday, 9-5:30 on Friday, 9-12 Saturday, Closed on Sunday. Stock boys got a
nickel raise every six months. Tipping of the bag boys was encouraged. Tipping
the cashiers [all women] was not. The other place women would work was the
bakery.

Around 1980, the Albertson's bought the corner lot next door. Hours: 9-11
every day. Heathens could shop on Sunday. Working people could buy groceries
after work. It was practical for the California company to open in a cross
country market for the same reason it was practical for the Jenkins's company
to expand out of state: the deregulation of interstate trucking. It took a few
years, but not all that many, for Publix to better serve the public.

My beloved's family is from Kussuth County, Iowa. The small towns in their
townships have been dying since German POW's encamped there abouts were
repatriated in 1946. Tractors and modern mortgages and Monsanto and college
educations are better candidates than Walmart. And local retail? Well piss off
the owner of the only quicky mart in Lone Rock and the option is to buy your
$3.00 can of beenie weenies and $2.00 roll of toilet paper in the next town
over.

People vote with their feet. Whatever it's negative impact, Walmart tends to
take people as they are. It doesn't subject them to the whims or moral
judgements of its owners. That's a broader change in retail that Walmart
embodies. A man can by Legos for his daughter at midnight even if he's sweaty
and stinky from an evening shift on the loading dock. His partner doesn't need
to put on a pillbox and white gloves and take an afternoon off to shop
downtown.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
The Springfield Mall fell into deep decline and eventually died when
everything but the Target left. It was recently renovated and "resurrected" as
a high-end, WASP-y competitor to Tyson's Corner.

I preferred the old one, to be honest.

------
brudgers
For me, in the general case empty big box stores in suburbia aren't worth much
mental energy or expenditure of public resources. Obsolescence is the reason
Walmart and other big box retailers abandon sites. Poor suitability for other
uses is the reason the sites remain empty.

An empty Walmart could house lots of server racks. The lack of power and
bandwidth make the site unsuitable for that use. The lack of cooling equipment
and electrical distribution equipment make the building unsuitable for that
use. The sea of asphalt and road frontage that comes with it not only isn't
worth paying for, it adds to the operating cost of the facility.

These are custom tailored buildings that have reached the end of their viable
economic life located on sites where the land was cheap. Their economics was
based on operating at a scale that worked with a geographically large but low
density catchment.

The abandoned sites express the lack of market demand. In suburbia, there is a
cap on demand for 100 acre retail sites. There is a political cost to down
zoning high revenue parcels to lower revenue uses and there isn't much demand
for those sites anyway: i.e. an industrial or residential use tends not to
benefit from high visibility frontage...for an apartment complex it'd often be
a detriment.

Finally, the cost of converting a Walmart to a library or workforce housing or
a warehouse or whatever is unlikely to vary much from building new.
Construction required for conversion from one occupancy to another tends to be
expensive. The building shell and asphalt tend to be significantly less costly
than furnishings, equipment, and finishes.

Sure there are unicorns where an abandoned retail mecca becomes a vibrant
megachurch. But big boxes sit empty because there isn't market demand for
another 200,000 square feet of space in that location. Repurposing Walmarts is
like housing people in shipping containers. A desire to be clever trumps
rational analysis.

~~~
st3v3r
"For me, in the general case empty big box stores in suburbia aren't worth
much mental energy or expenditure of public resources."

If no one is taking over, I'd say it's definitely worth the public resources
at least to tear it down.

~~~
brudgers
Unless an empty big box is an attractive nuisance, I have difficulty seeing
tearing one down as in the public interest. Given the legal costs that doing
so would entail; how much time could elapse between public expenditure on
demolition and perfection of the resulting liens; and the reduction in
property tax base removal of improvements creates, there doesn't seem to be a
strong economic case.

For most communities, an empty suburban building is not a priority issue.

------
shiftpgdn
From an urban planning perspective the typical big box build of 100,000 sqft
of box with 30 acres of parking lot is a disaster. I don't think retrofitting
them is the correct answer.

I've always felt that big boxes should have to put their demolition cost up as
a surety bond before construction. Should the store close or go out of
business the land could be returned to a field.

~~~
maxerickson
The problem is that they are often willing to ignore an area until they get
the concessions they want.

Vibrant areas might be able to get the store to do what they want, but they
aren't the areas that are going to have a problem when it leaves.

~~~
st3v3r
That's why such a provision would have to be enshrined in law.

~~~
dpark
Unless you mean state or federal law, that won't do anything, because " _The
problem is that they are often willing to ignore an area until they get the
concessions they want._ " Wal-Mart will just not build in SmallTown, Arkansas
if they have to spend twice as much as in LittleTown, Arkansas 5 miles down
the road. SmallTown can put whatever requirements they want into the law. Wal-
Mart just won't build there until they change the law.

Of course, whether SmallTown should want Wal-Mart is a valid question.
Unfortunately, they probably do, because Wal-Mart moving into LittleTown will
probably decimate the local retail economy anyway.

------
mangeletti
I was recently describing my thoughts about the future of big box retail
stores to my brother, except it's not as optimistic as to project our current
state of affairs into the future. I imagine, at a point when hardly anybody
can afford decent housing, that a _lot_ of retail spaces will be squatted as
housing.

Take, for instance, a Best Buy. A Best Buy could potentially house hundreds,
especially considering the vertical space (think bunk-style shelves for
sleeping). I'm not suggesting this is good or that it would be comfortable,
but we've got more than 4 million people working retail in the US, and retail
is going nowhere fast.

IOW, in the markedly more dystopian future that I imagine, a lot of the same
people that work in these big boxes will live in these big boxes.

~~~
maxerickson
In _Snow Crash_ , intrepid entrepreneurs construct coin operated bathrooms
adjacent to self storage garages.

I really hope we don't choose to do either one to ourselves.

~~~
sliverstorm
Coin operated bathrooms have been tried, and mostly abandoned, because it
turns out people just do their business on the street instead of pay.

~~~
logfromblammo
The freemium model might work for public toilets. Your first five minutes is
free. The bidet function is free. Extending the door lock timeout by another
five minutes costs $X. TP is $Y/meter. Tampons, pads, condoms, fragrances,
etc. are available from the vending machines. Using _warmed_ water for the
bidet function costs $Z. Adding medications or fragrances to the bidet
function costs extra.

The stall itself is robotic and self-cleaning, so one human attendant can
service dozens of locations. The human labor factor is what usually torpedoes
the economics of privately-owned public-access toilets, so if you can engineer
the robotic functions well enough, your per-customer operating costs can drop
low enough that you only need 1 in N to pay you anything to stay in business.

~~~
VLM
> The human labor factor is what usually torpedoes the economics of privately-
> owned public-access toilets

In actual practice the problem tends to be prostitutes using it as their
workplace, IV drug users needing a private cop free place to shoot up, and
homeless people.

Embracing those problems instead of ignoring them is likely to successfully
generate more money.

~~~
logfromblammo
Those use cases are why you charge extra to extend the door lock timeout.
Prostitution and drug use isn't a particular problem as long as you can
economically clean up their mess. Receptacles for unflushable trash and sharps
should make them less of a problem. Squatters that refuse to pay only become a
problem when they cause denial-of-service to (potentially) paying customers.

Back when bathroom attendants were economical, they were the ones that could
chase out or discourage the undesirables.

I didn't mention this, but one of the robotic bathrooms I have seen encourages
people to leave in a timely fashion by filling itself with water as part of
the self-cleaning cycle. That program mentioned the difficulty in getting the
squatters out while still serving regular customers.

[Edit for cousin post:] After the door lock times out, the GTFO timer starts.
Don't be surprised if your stall fills with unpleasant odors (mercaptans) and
sprays of cold water if you decide to try to squat in there without paying.

------
tmaly
I think the biggest challenge is going to be maintenance.

The buildings are not the highest quality, you are going to have issues with
the metal and the roof. Supplying energy to heat of cool these are going to be
an issue.

The parking lots will have to be patched and repaved as the weather takes its
toll.

I think just removing the entire structure would overall be a less costly
alternative in the long run.

~~~
VLM
WRT to depreciation and maintenance costs, its telling that the worlds most
successful retailer with enormous experience and information about their
former stores, tends to demolish and rebuild rather than remodel. I mean they
do HGTV style remodels where they throw a coat of paint up and rearrange the
shelves and pat themselves on the back, but after two decades of deteriorating
roof and obsolete HVAC and inefficient lighting and the parking lot needs a
total replacement, its just time to demolish and start over.

Walmart likes money. If they could remodel an old store into ... anything ...
at a profit, they would. They don't. That says something about the anticipated
lifetime of most of the schemes. Also explains why the contemporary examples
are new or recent but walmart is an old company. All the alternative ideas
tried a decade ago have long since failed so there's nothing to talk about
except the more recent experiments that haven't run out of money yet.

Remember a failed walmart is where the worlds most successful retailer could
not or could no longer make a buck, for whatever reason. "I'm gonna outdo
walmart at running a retail operation" is very unlikely for any value of
retail operation.

A side issue is the architecture and design of the building fixes in concrete
and steel a certain minimum annual revenue per sq ft below which the structure
and system has to fail sooner or later due to lack of income. Its easier to
make a small store that generates a higher rate per sq but is limited in size,
or a large market that generates a low per sq rate. That would imply whatever
the newly built building looks like, its not going to look like a walmart
because its already determined that doesn't work at that location.

~~~
coredog64
6 or 8 years ago the closest Costco to us moved locations. The old location
had been there for maybe 8 years before that. At the time, it was in a good
location for a Costco, but I can see how much better the new location is
(closer to a newly built freeway, near a mall and other businesses). That's
not to say that the old location is awful, as there are still thriving
businesses (including a newly remodeled WalMart) nearby.

We tend to think of WalMart as this cash flush behemoth, but the reality is
that grocery is a very low margin business (on the order of 3%). They might
squeeze a little more out of less efficient competitors, but it's possible
that the location could work for a higher margin business or something that's
not retail.

------
yardie
The suburbs my family moved to is developing a downtown corridor. It's well
known for its public schools and expansive homes, but now it's in a bit of a
crisis. It now has to compete against the redeveloped downtown of the closest
city. The kids are grown up and choosing to move to big cities. The empty
nesters are downsizing their under-utilised homes. New families moving into
the area are choosing smaller, newer homes.

The city planners are in 2 parties: those that want to keep the bedroom
community the way it is, and those that want to turn it into a walkable city.
The first is caught in the past and sees the schools as the major draw. And
kind of ignores DINKs as a whole. The latter sees a future where young adults
prefer to move to cities, and don't come back.

~~~
tssva
The area I'm in saw a big movement of young people into the downtown area. For
the last decade the paper would have the occasional story about how the
suburbs are done and millennials were moving to the city and were going to
stay. Companies began moving to the city or close to public transport to be
convenient to reach from the city, so they could attract employees. But guess
what has happened in the last 3 years. Growth in the city has slowed and
growth in suburbs has grown again. The first wave of the influx to the city
have begun having kids and moving back to suburbs. So maybe the first group of
planners isn't so wrong.

------
empath75
I'd love to see some of those converted to old fashioned markets like you see
in Latin American countries. Let all the small town entrepreneurs set up shop
inside the skeletal remains of the business that tried to put them away.

~~~
bluejekyll
I've been to farmer's markets where this is essentially what they've done.

One problem is that the space is so large. I really like the idea of these
become community centers, though I'd prefer the small downtowns get their
identity back.

~~~
mikey_p
About 10 years ago, I was doing AV work and did a couple of gigs in an empty
big box store that was either rented or owned by the small town in eastern
Ohio. They kept a decent sized portable stage in the place, bought some
curtains to divide the space in half, and tons of folding chairs. Beyond that,
I think all they needed was a few electrical disconnects for audio/lighting
(plenty of service already available in the building) and it was set for
concerts. It had plenty of egress for around 800-1000 people or whatever was
there, plenty of clear, unobstructed view, plenty of parking, nice loading
dock for equipment, etc. Felt weird to me at first but made more sense the
longer I was there.

------
davycro
The biggest challenge to these box stores is that they lack any sort of
natural light inside them. Even the fancy library in the article lacked
windows, which in my opinion adds more to the comfort of a workspace than
designer furniture. I wonder what strategies architects could come up with to
open these giant dark boxes.

~~~
hga
People are perhaps deservedly ragging on Wal-Marts in this topic, but I can
attest the ones in my home town of Joplin, including their first really big
store that became their model for SuperCenters (well, two buildings later),
have plenty of skylights, enough so that you notice it when the sun gets
hidden by clouds.

Can't think of any other big box store that does this, though.

And while on this topic, one of the above mentioned new buildings was required
by our 2011 tornado, which much more thoroughly wrecked our high school. The
upper half of 11-12th graders were quickly (less than 3 months) ensconced in a
failed big box next to our shopping mall, which all in all they were reported
to like. (Better than the middle schoolers who were next to a dog food factory
in an industrial park. :-)

------
323454
I love the idea of putting affordable housing in the vast parking lots of
these old megastores, prompting new businesses to set up shop in the abandoned
space to service the new community. Seems like a win-win.

~~~
nutheracc
On the subject of affordable housing, not to be argumentative, what is it? Why
is that term used? If there was sufficient housing, it would be affordable.
Seems to me affordable housing means crap housing, thereby cheap in the
current environment where there is insufficient housing. Therefore people
should stop talking about affordable housing, and start talking about more
housing.

~~~
untog
Not entirely. Particularly in America, housing is made as absolutely huge
detached houses with two car garages and a huge garden. Nothing wrong with
that, but in the space of two of those houses you could build an apartment
building with apartments that are a lot more, yes, affordable.

Space is finite.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Building more McMansions makes McMansions cheaper, which means the upper
middle class moves out of their mid-scale housing and into McMansions, making
mid-scale housing more affordable.

Regulations shouldn't be about affordability, they should be about density.

~~~
untog
But they still take up a lot more space. And that matters. Jobs are still
usually centered on a specific area, the further you move from that area the
less convenient it is to live there and travel to work. That's how we ended up
with the suburbs in the first place.

> Regulations shouldn't be about affordability, they should be about density.

That's essentially a different label for the same thing. Affordable housing is
dense housing.

~~~
VLM
> Affordable housing is dense housing.

In constrained cities. In the linked article there's a pix of the dead walmart
in Beaver Dam Wisconsin. I've visited family there, in fact I stayed at the
hotel across the street from the dead walmart. It was part of a dead mall, I
think. The relevance of this is the new, larger supercenter is literally
across the street from a corn farm. Not an isolated farm either.

If your job, perhaps being a retired grandmother, does not require living in
the center of silicon valley, then its a VERY nice place to live with tons of
outdoor recreation.

Affordable usually implies much lower income, and lower income implies less
geographic constraint. The "centeredness" of the job you mention depends
incredibly strongly on job title and pay rate. The legendary extreme
centeredness of startup jobs is very important to startups, but the other 300+
million citizens live a much less centered life.

~~~
st3v3r
Not really. Silicon Valley still needs 7-11 clerks, fast food workers, social
workers, and other lower paying jobs.

~~~
jessaustin
That's a problem for Silicon Valley, not for Beaver Dam, WI.

------
lsiunsuex
Similar problem in Western NY. Eastern Hills Mall - which by all accounts has
been dieing for the last 10 years but for some reason, continues to be
maintained.

[http://www.dailypublic.com/articles/07112015/lets-talk-
about...](http://www.dailypublic.com/articles/07112015/lets-talk-about-
eastern-hills-mall)

Proposed changes with some renders.

Would be a great alternative to the other 2 malls within 15 miles of it that
thrive compared to Eastern Hills. Even the Dave and Busters cited in the
article left and moved to the Walden Galleria.

But - progress is very, very slow in Buffalo and it's suburbs.

~~~
mcphage
Mmm... I would like that. Or anything, really, beyond what it is now. Although
I'm not sure how much the Blvd. Mall will be thriving in a few years from now,
if the Northtown Plaza successfully pulls in mall stores to go up near Whole
Foods.

------
Shivetya
Seen a few strip malls and even one small town downtown corridor converted to
government services offices.

While it is good to reuse an existing structure with a little help from zoning
the land and supporting utilities can be re purposed to other uses that
require good traffic qualities and location; schools, churches, car
dealerships and even apartments.

I would think the unmentioned issue is, did the area collapse around the store
that supported it or was this simply caused by bigger and better nearby? If
its the former then getting people back into the area could be challenging and
makes it much more suited to government offices or such

~~~
unit91
If done right, reutilization can really revitalize a dying area. When
Rackspace bought an abandoned shopping mall, the City of Windcrest (very small
San Antonio suburb) was on it's way out. [1, 2] With the Rackspace infusion,
the immediate vicinity appears to be much improved. As a casual passer-by, I
think the area looks better now than it did 15 years ago! [2]

ETA: I don't work for Rackspace, and never have. I also don't own any stock.
Just glad they bought the mall.

Sources:

1\.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/realestate/commercial/rack...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/realestate/commercial/rackspace-
revitalizes-a-defunct-mall-into-an-unorthodox-tech-campus.html)

2\. My sensory experience :-)

~~~
pm90
Disclaimer: I worked for Rackspace not so long ago.

Yes, they have an interesting strategy of buying abandoned malls and re
purposing them into huge office complexes. The great thing is I guess they get
a LOT of real estate for very cheap. If you ever get the chance, I would
definitely recommend going inside the Castle, as the San Antonio headquarters
is known. We had a lot of warnings to keep our cars locked and laptops secured
in the trunks to prevent break-ins, but it seems like things have greatly
improved now.

AFAIK, it works for Rackspace because its culture is very very egalitarian:
even the CEO has a cubicle (there are many private conference rooms and such
for meetings). So basically, they take over a mall and divide the floor space
into cubicles and voila, you now have an insane amount of real estate.

They did the same thing with a dying mall in Austin as well. Many people I've
met have been amused by this strategy but hey, all that space means that they
have an office gym, yoga rooms and whatnot. All for very cheap.

Personally I think its a brilliant idea.

------
OliverJones
There's a dead Walmart near me. They and the neighboring stores moved a mile
up the road to a new location.

It would be good for municipalities to require shutdown bonds from these big-
box outfits. But any town that has the clout to extract that sort of
concession from the retailer also has the clout to keep them out entirely, so
that's not workable.

Affordable housing? Manufactured housing sites? (meaning indoor trailer
parks?) That sort of use might overcome the gross energy inefficiency of these
things.

------
johnbrodie
I know of a few former Wal-Marts that have been turned into indoor (electric)
go kart tracks. Another former big box store near me was turned into a
hospital. Great to see them reused instead of just blighting the neighborhood.

------
throwanem
I don't know whether this is actually as good an idea as it sounds, but it
sure does tickle the same sense of awesomeness in me that _Virtual Light_ 's
Golden Gate first nurtured.

------
ja27
One near me became a 50,000 sq ft fantasy-themed event location. It hosts a
lot of sweet 16s, quinceaneras, engagements, weddings, etc. and an annual
Doctor Who convention.

------
kasey_junk
My favorite reuse is Ray's Indoor Mt. Bike Park.

[http://www.raysmtb.com/](http://www.raysmtb.com/)

