not your average Mall / Walmart at xmas time

"OPPOsaurus WRX" (opposaurus)
12/16/2019 at 10:39 • Filed to: None

the m ajority of this place is up for demo to be replaced by an open-air ‘lifestyle’ center. I’m sure that will be wonderful when it is -10 windy with 2 feet of snow. The kids enjoyed it as they could run around without anyone lese being there to care.

DISCUSSION (19)

fintail > OPPOsaurus WRX
12/16/2019 at 10:55

If Xers move on from nihilism (unlikely), malls are going to come back as nostalgia attractions. I’d go.

facw > OPPOsaurus WRX
12/16/2019 at 10:56

There are many months where it could be good. That said, for disused malls, especially ones near transit, I like the idea of building up housing on the site and then loading up the indoor space with restaurants and such to create a walkable indoor main-street type thing. Add some office space as well, so that people living there might not have to commute, and to create daytime customers for your restaurants and stores.

facw > fintail
12/16/2019 at 10:59

I’m an (early) millennial, but I was in a mall last week, and only the restaurants held any appeal for me. The rest of it just felt like “shop here to get ripped off by not buying online! ”

ranwhenparked > facw
12/16/2019 at 11:00

Which is exactly what Victor Gruen, architect of the first modern indoor shopping mall, intended. He wanted them to recreate the traditional town square with weather protection. Suburban zoning restrictions usually prohibited putting housing and hotels on the same site, but he wanted it to all be mixed use and walkable.

fintail > facw
12/16/2019 at 11:03

It’d need to be done on a 70s/80s retro theme with lots of neon and pastel colors and woodwork. Also specialty stores or something like an Amazon store to lure people in.

That being said, the most successful mall in my entire corner of the country is a 10 minute walk from where I live, and I might go there once a year, and that’s just to eat, so maybe not.

SiennaMan > facw
12/16/2019 at 11:05

There's a basically abandoned mall north of Cincinnati that I think that would be a great idea for. It's right on the freeway and has some box stores anchoring the end closest to the road. From the pics I've seen of it though, it looks less like that and more like the set for a horror movie (too few skylights/windows and most of the lights out)

Chuckles > OPPOsaurus WRX
12/16/2019 at 11:05

One of the malls near me is an open air mall. I actually like doing Christmas shopping there because the cold temps keep the crowds down.

SiennaMan > fintail
12/16/2019 at 11:06

I think a certain percentage are going to hold on and be profitable, the US at least was about 30% or so over built of them by 2005, and there's no clean way to ramp down with something like a mall..

Michael > fintail
12/16/2019 at 11:20

So basically the Starcourt Mall in Stranger Things

Ash78, voting early and often > OPPOsaurus WRX
12/16/2019 at 11:23

Our mall is doing pretty well, it seems to have bounced back over the past few years while staying fresh and inviting (the entire roof is a skylight to prevent claustrophobia , and it also has a fairly large hotel and an office tower attached to it).

Meanwhile, it’s upscale strip malls that are suffering (upscale and traditional both) . I’m still not sure how developers convinced people that walking around outside between stores was somehow better. Plus most of the time people just get in their car and re-park it 200 yards away because walking is often too hazardous or the weather is bad.

Today it looks like a cluster of outparcels is the new thing. Like 5 mini- strip malls in one development, with a small anchor like Aldi or whatever.

ranwhenparked > SiennaMan
12/16/2019 at 11:27

The major regional “destination” malls - Christiana Mall in Delaware, King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania, Mall of America in Minnesota, etc. will be fine. It’s the small and midsize malls in less ideal locations that are going to continue to die off. There’s no room in the business for mediocrity anymore.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > facw
12/16/2019 at 11:27

Well, it IS why retail is dying. I was on an overseas flight last year next to two “retail real estate consultants” coming back from a conference on Maui. I couldn’t resist asking, basically, “Well, according to TIME 2017 was the year retail died in America, so whatcha working on these days?”

Their replies were basically the above... “retail ‘EXPERIENCE’ centers were the hot new thing and a lot of malls would be re-purposed to that int ent even as new “experience centers” come online”. I suppose the way the Grove in West LA was renovated is the wave of the future.

Seems weird to be investing in new forms of retail in places like SF and LA when the shortage of housing is so acute. And when Amazon and Walmart Online can put anything you want on your doorstep in a few hours.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > facw
12/16/2019 at 11:39

Not to harp on the LA thing, but I’m always appalled anywhere in SoCal when a tired mall or industrial site or old factory gets “renovated” into yet another megamall retail experience center.

If I look at the Rocketdyne Canoga site (Saturn V factory), Hughes Aircraft (Culver), Rockwell Downey (Space Shuttle), Convair Pomona/Ontario... it drives me crazy to see them basically putting big box retail onto those sites that scream “put some high density housing in here” .

Every o ne of those had the value, size and potential density to become another exurban residential site... string a bunch of those together with light rail (Orange Line ain’t cutting it) and direct connections downtown, to Union Station and LAX... and suddenly you have a new, workable model of Modern LA, with 100,000-250,000 people in higher density housing (condos, townhomes, etc) with efficient, non-car-based transit to other important nodes in the region. Instead, we get basically no more housing, but yet more traffic on the freeways.

And I’m still scratching my head over how the crown jewel at Toro got turned into a park when “housing shortage” virtually screamed out— “ let’s put a PUD of epic size here, with transit and services, with thousands of acres to show we can build a new city in LA and do it right.” Everybody likes a park, but given all the (highly flammable) open space in LA, it seems weird that OC didn’t seize the opportunity.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > OPPOsaurus WRX
12/16/2019 at 11:42

BTW, I’m always amazed when I see a dead Wal-Mart. I used to kid the wife, when traveling, that if you are in a rural town and see a dead Wal-Mart... that means in a few minutes as you head out of the same town you’re going to see, much farther outside the City Limits, an even larger Wal-Mart Supercenter that replaced the “in town” one...

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > fintail
12/16/2019 at 11:51

OPPO Tutorial: Nihilism Explained, by experts in the field.

My X-type is too a real Jaguar > Michael
12/16/2019 at 13:00

Th e y tore that out because too many people were sneaking there, I was one of them

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > OPPOsaurus WRX
12/16/2019 at 14:08

The problem is your looking at from s user and not a merchant.

They don’t want to go to “the mall” they want tou to go to ____. Also To hinder ease of walking betweeen stores isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. They want the illusion of choice, but they don’t want to comparing Macy’s to lord and Taylor. Then there is the coordination problem, where Victoria secrets wants to be next to American Eagle, and no one wants to be next to yankee candle.

fintail > SiennaMan
12/16/2019 at 19:26

You’re right no doubt. I can think of malls my region that are still alive and well, while others are dead. So many variables.

I think overall, the higher end malls will fare better.

sdwarf36 > OPPOsaurus WRX
12/16/2019 at 20:47

If you haven’t yet, watch the show ‘Abandoned’ of the Vice network. Pretty quirky but interesting show. They check out some malls in various steps of un-use.