
Are Malls Over? - pesenti
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/03/are-malls-over.html
======
tsunamifury
Forcing shopping activity and gathering into indoor brutalist buildings is
dying, shopping centers are not. Look at union sq, 4th st, walnut creek, and
many others in the sf bay. All are stronger than ever by offering very high
end retail mixed with high quality independent offerings and unique chef-
driven eateries.

What people have abandoned is indoor, stale, sunlight less, copycat malls with
the same awful pizza and Chinese chains and the same terrible jewelry stores.

People want shopping centers to reflect regional and local character, be in
town centers, and offer high quality unique options with a few staples. Get
rid of the huge parking lots and add a grocer.

However tacitly this article is pointing to a possible larger problem in the
Midwest where cold weather, and permanently depressed economy and a talent
drain is leaving them without the tools to build interesting gathering places.
This is a far larger and sadder issue.

~~~
flexie
In Europe, malls are still constructed in many places and they have the
advantage of being built a few decades after many of the US malls.

Where I live summers are a bit too warm and winters a bit too cold to make
outdoor shopping joyful. Also, streets are noisy and full of aggressive
drivers and the sidewalks are full of holes and broken tiles. So in the last
few years this 1.5M population city has seen the construction of 10 shopping
malls, most of which are actually really nice "gathering places" as you put it
and most of which seem to thrive.

One advantage from most of the US malls that I have been to is that cars are
parked under the malls, not around them, that most of the malls are built near
subway or tram stops and that they somehow fit nicely into the surrounding
architecture.

Often the malls are built in the city center and usually in a very nice
quality. Usually the malls have one major supermarket chain in the basement
that acts as an anchor store and usually they have a cinema and a food court
in the top floor that offers not just the usual fast food but often also some
decent food.

I really enjoy shopping in a mall and until someone fixes the problem of
waiting and paying for delivery I don't see online shopping making malls
obsolete.

~~~
WalterBright
A few years ago I went to a mall in Stuttgart. The interesting thing was I
could have been in any mall in America. The layout, architecture, parking
garage, etc., was right out of the US, and even the advertising was all in
English. It's like eating at McDonald's in Tokyo. What's the point?

~~~
dagw
_What 's the point?_

To quote Pulp fiction "It's the little differences". I love going to malls and
supermarkets when I'm in a new country or city. Sure they're 95% the same, but
those other 5% are often unique for the area and quite telling.

~~~
WalterBright
I lived in Germany around 1970 when there were no malls or McDonald's there.
What was fun was even department stores were palpably different than in the
US. Everything was different, and that made it much more fun. Even the grocery
stores were way, way different (I sure loved the German cheese selection!).

------
carsongross
If only there was some way to organically grow outdoor shopping areas, in
central, easy to reach locations, with a distributed ownership structure
ensuring that no single entity can ruin the whole area. Maybe some
historically significant structures (town halls, parks, etc.) could even add a
sense of civitas to the whole thing.

We could call these things something catchy... like "downtowns".

~~~
jessedhillon
Wouldn't be as profitable as "The Downtown™ by Westfield"

~~~
malandrew
It would be if they also invested in the residential real estate around it. If
you only focus on commercial properties, you're ignoring the value you are
adding to other real estate investments in the area.

------
badman_ting
I don't go to them much anymore, but every time I do, I notice what a strange
place it is. The stores are mostly bad, the food is of course terrible, very
limited natural light, the list goes on. I can't imagine what "experience" we
all thought we were enjoying in these grayboxes for so many years. True, there
is a human need to congregate. But why do it in there?

\--

There is a reluctance among posters here to consider a "yes" to the question
in the title. Which seems strange and perhaps self-conscious. Consider:

"Mall traffic, for a number of years, has been slowing down. Whether it
continues to decline somewhat over time, I think that’s realistic to assume."

People from companies as large as the Gap rarely get more explicit than that
when talking about dying aspects of their business. The writing is on the
wall, folks.

~~~
ams6110
_I can 't imagine what "experience" we all thought we were enjoying in these
grayboxes for so many years._

The indoor shopping mall was, initially, a huge convenience. You could drive
to one place, park once (usually for free), and visit a variety of shops in
climate-controlled comfort (nice in rainy/winter seasons or hot summers). Most
people found this preferable to driving all over town or even to a central
downtown or shopping district, hunting and paying to park on the street or in
a remote garage, and having to walk from shop to shop outdoors. As malls got
bigger and bigger, though, the shops became more and more specialized and less
interesting to most shoppers. Walking vast distances between the one or two
shops you want to visit just recreated the original problem.

Young people used to like to hang out at malls because it was something to do.
There was usually a video game arcade and movie theatres, offering
entertainment you could not get at home. You could browse shops with friends,
and catch up on gossip. Before mobile phones, Facebook, Twitter, etc. you
actually had to stay in touch face-to-face and meeting at the mall was easy.

So malls are dying because a) most of them are too big and b) most of the
social and entertainment opportunities have been replaced by technology.

~~~
sizzle
I thought the experience of malls were essentially like that of casinos, in
that they were designed so you would lose track of time and buy/gamble more?

~~~
gknoy
The allure was that you knew you could look at one store, and then another,
without having to drive across town.

Now that we order online, comparison shop online, etc, why would I want to
walk through Sears vs JC Penney? (for example) The internet ate the
convenience aspect of the malls, and left only the social aspect or the
Shopping Experience itself.

------
6cxs2hd6
Instead of "reinventing malls", how about "reinventing" what's left of the
downtown shopping district in cities and towns?

I think the only way to compete with online shopping and with Wal-Mart, is
with an experience that goes beyond efficient commerce. Some people, some of
the time, will gravitate toward an authentic in-person social environment that
is interesting overall, and which happens to include interesting shops.

This also tends to make the place more interesting for tourists, which at
least up to a point can have a beneficial impact

~~~
meddlepal
You get it. We need to fix a lot of American mass transit infrastructure
though to make this feasible. Getting into the city is not easy or cheap in
many places in the United States. And we cannot just rely on the cheap trick
of using parking garages and highways to get people into the city anymore -
that's part of what killed cities in the first place.

~~~
ams6110
Mass transit is OK for commuters who can tolerate the homeless-shelter-on-
wheels aspect of it, but not good for shoppers, since it limits your per-trip
purchases to what you can carry.

~~~
chrismonsanto
In Kentucky (and probably the midwest in general), mass transit effectively
does not exist.

~~~
ams6110
I'm in the midwest and I agree. You need a certain critical mass of population
density and enough common destinations for mass transit to work. From what I
can tell, this is a lot higher than the population needed to sustain a mall.

Our town does have a bus system but most of them drive around empty or nearly
so most of the time. We also have a decent indoor mall and several outdoor
"big box store" shopping centers which all seem to be surviving if not
thriving.

------
bhauer
This again? I remember reading malls were over 15 years ago and yet all of the
malls in my corner of Los Angeles are still open and thriving. All have been
renovated at least once since the first batch of "malls are over" articles
many years back. Some have converted a bit of their indoor space to outdoor
(such as Del Amo in Torrance, which was one of the largest in the United
States). Some have converted from outdoor then back to partially indoor when
they realized that shoppers don't like being cold.

Yes, retailers face heated competition from the likes of Amazon, and yes I am
not the typical mall demographic. But the malls I know—assuming they have a
spectrum of trendy retailers—tend to be just as busy as ever when I have
reason to visit. I hate the crowded parking lots as much as I ever did.

If they're stuck in the 1990s with Sbarro, Foot Locker, and JC Penney, yeah,
they're probably suffering. But that's just not keeping current with consumer
demand and isn't really an indictment of the model in general.

~~~
mikeleeorg
I think the malls in LA and Southern California in general have done a good
job in reinventing themselves as destinations rather than merely shopping
centers. Especially for teens. Downtown Disney is a good example.

A lot of those outdoor destinations even seem centered around a movie theater
now, which one might predict is also on the decline - though every time I've
visited these places, they seem pretty packed. (At least, on weekends.)

~~~
vidarh
Our local movie theatre (suburb of London) does much more than just show the
latest blockbusters these days. They have special, low priced, early morning
showings for families with kids, late night 18+ showings for movies with lower
ratings, autism friendly showings, showings with subtitles, a lot of movies
that previously wouldn't be shown much here (Bollywood movies in particular),
and of course the 3D movies are helping them, as well as showing live
transmissions of operas and plays from various locations around the world and
a variety of other events. They've also put in two rows of larger, comfier
seats in all their screens, that goes for a higher price, and I expect to see
more of that... The theatres too are reinventing themselves.

------
untog
NYTimes had an article a few days ago[1] about Sbarro's bankruptcy that
touched on this topic - basically, Sbarro bet big on shopping mall food
courts, and that bet has not paid off.

But the more interesting part is at the end - as shopping malls become less
desirable, rents will go down. This could lead to a radical reinvention of
what a mall looks and feels like. So malls _as we know them_ might be dead,
but "the mall" isn't done yet.

[1] [http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/this-is-the-
rea...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/this-is-the-real-reason-
sbarro-is-in-bankruptcy/)

~~~
yasth
Rents may well go down, and many malls may live a second life as anything from
indoor paintball arena (
[http://www.specialopspaintball.com/forum/index.php?showtopic...](http://www.specialopspaintball.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=151375)
), megachurch ( [http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/report-megachurch-
in-...](http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/report-megachurch-in-boynton-
beach-mall-could-be-a/nL4GK/) ) to a secure datacenter (
[http://www.lifelinedatacenters.com/data-
center/indianapolis%...](http://www.lifelinedatacenters.com/data-
center/indianapolis%E2%80%99-emergency-operations-center-anchors-former-dead-
mall-turned-data-center/) ) , but will anyone build new malls? I mean carriage
houses have been renovated into everything from B & Bs to pubs to studios, but
the carriage house is still dead.

If no one is willing to spend the money to seriously build a new mall then the
mall is dead. It will still be part of the landscape for a while, just as you
can see the remains of failed fast food chains, nuclear weapon launch sites,
and pre-bussing decentralized high schools, but that is just reuse.

~~~
vidarh
Lots of places in the world malls are still being built at a rapid pace.
London, for example, is seeing an ongoing stream of enlargment, redevelopment
and new mall developments. For an example local to me, the Australian
developer/mall operator Westfields has formed a joint venture with another
developer to combine two local malls and redevelop them into one huge mall,
which make Westfields 3rd huge mall in London:

[http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/croydon-westfield-
set-...](http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/croydon-westfield-set-to-go-
ahead-after-planners-support-1bn-scheme-8963792.html)

Maybe large parts of the US just has too many/too large ones, given how many
of them were developed pre-online shopping. And a problem with malls is of
course that population shifts are far harder to accommodate when such a large
area is operated as one unit. If the mall owner does not actively manage
changes due to changes in the surrounding area, it can easily become obsolete
as a whole.

------
malandrew
Or you know they could try to promote more mixed use properties, which is what
most people actually want.

It's very clear that city centers are growing everywhere because that's what
young people are gravitating towards. It's a lifestyle thing and if they don't
consider the lifestyle people aspire to in their future plans, they are going
to go bankrupt again.

Take a look at SF for an example. Many people would love to live in the few
blocks surrounding the commercial areas of the Mission, the Haight (upper and
lower), North Beach, Union Street, Hayes Valley, etc. Those areas are
desirable because they are supremely convenient. They are the "modern mall"
because they are also the "timeless mall", i.e. the mall that naturally forms
when people decide where they want to shop instead of corporate overseers.
It's a pattern that exists everywhere in the world in big modern cities to
small towns designed before the advent of the car.

Betting on mixed use buildings creates "captive demand", since your commercial
store customers conveniently live right upstairs. And they are happy to live
in such buildings because they provide the ultimate access by foot to food,
bars, supermarkets and other businesses that enrich their lifestyle.

There are a few thing they need to do to make such mixed use properties
desirable.

* Mixed use properties need authentic business with unique identity instead of franchises (e.g. a building with a starbucks and a moe's underneath it isn't as desirable as one with a neighborhood coffee shop and a local burrito joint). * The deals struck by commercial owner's associations (COAs) need to consider the needs of the HOA which is often formed after the COA for any mixed use property. Any property (like the Beacon in SF) where the COA has unfair deals that prejudice the residents of a building often end up in litigation that suppresses the value of the the property in the building causing the building to move to having more renters than owners.

Unfortunately many of the new building projects in SF don't take this into
account. There are a ton of new projects going up south of the ballpark. All
those properties will be filled because of the extremely limited stock of
housing, but they are not going to be desirable places to live because of how
few of those properties are designed to be mixed use, which is what will make
that area feel like a neighborhood instead of a vertical suburb that you need
to leave in order to visit a commercial center.

------
egypturnash
Basically my feeling is that malls are "over" for people who are too poor to
shop anywhere but the deep discount world of Walmart. If we get minimum wage
raised to a high enough place that they can actually pay for anything more
than the barest minimum to pay rent and eat and whatnot, then they'll have the
funds to start shopping at places that actually have nice things and well-paid
employees.

I live in Seattle. There's a lot of malls, shopping districts, and other kinds
of collections of shops. There's also a lot of money in the town, to support
all these stores of all sizes.

Malls are dying all over because money is increasingly concentrated in the
hands of fewer and fewer people. People who want their malls to thrive should
be campaigning for a living wage for everyone (or eve better, a basic income)
- because all those people will have enough money to happily buy all their
pretty trinkets.

------
bluedino
One of the more interesting solutions to malls is transforming them into
office space, one good example is Rackspace converting the Windsor mall into
their HQ -
[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?_r=0)

It's easy when you have 3,200 employees that you need under one roof, but
malls would work great for for 20-500 employee businesses as well. The larger
companies would take the spots used by anchor stores and of course the smaller
companies could subdivide or take the smaller stores.

There's plenty of parking, they're located in the suburbs where many people
live - and the food courts can even stay open, those employees have to eat
lunch somewhere.

------
bane
This is really an important question as malls are usually massive holders of
lots of valuable real estate in many towns.

Where I live, there are...maybe around a dozen proper stereotypical malls
within an hour drive. Of those, the two malls I literally grew up in have had
very different trajectories.

The one next to my highschool is a veritable empty shell. I think it sits at
40% occupancy, with entire wings boarded up, lights turned off and otherwise
abandoned. When I was in High School it was the city center, so bustling and
full of people it was often hard to walk in a straight line. I'd leave school
and go to the mall instead of taking the bus home, mill around in the arcade
for a bit, eat some cheap Chinese food in the food court, bum around in Radio
Shack or the electronics section at JC Penny or just hang around with friends
mallrats style. It seemed like it would stay this way forever.

But some key demographic shifts happened in the 2000s and the entire city
changed, leaving the mall a grotesque enlarged gangrenous tumor hanging off of
the attached Walmart. Strangely, the arcade that was there, then closed, is
back open again and one of the few signs of life in the entire place.

I've thought a lot about what happened, and the basic conclusion is that it
had to do with the housing boom and bust. In the 2000s as the housing market
was exploding, people who had lived in this older city suddenly found out
their houses had doubled in value. They sold them off and turned the equity
into a down payment on a new house in new suburbs. Those new suburbs came
complete with new malls (the two new malls near the new suburb I live in are
pretty jam packed all the time) and everybody left.

So who bought those old houses? The people who were working on building the
new suburbs. In this case largely immigrant workers from Hispanic countries.
They needed the cheapest possible housing, and these older areas, though now
much more expensive, were still lower cost than the new suburbs.

Because of the higher housing costs and the lower pay these new immigrants
had, expensive mall shopping just wasn't on their regular agenda. Better
bargains were the draw and Walmart boomed, outgrew their original store and
struck an agreement with the mall for cheap property and rent if they could
become the new anchor at the mall. If you drive a circle around the mall these
days, the parking lot outside of the Walmart is packed to the gills, there are
maybe 2 dozen cars in any other lot at the mall combined. A walk through the
mall tells the same story, Walmart is buzzing with activity, but right outside
the doors, nobody goes anywhere else.

To give you an idea what a huge shift this is and that I'm not imagining it,
when I graduated, my highschool was something like 85% White, and 3% Hispanic.
In 2012 it was less than 30% white, and 42% Hispanic. For comparison, the
demographics of the entire region are 55.41% White and 16.3% Hispanic.

The other mall, in another nearby town, is doing well. It's a larger mall, and
the demographics of the area didn't really change all that much. It's not
quite as busy as it used to be, the anchor stores seem to be the most empty,
but it seems to be getting along fine.

Now in the 2000s, two new malls sprung up in the newly built suburbs. One, a
traditional all under one roof enclosed 1.4 million sq ft mall. It's new and
pleasant and does pretty well. It's not packed at all times, but business is
obviously doing well enough there. The other is an open air discount outlet
mall and it's packed, shoulder to shoulder, at all times. I bet if I were to
go there right now I'd have trouble finding parking. It's booming, and there's
talk of them expanding the property to a sister mall across the main town
thoroughfare with a connecting pedestrian tunnel.

There's also a pair of high-end luxury malls in another nearby town that have
been through all of this pretty much without hiccup. A time traveler from 1998
to today wouldn't notice much difference except for the fashion.

So yes, I think some malls _are_ dead or dying. That much is clear. But I
think the reasons for it are more than just Amazon. There's still lots of
services I get from my local malls. I don't go every week, but the 3 or 4
times I do go I inevitably walk out with a few hundred dollars worth of
clothes and other goods. And looking at the other people there, the
demographics span from young to old, I don't think Amazon has quite replaced
the kind of buying where you _have_ to go see the product.

Some stores have caught on to this, and have a seamless exchange program from
their online stores. They _know_ that you'll end up buying something you don't
like or can't fit into, so they let you bring it back to their physical store,
because that's less hassle than shipping it back. They'll even time online
sales to preceed in-store sales a bit, so when you come to the store to return
the ill-fitting item, why don't you browse the 50% of sale they're offering
right now?

 _edit_

Thinking about this more, I think a similar effect can be seen in the midwest.
As agriculture labor shifted to much cheaper migrant workers and automation,
the people who used to live in these places year round either became less
affluent, or moved away. Either way the local malls had a smaller pool of
eligible customers and they die off.

~~~
maratd
I think you hit the nail on the head and this is really region specific.

There was a mall next to me when I was growing up and it was dingy, just
poorly maintained. Then the area became hot, Whole Foods moved in. Then
Target. Then a bevy of smaller upscale retailers. Now that dingy mall is
unrecognizable and filled to the brim. Not a single vacancy. Not a single open
parking spot either.

Malls aren't dying. Some malls are, but that has nothing to do with the mall
paradigm and has more to do with the local population. A mall can't get up and
move. It's like a tree. It is where it is and it either thrives or dies.

~~~
greghinch
> Malls aren't dying. Some malls are, but that has nothing to do with the mall
> paradigm and has more to do with the local population. A mall can't get up
> and move. It's like a tree. It is where it is and it either thrives or dies.

I would argue this is exactly why malls are dying, that they can't keep up
with more and more rapidly evolving socio-economic trends and shifting
demographics across geographies. Another byproduct of globalization and
technology-driven streamlining of commerce

~~~
EpicEng
Ehhh... it really depends on where the mall is located. Back home (podunk
Rockford IL) malls are indeed dying. They are dilapidated and/or ghost towns.
Ten years ago this was not the case.

Where I currently live (La Jolla CA) the opposite is true. Of course, the
malls are filled with stores like Saks, Nordstrom, a Tesla show floor, etc.
These places are packed. I know I'm not going to buy a $1200+ jacket online
any time soon, so I go to the mall for high end stuff.

~~~
mjn
Houston is a weird mix of both, perhaps as a result of its impressive sprawl.
There are dozens of abandoned malls, and dozens of thriving ones. Perhaps land
is so cheap that it's just easier to build a new one than to renovate an older
one. Gives a weird feeling: by the numbers Houston's economy is booming, but
experientially it feels sort of post-industrial, with abandoned properties
dotting the landscape.

~~~
armenarmen
Houston still weirds me out this way. I stayed in a warehouse near Dynamo for
a year or so, in one direction it was a dystopian hell hole and in the other a
booming-soon-to-be-hip area. I think that our lack of zoning laws makes this
cycle even stranger compared to the rest of the country.

~~~
Rude
Thunderdome?

------
z92
Reminds me of this op-ed from 1995

"...how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire
Internet handles in a month?"

[http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-
nirva...](http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-
nirvana-185306)

~~~
dasil003
LOL, that's good for a chuckle... at least as long as Newsweek is able to keep
the lights on :)

------
Patrick_Devine
Maybe it's because I live in Palo Alto, but it seems, at least here, that
there is a hollowing out of the middle end of the spectrum. On the low end,
there are still the Target's and the Walmart's, and on the high end you have
things like Stanford Shopping Center, Union Square, Santa Row, etc. The middle
has taken a real beating though, as has the low middle. I'm not sure who shops
at JC Penny, Sears, or even K-Mart for that matter.

~~~
ams6110
K-mart's problem is that their merchandise is no better than what Wal-Mart
carries, their selection is worse, and the shopping experience in their stores
is, in my experience, worse than at Wal-Mart as hard as that may be to
believe.

Target seems to be a step above Wal-Mart/K-Mart, and I'm guessing that has
been a big part of JC-Pennys' and Sears' problem. The local JC Penny's here
has gone, and going to Sears feels like stepping into the 1970s, the store
literally has not had a serious rennovation since then. Target stores are new,
bright and well-organized and reasonably pleasant to visit.

~~~
Patrick_Devine
I definitely agree. I think Target has positioned themselves as the low end
place you go to shop if you don't want to be associated with the crowd that
shops at Walmart. I'm not sure anyone even knew that that segment existed.

You can see this playing out in the airlines as well. JetBlue/Virgin
America/EasyJet are all low cost alternatives to the majors, but more upscale
than RyanAir, Allegiant or Southwest. Actually, in many cases they're even
nicer than the majors, but they can't offer great connections or as
comprehensive business travel.

------
mildtrepidation
Obligatory: No, they're not.

More relevant to HN: The comments so far suggest that many of us are pretty
far removed from not only the demographics that use malls, but also the people
who run them and the shop owners and managers that are their tenants. It's
important to remember, though, that this doesn't mean they don't exist or that
they're somehow wrong.

Many malls are still successful, and to suggest that because some are closing
the model is dead is baseless.

------
trekky1700
I think the American model of malls may be over. The model where there are
crazy numbers of huge malls everywhere, even in relatively small populations.
But malls are still hugely popular.

In Canada, where we have a lot less malls, they seem to be growing more
popular. With renovations and extensions being built to attract and
accommodate more shoppers. But there aren't that many major malls here, and
they stick to major population areas. I'm always surprised the size of malls
in small towns when I visit the US. Northwood, Ohio has a population of 5,000.
That doesn't seem like it could sustain a mall the size described, even if you
include the surrounding area and assume there's no other malls in the area.

I think the model will change, but malls will stay around for a long time.
You'll have larger malls servicing more population, rather than malls for
every town.

------
sergiotapia
I sure hope not. Some of my fondest memories when I was growing up in the
States was visiting stores like JC Penny, the random Electronics store or
Jack's Joke Shop with my parents, then swinging by the food court and eating
some Sbarros pizza.

When I come back home, I would like to take my son to the mall as well and
spend the morning just browsing around and buying trinkets. It's fun!

Amazon may be cheaper but come on, going to the mall is not all about
shopping, it's about the experience!

~~~
jimktrains2
What about if you did all that, but in your city center? I'd argue that that
would have been a better experience than the mall.

~~~
ryanhuff
I live in Southern California suburbia. The nearest true city center is an
hour metro train ride away, while the nearest mall is a ten minute drive. For
me (and millions of others here) the malls are more convenient.

~~~
sizzle
there are more "open air" shopping plazas here in socal than I can count,
which I think is the reason indoor malls are a dying breed here: our weather
isn't bad enough to warrant indoor shopping + the population/foot traffic here
in California is growing and highly congested compared to other states.

~~~
ryanhuff
Agreed. Some very popular malls in socal are of the open-air variety. I was
replying to the parent, who mentioned "city center".

------
Tiktaalik
In Vancouver two malls (Oakridge and Brentwood) are being redeveloped,
pivoting away from their car oriented, suburban roots and becoming the anchor
of transit oriented complete communities. In 2010 Oakridge got a transit
connection for the Olympics which has helped it stay relevant. Now the city is
taking advantage of the connection to build a transit oriented community
around the site, doing away with outside parking, adding several towers,
planning for surrounding mid rises, and turning the roof of the mall into a
park. Nearby Burnaby is doing this same with their mall, which has had a rapid
transit connection since 2001.

[http://www.straight.com/news/608306/vancouver-approves-
oakri...](http://www.straight.com/news/608306/vancouver-approves-oakridge-
centre-redevelopment-plan)

~~~
cperciva
There's also a lot of office office space going in at Brentwood and Oakridge.
In short, they're shifting from "shopping area to which people drive" to
"miniature downtowns connected by rapid transit". (Arguably Metrotown was the
first of these, although it was a bit too early to benefit from the
condoization shift.)

I think we're going to see a lot more developments like Burnaby's "SOLO
District" \-- underground parking, 10 acres of ground floor retail, ~7 acres
of park space on the roof of the retail space, 1-2 acres of 6-storey office
space, and 2-3 acres of 30-50 storey residential space. If you're lucky, you
could live, work, and shop without leaving the building -- and if you do need
to go somewhere, the skytrain is right across the street, so you probably
won't need to drive.

------
pessimizer
Yes. They were a horrible substitute for public spaces anyway. Now the malls
aren't the only alternative to teenagers wandering the streets engaging in
aimless vandalism; they can stare into screens 12 hours a day, yet still shop
and gossip (and engage in aimless vandalism.) Also, Amazon.com doesn't have to
pay taxes, because Internet, so that's accelerating the decline of all
physical retail. Malls weren't doing great before Amazon - deadmalls is nearly
a dead site, it's been around so long.

The only good places for malls are cute little cities that attract a lot of
small town tourists, and places with a lot of people too old to understand the
internet but rich enough to not have to work.

------
ulfw
If US malls want to survive they need to start copying international malls,
which are a lot more upscale, better looking (new or significantly renovated)
and above all offer a much better mix between entertainment (movie theaters
etc) and food (actual restaurants you would WANT to go to instead of
chain/fast-food places) as well as stores. The problem with many malls is that
they are copy cats of each other. Uninspiring 'practical' architecture,
inedible food, the exact same stores at every mall, not much to do besides
shopping and having a fast-foody coffee.

~~~
maxerickson
U.S. malls do tend to have movie theaters. But they aren't going to pay high
rent to get into a mall if there is open commercial land anywhere nearby.

It's a similar thing with decent restaurants, they don't necessarily gain much
from the association.

I saw a thing in a local paper that the bankrupt mall should 'bring in' good
stores. Of course this is backwards, the stores mentioned in the comment have
no interest in running a store in a run down mall in a small market.

~~~
ulfw
Very true actually. It's just sad that malls had to get all the way to the
state of being run-down. What I suggested should have been down 10 or even
more years ago. Right now I'd agree with you that many malls have to work hard
to find tenants who'd be unwilling to be associated with a mall.

------
justinph
Yes and no.

Crappy malls are dying. Decent malls in more affluent areas are diversifying
their experiences and thriving. In some places, indoor malls make a lot of
sense. I live in Minnesota (home of the original indoor mall, Southdale). It's
cold here a good chunk of the year, and an indoor mall isn't a half bad idea.

------
mwfunk
I have fond memories of hanging out in malls when I was a kid, but my fondest
memories are about things that I don't find in malls anymore. Arcades, toy
stores, book stores, hobby shops, electronics, music shops, etc. Those things
still exist but it seems like there's a lot less of them now.

When I go to malls now it seems like nothing but designer clothing stores. I
swear there used to be a lot more diversity in the the types of stores you'd
find. I'm not sure if this is a real trend or just the haze of childhood
memories.

------
blahedo
I'd like to mention three malls that don't purely fit the "greybox" model and
may point to a likely future for malls in general.

\- West Edmonton Mall (Edmonton, AB). In one sense, it is the mother of all
greybox malls, surrounded by an asphalt moat. But: it's accessible via local
transit, and it's very much in the model of an artificial downtown: it
contains hotels, apartments, a hockey rink, an aquarium, and a variety of
other things not in the simple greybox mall. This is because it gets really
freaking cold in Edmonton in the winter and it's nice to go "outside" without
going "outside"; and the diversity of stuff that's there keeps it more alive
than at, say, Woodfield (outside Chicago, IL). The food court felt less like a
food court and more like a street that had a bunch of little food shops on it.
Basically, they've adapted "downtown" to the needs of their climate.

\- The Ala Moana Mall (Honolulu, HI). I mention this mostly to contrast the
previous one. It's laid out like a greybox mall, but since it's Honolulu, they
just skip the whole "roof" thing on the central ways. So it's really more like
a pedestrian street with a lot of shops on it. Also, it contains (or is
adjacent to?) some non-shop things, and it's well-connected by transit. EDIT
to add: There are outdoor malls other places, too, and they're sort of in
vogue right now. What makes this one different is how well-adapted it is to
its surroundings.

\- Providence Place Mall (Providence, RI). Built much more recently (1999 or
so), it does include a parking deck but isn't surrounded by asphalt in all
directions. It's got entrances that are right off a relatively walkable
street, with a couple transit connections (and it's about two blocks from the
main central transit station). Internally, it feels _nothing_ like a classic
greybox mall: it's five stories with shops on both sides, and lots of windows
give it plenty of natural light. It felt much more like a part of downtown
than an alternative to it.

So basically, it's possible to set up your mall in such a way that it steers
clear of the major problems plaguing malls; and there's certainly reason to
think that reinvention rather than abandonment is the mall's likeliest future.

~~~
ams6110
Combining residential spaces with malls is an interesting idea. There are a
lot of builing codes that now require ground-floor retail on any residential
buildings over a certain number of floors, but I've never seen or thought
about revitalizing malls by adding a residential component. One downside would
be that the parking starts to get taken up by residents rather than shoppers.

~~~
spiralpolitik
Which is why you combine shopping, residential spaces, and transit hubs so
that owning a car becomes optional rather than required.

For a bonus you add employment spaces so that people can live, work, and shop
in their communities.

------
greggman
Come to Singapore. There's places where there are 7 or more malls all right
next to each other and more being built. Kuala Lumpur seems to have lots of
shopping centers being built and many of them get full as in the there's no
parking left.

~~~
dageshi
Probably the climate? I'd imagine in summer Singapore and KL are ferociously
humid and hot?

~~~
kalleboo
Even outdoor malls in Singapore have air conditioning
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke_Quay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke_Quay)

~~~
ulfw
That's not a mall. It's a collection of restaurants (mostly for tourists). Not
a single shop there.

~~~
kalleboo
The point isn't that Clarke Quay itself is a mall (even though the owners,
CapitaMall Trust themselves call it a mall...) but that the weather doesn't
have to be an obstacle for outdoor shopping.

------
giantrobothead
When I was a wee lad, my Grandmother used to spend days with me while my
parents were working, and after say, a morning in the park, we'd go to the
mall and get lunch at the restaurant in JC Penney's.

It was run by a gentleman of Greek descent, whom my Grandmother knew, as she
seemed to know everyone, and served brunch, lunch, dinner, like any other
small cafe. I would routinely get a hot dog, served on toasted white bread. It
was tremendous.

I miss those days, and the subsequent teen years of the nineties spent mall-
ratting with my friends, hitting the record store, book store, the arcade
(don't get me started on the demise of the video game arcade) people-
watching...

Times change, and I assume, so will these structures, whether it be to fade
into irrelevance or transform into something vibrant and communal again.

------
jimmaswell
The malls around me are doing just fine. My friends and I find them to be a
fine place to go occasionally. I've always found them to be a nice place to be
around. I don't really get the complaints about them in this thread. That law
of headlines thing applies here.

------
bluedino
Malls are on life support.

Our local mall has 3 anchor stores: Macys, JC Penny, and Sears. Two of those
three have reported sales increases in the last quarter but it's a mystery on
how Sears stays in business.

The other popular stores are all gone - American Eagle, The Gap, etc. Instead,
new tenants have replaced them which make the place look like an indoor flea
market.

Also enhancing the flea market look are the kiosks of people reselling things
from cell phone cases to cheap sunglasses and worse jewelry than the mall
jewelry stores, which are half gone as well. There's even a store that's
almost like a 7-11, they sell candy bars and bottles of soda and chips.

~~~
interstitial
Those anchor stores are on life support. New channel anchors: American Girl,
Apple Stores, etc, etc. What is dead is price-based stores the internet has
replaced.

~~~
res0nat0r
I think Betteridge's law of headlines applies to this article. I live in Indy
where the (billionaire) Simon's live, who own Simon Property Group. Their
stock is currently @ 161, up 100 points over 5 years ago. Their stock has just
been upgraded:
[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140312006497/en/Fitc...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140312006497/en/Fitch-
Upgrades-Simon-Property-Groups-IDR-Outlook#.UyXX1q1dWJU)

I used to live between two of their major malls for years. I could barely
leave my apartment for 2 months before xmas due to traffic. They just spent
millions remodeling their high end mall adding capacity and additional room
for high end stores like Sacks and Restoration Hardware.

Non generic crap malls are fine. Junk stores that have generic brand cheapish
clothes and the like (JCPenny) are being replaced by Amazon, but overall malls
are doing fine.

------
jccooper
The demographics have changed around the first- and second-generation malls
enough that many of them are no longer viable. Since they're huge properties,
they tend to rot slowly. They're finally dying. There's probably some
fundamental challenges wrt online shopping, and preference for more "natural"
environments, but there are plenty of malls that are doing very well,
especially the more upscale ones.

Just because not every mall is succeeding, it doesn't mean the whole category
is doomed. (Not that I actually like them, but enough people certainly do.)

------
thrush
What do malls offer that regular shops do not (besides lots of stores being
located closely together, but thanks to Yelp and local transportation, that
doesn't seem like too big of a benefit).

UPDATE:

So I am from NYC, and I have lived in urban areas my entire life. Finding the
right stores so that I could make immediate purchases has never been an issue
for me, but based on early comments, I clearly have a myopic view.

I can see how a mall could potentially offer an "urban" experience (meaning
that food, stores, people are all conveniently located in a nearby area) in a
non-urban area.

~~~
bliti
A mall is a gathering place for many people of various age types. One does not
simply go to the mall to shop. Sometimes it is to socialize.

~~~
thrush
Nice. So how can we recreate the gathering place in an era where the mall as a
shopping center is no longer necessary or successful?

~~~
Gracana
I think the direction to take would be to focus on the things that online
stores can't provide. Clothes fitting, product repair, demo products to look
at and play with, etc. Apple stores seem to do this quite well: they don't
have hundreds of products on the shelves (online stores will always have you
beat there), everything is nicely spaced out and you are free to walk around
and play with the products. If you need advice or want to buy, you can talk to
a sales rep. If you need something repaired, they do that too.

------
stephen_g
Not in Australia. We've probably had over $2 billion in re-development and
upgrades integer biggest six shopping centres around the city I live in over
the last three years... The one a ten minute drive from my house is wrapping
up a two year, $450 million upgrade this half of the year. Pretty crazy, but
they are doing pretty well making them places where you might actually want to
be, which is important now online shopping has meant they are no longer places
you need to go.

------
praetorian84
Half the problem is that every single mall where I live has basically the same
shops. I find that often new malls seem to be built largely as speculative
investments by property developers, rather than to fulfill an actual need. All
that happens is that that the new mall is either a disaster, or gradually
replaces an older one, simply because the demand doesn't exist for yet another
collection of the same chain stores.

------
royaljelly
The US is lucky to have its malls. TFA mentions growth coming from Asia, where
pretty much every new development - and there are a lot - is a luxury mall
that positions itself as an 'integrated' destination i.e. retail,
entertainment, lifestyle, office space and residential. The problem is worst
in Hong Kong where MTR Corporation, which owns the underground network, also
owns the land that its stations sit underneath. It makes more money from the
malls it builds on top of them than from running public transit.

The luxury part is a problem too in that Chanel, Gucci etc are given free/low-
cost storefronts to up the image of the mall which not only raises prices for
normal tenants but means they put their goods prices up too so they look like
a serious alternative to the luxury brands. Chinese malls in particular have a
lot of made-up Chinese-owned store brands with foreign sounding names, selling
utter rubbish at wildly inflated prices.

I wish the 'high end' here was JC Penney or Sears. And forget a reasonably
priced Kung Pao chicken; I hope you enjoy chicken feet and birds nest.

~~~
acchow
> Chinese malls in particular have a lot of made-up Chinese-owned store brands
> with foreign sounding names, selling utter rubbish at wildly inflated
> prices.

I find this comical whenever I see it in China - especially brand names with
western geographies on their merchandise. "California 1973", "Cambridge".

------
hawkharris
I enjoy two things about going to my local mall...things that I can't get from
online retailers: instant gratification and ceremony.

1\. Instant gratification....If I'm excited about a new product, I can get up
immediately and travel to the store, find and pick up the item. Sure, this
entails an effort of its own, but at least I'm taking action instead of
waiting for a package to come.

2\. Ceremony: You may not appreciate this unless you're a videogame buff, too,
but there was nothing like waiting in line for GTA5. It was truly
ceremonial... High school students, construction workers, businessmen, etc.,
all stood with me because we were so excited to tear off the packaging of that
game. The store even hosted a party featuring competitions and prizes.

Will malls survive? I don't know....the prices, selection and convenience of
Amazon are hard to beat. But my advice is to capitalize on the instant
gratification and the ceremonial aspects of shopping in-person. Online
retailers haven't yet found a way to duplicate this IMHO.

~~~
twerquie
What you describe as "ceremony" I take to mean socialization, that you are
shopping with the public in a market atmosphere and I think that's something
absolutely intrinsic in all human cultures and isn't going anywhere. The mall
is the perfect style of market for shopping for clothes, media, fast food,
housewares.

------
gdilla
one thing missing in these predictions is the fact that we are still social
animals. It certainly is convenient to buy online, but teenagers, busy parents
(where they can amuse there little ones in play areas or Santa) and people
(increasingly) seeking relief from the heat (as in socal), gather at malls,
and engage in both planned and impulse buys by just being there. I'm not
saying malls are good, or efficient, or will survive in current form, but,
there's a reason why Barnes and Noble has converted into a coffee shop with
books - people like to hang. We may see malls take on more experiential
offerings to make up for underutilized retail space.

Additionally, I know that best buy and guitar center will price match any
price I show from an online retailer on my phone (this is so not obvious, but
just ask). Just knowing that, I will occaisonally go to the mall or physical
shop to actually look at things & try them out.

------
mrharrison
No. Come on silly question. They are still alive and well in many cities. Even
in SF, where you are suppose to order a single dental floss through google
shopping express to be part of the cool crowd. Going to the mall allows you to
quickly search many stores at once, which will be a need for some time.

------
kimmel
The city I live in now only has 2 traditional style malls left. When I moved
here numerous years ago it had 7 malls, all of which were accessible by bus.
That is a major change and there has been no new malls built. The buildings
just stand there like relics of a time gone past. Retail and restaurants have
moved into existing strip malls that had space available due to businesses
folding. Back where I grew up it is the same story.

I miss the tradition malls because some had unique and good food places. As
well as arcades, movie theaters, and places to hang out. Malls that are
thriving do so because there is enough population around to support the
businesses and they have new stores coming in to fill out the empty spaces.

------
pjbrunet
I find "indoor" malls are great for working on code. Even in bad weather you
can take a break and stretch your legs, do some window shopping and then get
back down to work. It's nice to have a predictable environment like that. Also
malls tend to have high, airy ceilings. I'm no architect but I find large open
spaces to be pleasant, for lack of a better word, especially for cerebral
work. IKEA is a great place to work on code too. Free coffee.

------
thrush
How does the profit hierarchy work in a mall? Do the owners of the real estate
see a larger margin than they would if owning an aggregate of locations
outside of the mall?

------
jusben1369
I feel like the article was trying to make the point "traditional malls from
the 80's are dying" but didn't do a good job at that (the title for example).
So that's leading to a lot of comments saying "Well some malls are flourishing
and some are dying" I suspect the flourishing ones are the newer malls that
have a lot of unique features you can't get online (food/cinema/furniture)

------
slashmasterx
The thing I found most surprising about this article

>Internet sales reached six per cent of total retail spending in the fourth
quarter of 2013

I thought that would be a bit higher.

~~~
astrodust
Remember that the fashion industry has revenue that absolutely _dwarfs_ the
tech industry. It's so far beyond that it's not even funny. People can't go
naked, they need clothes, and most of the time they prefer to try them on, see
how they look and fit, then purchase in person.

Then there's food which is even larger. The online ordering of groceries is a
drop in the bucket. You want fresh food, you're going to have to go and hand
pick it.

Not surprisingly Wal-Mart has a foot in both camps.

~~~
mikeash
Does the fashion industry really "dwarf" the tech industry?

Random googling tells me that the global fashion industry does about $1.2
trillion in revenue per year. Microsoft, Google, Apple, and IBM together do a
bit over $400 billion per year, so about a third of that, and that's only four
(albeit large) tech companies. I'd be surprised if you couldn't more than
triple that number after you accounted for all the other tech companies in the
world.

~~~
astrodust
That's still a fraction of the fashion industry. It's long-tail from there.

~~~
mikeash
Samsung's electronics division does almost $200 billion/year. Foxconn does
$120 billion. Hitachi is also about $120 billion. HP is about $110 billion.
Amazon is $75 billion. Intel is $50 billion. Need I go on?

------
thrill
I don't care for shopping in general, but malls are far from dead. I had to
pick my daughter up from a modeling gig at the mall yesterday - I literally
could not find a parking space. There were people waiting in nearly every row
for someone - anyone - to pull out. It's the middle of March and it was as bad
as Christmas.

~~~
meddlepal
Some malls are thriving, but many are dead. In the city I grew up in I can
name at least two that are dead or close to dead. On the other hand if you go
just outside the city then there are two that are still going strong.

------
hansy
I can't even remember the last time I set foot in a mall. I think it was to
try on a suit, but even trying on clothes will be virtualized with augmented
reality. Other than being a destination place to hang out, I don't see much
utility in malls.

~~~
hibikir
Augmented reality won't tell me that two pairs of pants, from the same store,
that say they are 30 inches long at the waist, are really 29 and 31. Different
colors mean different suppliers and different results.

The technology that will tell us if some pants are a good fit or not is still
nowhere near where it need to be.

Many other stores will die quickly though.

~~~
spiralpolitik
Actually technology will make sure that your pants fit just perfectly from the
1000s of measurement taken by the full body scanner in the retail store you
ordered them from.

The future of retail will be where it is fully integrated into the
manufacturing chain to enable just in time manufacturing and delivery of the
perfect item with the cost savings from such automation passed onto the
consumer due to competition.

~~~
aestra
No.

It won't tell you if the fabric is too itchy/uncomfortable, just one example.

~~~
spiralpolitik
You try the fabric on at the same time you get the laser measurements done.
Stores aren't going away, just the way they will work.

------
woofyman
The Atlanta metro area has 17 malls. A third are struggling and a third are
thriving.

~~~
bluedino
Is that based on the average income of the area they are located?

------
plumeria
I think the best model so far is the mixed development: offices, residences,
and commercial stores all in one. That's what you see in developing countries.

------
tbirdz
I only went to the local mall to go to the movie theater, which was located
inside the mall. Then the movie theater shut down, so now I never go to the
mall.

------
singingfish
Hopefully, they're toxic environments that showcase the worst aspects of the
industrial revolution.

------
nick2
Yep, can't remember the last time I bought something from a mall. Maybe 5
years ago or more.

------
smadge
What's with all the hate for brutalist architecture in this thread?

------
mbillie1
I hope they're dying - malls are miserable places to spend time.

~~~
interstitial
As opposed to the DMV, the post office, the ER waiting room and other paragons
of bureaucracy?

~~~
mbillie1
How are shopping malls paragons of bureaucracy? Paragons of shallow
consumerism, if anything... and while the DMV et all are surely dehumanizing
and Kafkaesque, the mall is a special and unique sort of revolting to me. But
different strokes...

------
Eleutheria
Malls as shopping centers may be over, but those who transmute into amusement
parks will survive.

I rarely go to the mall for shopping, but I go many times a week for a walk, a
fancy dinner, or just to meet people.

~~~
Zigurd
When I bought a house just outside route 495, I had to plan grocery shopping
carefully or I'd be stuck with no pizza delivery and a can of beans in the
pantry. Now I have a new shopping center with a BJs, a supermarket, and soon a
Cabelas so I can shoot all the food I won't be able to buy after Immanent
Collapse
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404923))
about 12 minutes away, door to door.

Clearly there was demand. The supermarket is often packed, even though it
isn't as big or nice as the Wegmans that opened a bit farther away. There are
malls even farther out that appear to be prospering, including some old ones
that are less seedy than they used to be.

Curiously, there is still a lot of empty office space off 495. The newly built
then mostly evacuated Sun campus off Route 3 is still very slack. So people
out here are making and spending money, but not filling up the old Digital and
HP buildings.

------
kimonos
Can't imagine my life without malls. Haha!

------
kingkawn
I think the time to turn these all into public mural projects and community
spaces has finally come.

