The irony is that we actually thought malls were an efficient way of shopping. Everything in one place. Then the internet came along, and we really got to see the ease of shopping. And staying home. And not lugging bags from one store to the next, because the car was parked too far away. Malls are now a model of inefficiency.
12
Malls are boing. Plain and simple -- especially those that have generic stores that are in every mall (we all know them). Some of these comments are valuable in terms of identifying which malls work (those with local interests, connection to community, and other activities) and uses for malls that don't work (government offices, senior centers). It's time to be creative.
3
As a former manager of Blockbuster video I'm still surprised and confused concerning the underestimation of internet commerce from mainstream economic analysts.
This seems to be a direct correlation to me on lost revenue. A 10-15% decline in relation to the same amount in online sales? Also, most online shopping habits as they pertain to big box stores still generate revenue to those establishments. Many offering delivery or a cheaper option of in-store pickup, which seems to be the "loss leader model" of the 21st century. I always find myself purchasing a few items at these stores as long as I'm already there.
The biggest problem blockbuster faced in my tenure was that no matter how large or organized the stores may be, they contained a finite amount of titles that on-line ordering always bested. Mall stores a typically higher in price per item per store. They too contain a finite amount of products and usually these products are researched on-line first before anyone ever steps foot inside. Throw in the fact that retail still relies on the holidays for a large bulk of their annual business and that any item purchased will then need to be shipped to relatives, friends, etc.There is entirely too little reason to leave your house anymore. If the economic middle class is indeed the largest demographic to withdraw into their homes then perhaps this new American isolationism is why so many believe that they are disappearing.
This seems to be a direct correlation to me on lost revenue. A 10-15% decline in relation to the same amount in online sales? Also, most online shopping habits as they pertain to big box stores still generate revenue to those establishments. Many offering delivery or a cheaper option of in-store pickup, which seems to be the "loss leader model" of the 21st century. I always find myself purchasing a few items at these stores as long as I'm already there.
The biggest problem blockbuster faced in my tenure was that no matter how large or organized the stores may be, they contained a finite amount of titles that on-line ordering always bested. Mall stores a typically higher in price per item per store. They too contain a finite amount of products and usually these products are researched on-line first before anyone ever steps foot inside. Throw in the fact that retail still relies on the holidays for a large bulk of their annual business and that any item purchased will then need to be shipped to relatives, friends, etc.There is entirely too little reason to leave your house anymore. If the economic middle class is indeed the largest demographic to withdraw into their homes then perhaps this new American isolationism is why so many believe that they are disappearing.
9
how many more dead malls, airport terminals can we take? really becoming redundant.
Michael
Michael
2
There is a great tendency to over-saturate any market. Recent implosions have forced the closures of many "big box" business supply competitors, clothing stores, restaurants, even hospitals. Malls come and go, too. So do the current ,"vogue" - casinos. We do not notice the "little guy" as much now as we did in the past century. Businesses do still rise and fall, but the inertia of the mall has a much greater impact than the closure of a local corner store.
5
Dead malls are just one more instance of how we as a society are losing a sense of cohesion and community. I fear what will happen to us when everyone remains at home 24/7 tapping away at computers.
14
"Big Box" stores, like Home Depot, Best Buy and Staples are locating themselves as stand-alone stores or in strip malls. This is undoubtedly contributing to the demise of the old-fashioned indoor shopping mall too.
5
In the small upstate NY town that I grew up in, businesses were forced to close in the '80s as a proliferation of malls were constructed. Now I see those same malls with an I dressing number of vacancies - but Mom & Pop small businesses are doing just fine!
Why? Because the locals shop locally! They patronize the shops of the people who they've gotten to know personally. This is not rural America; it's suburban America.
If the opportunity presents itself, I will always choose to shop locally when in the 'burbs. Today's malls (some, not all) can be an absolute nightmare to get in and out of in a timely manner. It's easier and less time-consuming to go through JFK when catching a flight.
I believe in progress and modernization, but this country is simply too overly-malled. Nothing in this story surprises me.
Why? Because the locals shop locally! They patronize the shops of the people who they've gotten to know personally. This is not rural America; it's suburban America.
If the opportunity presents itself, I will always choose to shop locally when in the 'burbs. Today's malls (some, not all) can be an absolute nightmare to get in and out of in a timely manner. It's easier and less time-consuming to go through JFK when catching a flight.
I believe in progress and modernization, but this country is simply too overly-malled. Nothing in this story surprises me.
13
Like everything else today, there are some good malls and some bad malls. Some are being abandoned, while some are thriving and even expanding. Westfrield Garden State Plaze and Roosevelt Field both have had multiple expansions. It depends on the real estate maxim "location, location, location.
1
Like everything else today, there are some good malls and some bad malls. Some are being abandoned, while some are thriving and even expanding. Westfrield Garden State Plaze and Roosevelt Field both have had multiple expansions. It depends on the real estate maxim "location, location, location.
3
While inequity and a declining middle class are real issues, dying malls represent a much different issue — too many malls built with the assumption that at 70 percent of the economy, consumer spending could only go up. With tens of millions of unleased retail space, there are better ways to use all that land, such as parks and public open space. or sites for affordable housing.
Dead and dying malls are economic Darwinism at work. They will be demolished and eventually forgotten.
Eclectic Pragmatist — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Dead and dying malls are economic Darwinism at work. They will be demolished and eventually forgotten.
Eclectic Pragmatist — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
11
There's one good use that hasn't been suggested: a "Blues Brothers" remake.
5
Unless one actually works in a mall, there is little reason to go to a mall. On-line shopping at stores such as Nordstrom include free shipping for purchase and returns; their web site has wonderful pictures. Who has time to search for the correct size/color/brand in clothing when one or two clicks gets the job done; it is even more effective than using a personal shopper. Target has added a "subscribe and save" service similar to Amazon's for many of the necessary household items. Why lug laundry detergent, paper towels or kitty litter through snow (or rain or heat) when delivery is free or cheap? Shopping in malls or big box stores is hard work and takes time; much easier to do on line with price and feature comparisons available. If I want great in person service or unique items, I shop at local small businesses who generally can't afford the rent at a mall. Lots of reasons to avoid any kind of mall unless one goes for the exercise. I can't imagine why any new malls would be built and am very sure existing ones will continue to die.
6
As someone who worked in the retail trade I find it very sad that many of these once flourishing malls are closing down. For years it seemed as if retailers were following the "McDonald's model" of having a store within 15 minutes of where we are. At least it seems so here in CA. The failure of these malls as others have pointed out is a combination of being over stored, online competition, the Walmart effect of the race to the bottom, the evisceration of the middle class and changing demographics.
Perhaps I am an anomaly but many times I like to look at an item online first but prefer to go to a brick and mortar store to actually check it out and purchase it. A picture - even if it is enlarged and has a description - does not do the trick. I have to see for myself if the item is one that suits my needs. This is especially true of clothing and shoes. I just hate having to mail an item back if it doesn't work for me.
I have always felt that some of these malls should be turned into low income housing especially to help those entering the labor market in low wage jobs. They could also be turned into housing for the homeless to help them get a foothold back into the mainstream of society. And no - I DO NOT mean section 8 housing or shelters. Perhaps there can be a combination of subsidization and programs based on the specific needs of each person and family. Just thinking out loud.
Perhaps I am an anomaly but many times I like to look at an item online first but prefer to go to a brick and mortar store to actually check it out and purchase it. A picture - even if it is enlarged and has a description - does not do the trick. I have to see for myself if the item is one that suits my needs. This is especially true of clothing and shoes. I just hate having to mail an item back if it doesn't work for me.
I have always felt that some of these malls should be turned into low income housing especially to help those entering the labor market in low wage jobs. They could also be turned into housing for the homeless to help them get a foothold back into the mainstream of society. And no - I DO NOT mean section 8 housing or shelters. Perhaps there can be a combination of subsidization and programs based on the specific needs of each person and family. Just thinking out loud.
10
Owners of "dead malls" should look into refurbishing them for villages for people with dementia. See article about how these villages work in Denmark:
http://gizmodo.com/inside-an-amazing-village-designed-just-for-people-wi.... The inside looks just like a mall with a residential apartment section. All store and food court staff are trained to interact with people who have dementia. The residents move freely between their apartments, stores, food courts, common areas, movies, etc.
http://gizmodo.com/inside-an-amazing-village-designed-just-for-people-wi.... The inside looks just like a mall with a residential apartment section. All store and food court staff are trained to interact with people who have dementia. The residents move freely between their apartments, stores, food courts, common areas, movies, etc.
21
What an exciting idea! If only we funded social needs with our taxes.
18
No malls? Where will teenagers hang out? The same place the shoppers do. On the Internet.
5
Malls are not dying in the US because of online shopping companies like Amazon. They are dying because they are isolated from society in the "great american suburbs". From personal experience most major malls I have seen that are not dead or dying were in urban centers or the affluent parts of suburbs. While the older less affluent suburbs had dying malls. How many malls are dead or dying in New York city? The suburbs are the cause. Malls are indoors in Europe and they do not have these same problems. Because the people live closer and there are better anchors at these malls like grocery stores and movie theaters.
8
Looking at all the comments here dancing on the grave of malls, I can't help but think back to all the comments a few years ago cheering on the demise of Borders and the continuing struggles of Barnes and Noble. The death of these malls does not herald a re-thinking of the culture and policies that created them, or a rebirth of the small town centers left decimated in their wake.
It's just another step in a progression. The poorer (and few remaining middle income) Americans who used to shop at these malls will now go to big box stores with even less sense of community than the old malls had. The affluent will shop in quaint downtown areas resembling the ones that existed prior to the malls, only with a far more exclusive selection of stores and restaurants. The divide between rich and poor will continue to grow.
It's just another step in a progression. The poorer (and few remaining middle income) Americans who used to shop at these malls will now go to big box stores with even less sense of community than the old malls had. The affluent will shop in quaint downtown areas resembling the ones that existed prior to the malls, only with a far more exclusive selection of stores and restaurants. The divide between rich and poor will continue to grow.
28
Wow, I'm surprised to read that White Flint Mall in Bethesda is out of business. When I lived in the D.C. area in the 1980s, White Flint was so popular.
4
Its called CHANGE.
Get used to it, because what People like changes - except for Christmas, Thanksgiving and July 4th, when people will fight to preserve tradition.
Smart businesses stay ahead of the change curve.
Those that guess wrong fail.
It has no bigger societal meaning.
It's as simple as that.
Get used to it, because what People like changes - except for Christmas, Thanksgiving and July 4th, when people will fight to preserve tradition.
Smart businesses stay ahead of the change curve.
Those that guess wrong fail.
It has no bigger societal meaning.
It's as simple as that.
3
We have an enormous foreign trade deficit. All our money now goes to China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mexico, India, Pakistan, ..... we have nothing left to spend that has not been lent to us or our government to pay for wars.
7
In my own experience as a suburbanite who, like most, makes more day-to-day purchases than “high-end” ones, the demise of malls is readily explained as follows:
When I am looking for certain fungible, everyday items (e.g., toothpaste, cat litter, motor oil) that I know I can get at a good price and will be in stock at the local WalMart, AutoZone, etc., then I go there. The parts of the store and even aisles I have to go to for these items are so routine/familiar it takes almost no time and hardly even qualifies as “shopping” in my mind.
However, when I’m looking to make an occasional “higher-end” or a more specialized purchase (e.g., a new jacket by a “specialty” manufacturer, a particular brand/model/size of running shoes, etc.), I often know that I will have to travel farther than it is worth to find a store that might have it. Even then, my past experience has proven it is typically not worth the trouble since it may not be in stock in my size or at all. Thus, I make most or all of these types of purchases on-line.
Finally, I find I am purchasing more and more items on-line, even though I might be able to track them down locally, such as memory cards, auto parts and even cat-food. These are items I typically don’t need right away and are often sold cheaper on Ebay, Amazon, etc. than in the local big box store.
It all adds up to going to the local mall once every few years, most often to kill time while my car is being serviced nearby...
When I am looking for certain fungible, everyday items (e.g., toothpaste, cat litter, motor oil) that I know I can get at a good price and will be in stock at the local WalMart, AutoZone, etc., then I go there. The parts of the store and even aisles I have to go to for these items are so routine/familiar it takes almost no time and hardly even qualifies as “shopping” in my mind.
However, when I’m looking to make an occasional “higher-end” or a more specialized purchase (e.g., a new jacket by a “specialty” manufacturer, a particular brand/model/size of running shoes, etc.), I often know that I will have to travel farther than it is worth to find a store that might have it. Even then, my past experience has proven it is typically not worth the trouble since it may not be in stock in my size or at all. Thus, I make most or all of these types of purchases on-line.
Finally, I find I am purchasing more and more items on-line, even though I might be able to track them down locally, such as memory cards, auto parts and even cat-food. These are items I typically don’t need right away and are often sold cheaper on Ebay, Amazon, etc. than in the local big box store.
It all adds up to going to the local mall once every few years, most often to kill time while my car is being serviced nearby...
12
What kind of experience can one have at the mall?
- blasting music that I can't stand which interferes with me being able to think about anything
- terrible, expensive food in the food courts
- zero play areas for kids. Trying going shopping with a small one with maniacal energy to burn
- no place to sit. The developers obviously want you walking, into the stores.
- repetitive retail. How many t-shirts, earring and runners does one need?
- zero culture. How about some youth singing, bands playing, seasonal dance troupes coming in every once in a while?
Here in the Lower Mainland, we have a Summer Night Market in Richmond, running for about 4 months in the summer. It's open air, it's uplifting to watch the live nightly entertainment, the food vendors are adventurous, and you have a good time with your friends. The Night Market is vibrant and lively. The malls don't offer anything beyond me trying on a Size Small vs. Medium.
- blasting music that I can't stand which interferes with me being able to think about anything
- terrible, expensive food in the food courts
- zero play areas for kids. Trying going shopping with a small one with maniacal energy to burn
- no place to sit. The developers obviously want you walking, into the stores.
- repetitive retail. How many t-shirts, earring and runners does one need?
- zero culture. How about some youth singing, bands playing, seasonal dance troupes coming in every once in a while?
Here in the Lower Mainland, we have a Summer Night Market in Richmond, running for about 4 months in the summer. It's open air, it's uplifting to watch the live nightly entertainment, the food vendors are adventurous, and you have a good time with your friends. The Night Market is vibrant and lively. The malls don't offer anything beyond me trying on a Size Small vs. Medium.
12
Owners of "dead malls" might look into converting them into housing and communities for the elderly with dementia. There was an article in the NYT not so long ago about new enclosed residential communities that looked, on the inside, like malls and apartments. The stores were all staffed with people who were trained to interact with people with dementia. The residents moved freely between their apartments and "stores' and "food courts" and community activity centers. These new-style communities are being developed and used in one of the northern European countries--The Netherlands or Denmark perhaps.
8
Income inequality? This is about the ravaging of conventional physical retail stores by Amazon and other online retail sellers.
Which is okay in some respects.
But the failure of Amazon to collect local sales taxes has given them a huge pricing-advantage vs. conventional retailers. It is an inappropriate subsidy that hurts local retailers who pay for real estate and hire people.
Which is okay in some respects.
But the failure of Amazon to collect local sales taxes has given them a huge pricing-advantage vs. conventional retailers. It is an inappropriate subsidy that hurts local retailers who pay for real estate and hire people.
8
Our economy is taking a "malling". Our cities are in decay. Detroit, once the hallmark of our vast automotive industry, now lies in ruins. The worst is yet to come. Corporations like Apple have vast hordes overseas. Will any of that come back once it leaves to pay for our next fad?
2
The problem is not only with malls. When the recession begain, lots of stores, some national chains like Circuit City and Borders, went out of business leaving huge retail spaces in strip malls that remained vacant for several years. I remember there was opposition to building so many new big-box shopping spaces. Now the chickens have come home to roost.
Commercial real estate boom and bust speculation is bad for commmunities for several reasons: large natural areas are paved over and polluted, small downtown stores are put out of business, and when one fails, having a giant empty big box or mall is depressing to local property values and encourages crime.
One wonders what tax breaks and other policies fueled this kind of development. I am guessing the mall developers haven't, overall, lost money. How does the death of a mall affect the local community economically? Did they give tax breaks that they now regret? It would be interesting to see a deeper treatment of the question of regulating development for the good of the community.
Commercial real estate boom and bust speculation is bad for commmunities for several reasons: large natural areas are paved over and polluted, small downtown stores are put out of business, and when one fails, having a giant empty big box or mall is depressing to local property values and encourages crime.
One wonders what tax breaks and other policies fueled this kind of development. I am guessing the mall developers haven't, overall, lost money. How does the death of a mall affect the local community economically? Did they give tax breaks that they now regret? It would be interesting to see a deeper treatment of the question of regulating development for the good of the community.
39
I've read where a "dead mall" somewhere in the Midwest is/was being transformed into a mixed-use property for seniors, where one or two levels were being converted into small, affordable apartments, while the retail level would be re=purposed to cater primarily to these residents, with restaurants, supermarkets, medical offices, theaters, and other services available right within the safety and convenience of the building.
As the Baby Boom generation continues to age and more of us need to find affordable housing that is convenient to the resources we need and want, this seems to be a brilliant use of dead space.
As the Baby Boom generation continues to age and more of us need to find affordable housing that is convenient to the resources we need and want, this seems to be a brilliant use of dead space.
34
After seeing the photos and then re-reading the article, I sort of shuddered when I read that many of these dead malls are facing "demolition."
I just hope that these behemoths aren't just being torn down and dumped in a landfill.
Let's hope some of them will be deconstructed and whatever usable/recyclable parts are saved.
I just hope that these behemoths aren't just being torn down and dumped in a landfill.
Let's hope some of them will be deconstructed and whatever usable/recyclable parts are saved.
7
Hmmm. No direct mention of the death of the middle class. Just that the A-rated malls, presumably catering to the top 10% of earners, are doing well. The article observes that e-commerce is not entirely to blame. OK. So you're left with the death of the middle class and, as others have observed, the walmartization of the economy. It's a surefire recipe for the race to the bottom.
8
The time is coming when all the malls will be empty. When the dollar goes belly-up and the new world economy is established with new fiat "one world" money, the SDR. Appearing soon in your economy, brought to you by your Federal Reserve Bank.
1
Shopping, eating out, or seeing a movie at a big mall is not a pleasure because of traffic approaching the mall and the parking hassle. Comparison shopping the internet saves gas, time and is often cheaper with free delivery and often no sales tax. Smaller strip malls with a good grocery store, shops and restaurants that have their own outside entrance are much easier to navigate and find parking. The savings in gas and time are a bonus too.
7
Can't quite resist - Is the US economy becoming mall-adjusted to itself? Seems to fit a pattern, doesn't it?
2
Shopping malls always gave me a creepy feeling. They seemed places where people went because there was "no there there" - no downtown shopping streets - in their communities. Kids go to the mall because there's noplace else to congregate, which is pretty sad in itself: social life revolving around spending.
The whole thing is phony from the ground up. Maybe I'm showing my age but I think we can do BETTER without them, by concentrating more on creating actual communities instead of synthetic environments, accessible mainly by car, for shoppers from suburban noplaces that do nothing to encourage and support a sense of citizen community. When you live in a development instead of a town, you shop in a mall instead of your town. And everything is homogenized and regularized so you can't tell if you're in CA or AL.
A shopping center is only about money; a real town has a lot of other things going on in the mix: medical offices, libraries, houses of worship, museums, concert halls and other types of theaters, clubs, actual individually-owned restaurants and bars, civic offices - all offering reasons to be there. A mall has nothing but stores and possibly chain fast food joints and movie theaters A mall is more akin to a gas station than to a community's shopping streets.
The whole thing is phony from the ground up. Maybe I'm showing my age but I think we can do BETTER without them, by concentrating more on creating actual communities instead of synthetic environments, accessible mainly by car, for shoppers from suburban noplaces that do nothing to encourage and support a sense of citizen community. When you live in a development instead of a town, you shop in a mall instead of your town. And everything is homogenized and regularized so you can't tell if you're in CA or AL.
A shopping center is only about money; a real town has a lot of other things going on in the mix: medical offices, libraries, houses of worship, museums, concert halls and other types of theaters, clubs, actual individually-owned restaurants and bars, civic offices - all offering reasons to be there. A mall has nothing but stores and possibly chain fast food joints and movie theaters A mall is more akin to a gas station than to a community's shopping streets.
15
It is a symptom of our dying economy. Jobs will be created by getting our government to borrow and spend on a ”stimulus". In the meantime, the "stimulus" funds end up being put into overseas tax shelters. What jobs would we all have without war, currently the only available economic "stimulus"?
5
I'd love to see some of these repurposed into artist studios and exhibition spaces. I'd go to a mall for that.
16
While malls may die they are only supplanted by big box retail developments and the walmartization of North American consumer habits. In Canada the malls seem to be doing fine. And in the right markets there is an influx of luxury outlet retail malls.
3
I lived in the Philadelphia suburbs and watched as a mall tried to stay afloat. In the early 2000s, it offered a diverse array of stores. There was a movie theater and a church aptly named church on the mall sharing the same parking lots. I often went in the winter when my children were young for a warm space in which to let them run around. Others used the space for the same purpose - or, more accurately as a track. I remember looking around once, seeing all the young children and mall walkers and wondering why the mall wasn't doing more to capitalize on this? All this open space and nothing for a kid to climb up! Why not paint a track onto the floor? Why not offer quality food that an exerciser would purchase? The vacancies started popping up and the quality of shops declined. Not until then did the mall build a little enclosure for toddlers, but it could have been so much more.
The mall owners really don't seem to understand what a community needs. It can't just be about purchasing - there are too many other options for that. They need to become more of a communal space - especially in extreme hot and cold weather when outdoor open space is less welcoming.
The mall owners really don't seem to understand what a community needs. It can't just be about purchasing - there are too many other options for that. They need to become more of a communal space - especially in extreme hot and cold weather when outdoor open space is less welcoming.
11
I love the specter of dead malls and feel not an ounce of remorse about their existence! To me they represent the death of Main Street America as people moved to the suburbs. Their proliferation resulted in the spread of the mind-numbing sameness of most of retail America today.
In the 1950s food in this country became as processed and fake as can be before reversing course to the focus on fresh and organic choices we see today. My hope is that the mall represents the low point of a compartmentalized and homogenized retail experience, with a return to mom & pop specialties even if they are found online.
In the 1950s food in this country became as processed and fake as can be before reversing course to the focus on fresh and organic choices we see today. My hope is that the mall represents the low point of a compartmentalized and homogenized retail experience, with a return to mom & pop specialties even if they are found online.
12
I owned a small business in a mall for years. Its impossible to survive. The rent is astranomical. And the rules make it impossible to run a business. $30,000 rent for just November/December. $4000-5000 a month the rest of the year. For a tiny little space. And even if there's a state of emergency because there's so much snow, if you don't open they fine you hundred of dollars. Only corporations could hope to survive in that situation.
Lower the rent, make the rules small business friendly. And you'll fill up your vacancies in no time.
Lower the rent, make the rules small business friendly. And you'll fill up your vacancies in no time.
15
Check out deadmalls.com
I don't know if he keeps the site up, but some pretty impressive examples of dead malls.
I don't know if he keeps the site up, but some pretty impressive examples of dead malls.
2
For my back problems, I do as much online shopping as possible. One thing I still want to go to the stores is clothing. My local Lord & Taylor is my usual go-to place. However, the store and the mall as a whole are so wheelchair/walker unfriendly. No automatic doors, narrow walkways in stores, escalators rather than elevators, all make people needing assistance walking impossible to visit. I know malls are geared toward the young, but you sure lose people in my category - we want to spend money in your store, just unable to get around to do so.! :(
3
I stopped going to my local mall on a weekly basis once the Barnes & Noble there closed.
6
I still have vague memories of Roosevelt Field Mall from the time its was a mere open corridor between two rows of stores, anchored only by Macy's. There were then also important shopping destinations in Hempstead: A&S (the largest grossing suburban department store in the country during the late 1960's) Arnold Constable, Gimbels (I think), Alexanders, others.
Hempstead went from being the commercial center of northwestern Nassau county to a crime-ridden slum.
Hempstead went from being the commercial center of northwestern Nassau county to a crime-ridden slum.
3
The loss of malls is nothing to mourn, but what that loss signifies - the destruction of the middle class - should be the subject of a nonstop national dialogue inspiring massive efforts to undo the damage. The decline of the middle class is the direct result of deliberate policies such as NAFTA-type "trade" agreements, strong dollar policies etc.
We should be rounding up all politicians, think tanks, political donors and the pundits who support this on-going class war.
We should be rounding up all politicians, think tanks, political donors and the pundits who support this on-going class war.
9
Malls are just a dated concept. They arose in the 60s and 70s as an attempt to recreate and then merge some idealized vision of small town "Main Street" with a futurists climate controlled environment (remember those artist's renderings of cities under glass domes?")
Norman Rockwell meets the 1964 World's Fair.
Norman Rockwell meets the 1964 World's Fair.
8
I ordered a present for my 20 mo grandson from Macy's online but chose to pick it up at a Macy's store in a huge mall not near my home to get it sooner. My visit to the mall was horrible. Google maps got me to the mall efficiently (thanks GOOG!). But I spent ~10 min driving around the mall itself trying to find the right store. As parking structures blocked the view of stores' facades, I couldn't read which was the right store. Finally I found it and luckily found a parking space near an entrance. But I had to climb stairs to go from parking lot to entrance: unpleasant for a 75 yo. with a bad knee. Once inside the huge bldg, I had to walk an enormous distance and travel down the escalator to reach the pickup point; all that walking inside was also unpleasant. Getting the gift at the pickup point was fairly quick (thanks Macy's). Since I was in Macy's I decided to look for new clothes for my grandson. Racks of clothes were disorganized & poorly labeled. Lines to make a purchase were long. I did buy a few outfits, but I suspect I'll need to return 1 or more (probably something will be the wrong size). Only advantage of Macy's in the mall was that I could touch the fabrics and tell their weight and softness. Next time I'll order online from some website with free shipping & free returns. I don't mind visiting stores in downtown where I can find the store I want easily, can park easily, don't need to walk long distances inside a huge building, and can find a helpful clerk.
7
I think this is the result of two problems. One is the result of over-saturation in the marketplace. There are simply too many malls and some are bound to close. That is part of the phenomenon. The other reason, mentioned by many of your readers, is wage stagnation. Big box stores like Kohl's, K-Mart, Costco and Marshall's have replaced the middle class department stores frequented by those of my parent's generation, like Alexanders and Gimbel's, and the continuing erosion of our middle class has created a shrinking market. People simply don't have the disposable income to spend on things they do not need. Hopefully, someone may realize that income stagnation has real consequences. You cannot base an economy on the top 5% of the population. They simply don't spend enough. A thriving middle class is the only way forward.
18
Shopping malls have played a major role in the destruction of community on the local level. Let us bring back the public square and ditch our retail worship addiction. People need to get together for intelligent discussion and let go of the hyperactive world of retail.
16
Just yesterday, I spent $400 on-line through Amazon.com ordering a bunch of household items. $0 delivery charge and fairly easy returns if necessary. I've found that many brick & mortar stores now have a very large selection of items that are only available on-line, and often w/ $0 delivery charge.
4
In our area there is massive duplication of chain stores in all the malls. But, an inequality of products offered in all the communities served by the malls. " Not available in our Lowell store" was a joke regarding a major retailer in the '70's. Today though it is equally true about the working class malls.
As for me. I do tend to avoid the malls entire, shop on line,and go further afield to communities that have developed interesting downtown shopping experiences that are purposely without Big Box presences.
As for me. I do tend to avoid the malls entire, shop on line,and go further afield to communities that have developed interesting downtown shopping experiences that are purposely without Big Box presences.
3
What do you expect after years of assaulting the Middle Class? A strong America is created by a strong consumer base. Right now, corporations are booming, but the people that work in them, and create the products that make those corporations valuable have gone unrewarded too long. All those companies are turning their backs on the country that made them great - and gave them so many breaks. We see little hiring, flat wages, less benefits, hoarded profits - and minimal taxes paid.
Right Wing glory heralds of capitalism can crow all they like, but Capitalism as the preferable economic model is failing. Corporate prosperity is supposed to bring expansion and to encourage opportunity and growth. Instead, jobs went overseas, and even in those places, workers now suffer. The only ones who have gained are the executives and the stockholders, nobody else.
All in all, you have to love what unrestrained, irresponsible capitalism is giving America these days... a whole heck of a lot of nothing. The Right keeps blaming the Left for all this, but this wave of failure is on them: unfettered corporate growth and Capitalism has been given more than a fair chance to prove it's value. It failed. It provides benefits for far too few for the costs it brings. After almost 35 years of trickle down economics, what's trickled down is... Poverty and Inequality.
Right Wing glory heralds of capitalism can crow all they like, but Capitalism as the preferable economic model is failing. Corporate prosperity is supposed to bring expansion and to encourage opportunity and growth. Instead, jobs went overseas, and even in those places, workers now suffer. The only ones who have gained are the executives and the stockholders, nobody else.
All in all, you have to love what unrestrained, irresponsible capitalism is giving America these days... a whole heck of a lot of nothing. The Right keeps blaming the Left for all this, but this wave of failure is on them: unfettered corporate growth and Capitalism has been given more than a fair chance to prove it's value. It failed. It provides benefits for far too few for the costs it brings. After almost 35 years of trickle down economics, what's trickled down is... Poverty and Inequality.
31
What political was behind the trade treaties that shipped those jobs overseas? Capitalism works if we use your examples of what it should accomplish. The problem for us is that it is working for overseas manufacturers.
In the early '80s as a teenager, I used to go to the mall to meet chicks! Before I got my driver's license my mom would bring me and a couple of friends to the mall on a Friday night and let us wander the mall and play video games in the arcade while she did her own shopping for a couple of hours. Instead of the mall, I guess teens play on Facebook and other social media today.
9
Would you let your little brother, Hugh G., tag along?
6
The Tucson area of Arizona has a number of dying malls, not so much caused by anchor store failure as by over building in expectation of massive residential growth that didn't materialize, or that materialized as snowbirds who don't help the year round economy. The same snowbird trouble plagues the over-numerous golf facilities.
7
Phoenix is a nightmare, the LA of Blade Runner. I graduated from HS in '69 and the metro area had farmland between Phoenix and surrounding towns, now paved over with shoddy strip malls, many of which in the over- developed far suburbs literally have tumble- weeds rolling through them. 5 houses per acre, the norm. 100s of water sucking golf courses.
The story of Phoenix, in the middle of the great Sonoran Desert, which covers a vast area reaching into Mexico and north to the high desert NE of the Navajo Rez, and due north over 100 miles before I-17 climbs into the mountains, is one of capitalist loving shills and con- men selling development for development's sake. There is no industry or well- paying jobs ( other than the usual doctors & lawyers) & there are many of broken lives who came to PHX, as it grew from around 500,000 metro area in 69 to 4.5 million, enabled by one of the biggest government boon- doogle, the CAP to provide water to a place that cannot support this population.
The story of Phoenix, in the middle of the great Sonoran Desert, which covers a vast area reaching into Mexico and north to the high desert NE of the Navajo Rez, and due north over 100 miles before I-17 climbs into the mountains, is one of capitalist loving shills and con- men selling development for development's sake. There is no industry or well- paying jobs ( other than the usual doctors & lawyers) & there are many of broken lives who came to PHX, as it grew from around 500,000 metro area in 69 to 4.5 million, enabled by one of the biggest government boon- doogle, the CAP to provide water to a place that cannot support this population.
4
I must be intellectually challenged . I enjoy reading , live music, the occasional play etc. but last week my mom was visiting from out of town and it was a miserable rainy day so my mother, my wife, our 8 year old son and I went out to lunch and the movies. Since the movie theater is right next to the mall we strolled around and did a little shopping afterwards.
We all enjoyed the day but maybe I should have stayed home and made our son read some Tolstoy....
We all enjoyed the day but maybe I should have stayed home and made our son read some Tolstoy....
3
It'll be a surprise to many investors when they discover most of these decrepit, failing malls are owned by the real estate investment trusts that heavily populate their retirement plans and 401-k's. As they say: be careful what you wish for, it just might come back to bite you.
7
Like casinos and race tracks, shopping malls are for an older crowd, a much older crowd, and that developers have not noticed this fact and keep building them is bizarre.
Know your customer.
Know your customer.
3
We already have racinos. How long before slots are added to failing malls?
2
I suppose I'm in the upper realms of middle class, but for me, malls have epitomized the cookie cutter sameness of our culture, made worse by the fact that almost every is made in China anyway. Many folks long for a sense of authenticity in their lives, and going to the mall (great if you're a teenager meeting friends or a senior looking for a warm place to walk) can feel as plastic and artificial as the commercials on TV.
17
Republicans have controlled Congress for sixteen out of the last twenty years. Hence, the disappearance of the middle class.
11
That's not actually correct. The Republicans were in total control of Congress - both chambers - between 1995 - 2001, then 2003-2007, then 2015 - ?
Note that I'm not disagreeing with your argument that GOP political control, or even significant influence in the federal government, is very bad for most Americans. The Republican party is our yoke, the ball and chain those of us who care about decent communities, justice, economic fairness, and opportunity for all must carry in this backward, anti-democratic, profoundly ignorant society.
Note that I'm not disagreeing with your argument that GOP political control, or even significant influence in the federal government, is very bad for most Americans. The Republican party is our yoke, the ball and chain those of us who care about decent communities, justice, economic fairness, and opportunity for all must carry in this backward, anti-democratic, profoundly ignorant society.
3
This is not a surprise at all. I'm afraid the larger malls WILL follow suit. As a shopper why should I dress up, drive a few miles (wasting gas) and pay for parking to shop in a store reeking of perfume ( to which I am allergic),walking miles and miles to find the store does not carry my size or the design I want? I now have this great shopping pleasure sitting at home in my jammies and with a few clicks get everything I want, most importantly in my size and a larger choice in designs and colors. And it is delivered to my door sometimes with an added delivery charge. More often than not, it is Free! Just imagine all the reduction in energy consumption and wastage of gas! Our carbon footprint can be reduced so dramatically! It is win-win situation for all - the shopper,the retailer and most important the environment! It will also allow the small Mom and Pop shops to flourish once again. I for one, will not be shedding a tear for the mall closures.
5
Almost eighty, I'm still nostalgic for great department stores.
18
Marshall Fields in Chicago seemed to take up a complete city block in early 70s-coming from Phoenix, the model for all the consumerist philistinism to come, I was awed by the vast floors of merchandise, several stories high.
4
One of the issues this article does not address is how malls take profit out of communities, leaving communities less resources to reinvest. Anytime the word "developer" crops up, it means money going to an elite that will sit on it. We need to encourage the redevelopment of Main Streets where small retailers build stores that respond to neighborhood demands, and return the money they make to other small retailers and local institutions in the neighborhood. A healthy local economy is one where neighbors support neighbors.
17
Franchises and big box retailers replaced mom and pop businesses. The former vacuum money out of the community and have no commitment to its development. When I was a kid, one family on the block owned the furniture store. Another owned a shoe store, another the grocery store, another the local pub where people went for a beer and burger. I agree - I think the loss of small retail opportunities for local families is part of what is wrong with our economy.
5
Maybe it's because I was born in the early 80's, but I still love malls. Ironically though I learned to drive a car in the parking lot of a dead mall lol.
8
internet shopping + a dismal future for anyone not on wall street or in tech = dead shopping malls and brick and mortar stores in general.
as a symbol of our imbalanced economy this is sad but is less mindless consumerism really that bad? is shopping supposed to be the entertainment it became? building an economy on discount jewelers, stores that sell nothing but hoodies and other crap from china is not really sound, is it?
as a symbol of our imbalanced economy this is sad but is less mindless consumerism really that bad? is shopping supposed to be the entertainment it became? building an economy on discount jewelers, stores that sell nothing but hoodies and other crap from china is not really sound, is it?
7
I have long bought from LL Bean in Maine and actually visited their store up there a few times, but mostly I use their on line and catalogue sales to purchased very durable high quality clothing that normal middle class people wear. The need to drive to a mall, phased out of my life decades ago. I recall roaming through stores like Macy's just hoping to find things I liked in my size and on some occasions I actually did. Sears was always fun because I love the tools, but since it became K-Martized, I rarely go in one. I notice most tools have lost the Sears replacement guarantee. And I once bought all appliances at Sears, but now the sales help is non-existent, it is down to Do It Yourself. I am more likely to buy from a local independent appliance store now.
The Big Box stores like Lowe's and Home Depot attract a lot of people, but when you need help to buy actual wood, they haven't a clue, largely because they don't have any decent wood in the store. My surviving local Lumberyard still does a brisk business, but even they have lost the knowledgeable people their business really needs. The world has changed, and people often buy poor quality because they no longer have sales people capable of explaining the differences in quality to you. I miss the local stores run out of business, like bakeries, deli's, Butcher Shops, Produce markets, etc but I never miss the mall.
The Big Box stores like Lowe's and Home Depot attract a lot of people, but when you need help to buy actual wood, they haven't a clue, largely because they don't have any decent wood in the store. My surviving local Lumberyard still does a brisk business, but even they have lost the knowledgeable people their business really needs. The world has changed, and people often buy poor quality because they no longer have sales people capable of explaining the differences in quality to you. I miss the local stores run out of business, like bakeries, deli's, Butcher Shops, Produce markets, etc but I never miss the mall.
20
Have you ever been to a mall in Hong Kong? In Shanghai? They are stunningly beautiful, architecturally inventive, each with its own unique and often quirky or interesting theme. Many have art exhibits incorporated into the overall theme. Many are linked to high-class hotel lobbies showcasing the best in interior design. I spent hours just walking around these malls, not necessarily shopping but just enjoying the sights, the art, the people and the food. Even down-market malls in Hong Kong (in Causeway Bay, for example) have a unique atmosphere. Compared to them, American shopping malls are soulless and ugly - the shopping equivalent of feedlots where experience is sacrificed to expediency. Unless we learn from Asia, we will become the nation of solitary online shoppers who have forgotten the pleasure of being in a beautiful public space together with other human beings.
13
Trees - yes, good idea. How about the government forgoes property taxes if the property owners replant forests to counter climate change?
3
I think one factor contributing to their demise (not mentioned) is the tremendous growth of big box thrift stores such as Savers and Goodwill. These stores have largely moved into spaces formerly occupied by closed chains like Circuit City. They provide an array of affordable merchandise (furniture, dishware, clothing, electronics) that attracts a broad swath of classes. I haven't gone to a new clothing store (Gap, Lucky, A&F, etc.) for over 5 years now. It's a testament to the reduced purchasing power of our middle (and lower) class. Why pay $48 for a brand new pair of jeans when you can get a complete wardrobe for the same price at a thrift store?
Plus, the increasingly upscale quality of these stores means I can often find everything from hand-signed Patrick Nagel serigraphs to high-end home theatre amplifiers at a price that allows me to make significant money reselling them.
Plus, the increasingly upscale quality of these stores means I can often find everything from hand-signed Patrick Nagel serigraphs to high-end home theatre amplifiers at a price that allows me to make significant money reselling them.
6
While they blame online retail, the real reason for the decline of malls is that the customer experience they provide gets worse and worse while the online experience gets better and better. Years of trying to "optimize" malls for the highest $/person/minute has led to a garish environment where ads are constantly visually shouting at you (sometimes verbally as well), it's impossible to find your way around, you're made to feel unwelcome if you do anything but buy, salespeople are clueless, and it's difficult to get the information you need for a reasonable purchase decision. They're just unpleasant places to be.
13
I love going into a CVS and being greeted by the "friend" who is paid to greet me at the door, while the check-out clerk has been eliminated and I get to interact with the mechanical voice in a machine that invariably malfunctions at the check-out counter. Why not put the greeter back behind the check-out counter again? I don't need to be greeted, but I would like to be served by a human being at check-out. Last time I was there they were broadcasting ads over the p.a. system. That could just be the last straw.
7
Interesting that this article makes no mention of another factor regarding "changing demographics and shopping patterns": the standards of comparison. I'm certain this is at least contributory. Grocery stores might be the clearest example.
When I was a kid, grocery stores were all very similar. White rubber-tiled flooring, lots of bright fluorescent lighting overhead, rows of metal shelving. It stopped there. Now, a store that looks simply like that is likely passed over as "crummy" in favor of the newer/nicer/bigger/better place that has marble tile on the floor (except of course in the few "boutique foods" aisles, where hardwood prevails), bakery area dressed in brick, and other departments set up to look more like individual specialty businesses. Sure, you have to grab people's attention first so you can get their patronage, if you hope to compete, but the standard has changed a lot.
Retail anything else goes the same way, I think. Once the new store or the new mall is in place, what was fine before frequently becomes second rate, or at least is perceived that way. It has a lot to do with chasing the American Dream (which, as we've read in the Times a lot lately, may or may not still exist).
It's similar to stories about lower-class folks driving through upper-class areas as inspiration to "get there." If it walks and talks like a duck, well, it must be a duck. So if I go to the more upper-crusty shopping locales, I must be on my way there as the norm. Soon I'll belong.
When I was a kid, grocery stores were all very similar. White rubber-tiled flooring, lots of bright fluorescent lighting overhead, rows of metal shelving. It stopped there. Now, a store that looks simply like that is likely passed over as "crummy" in favor of the newer/nicer/bigger/better place that has marble tile on the floor (except of course in the few "boutique foods" aisles, where hardwood prevails), bakery area dressed in brick, and other departments set up to look more like individual specialty businesses. Sure, you have to grab people's attention first so you can get their patronage, if you hope to compete, but the standard has changed a lot.
Retail anything else goes the same way, I think. Once the new store or the new mall is in place, what was fine before frequently becomes second rate, or at least is perceived that way. It has a lot to do with chasing the American Dream (which, as we've read in the Times a lot lately, may or may not still exist).
It's similar to stories about lower-class folks driving through upper-class areas as inspiration to "get there." If it walks and talks like a duck, well, it must be a duck. So if I go to the more upper-crusty shopping locales, I must be on my way there as the norm. Soon I'll belong.
5
Walmart is a mall unto itself and it keeps adding "stores" to its emporium. Not to count the Walmart effect is to miss a huge piece of the puzzle. Going to Walmart is, in fact, like going to the mall. Blight/Blessing is a political and sociological issue.
5
What isn't really discussed here is the fact that malls, and indeed retail in general, lack choice. One finds the same chain stores in any variety of malls in America. The cost of operating a retail business in a mall is perhaps too prohibitive so that only national chains can afford them. Where then is the incentive for the consumer to shop at one mall over another when the same stores are ubiquitous? Lack of choice is also inherent in the merchandise that retailers stock. Buying is not encouraged when items, such as brand names and private label items, are redundant in every store. Clearly many store buyers come to their jobs with only academic or financial training. Retail is lost art and if it is dying, it is because accountants have taken over the shop.
8
I think the problem with malls is not high end or low end, but what is in them, what is in the stores themselves. For the past 10 years or so I have gone to my local mall and emerged empty handed every time. Eventually I stopped going. The stores are no longer selling anything worth buying. The market they are targeting are the young kids, the 20-something demographic and they are ignoring everybody else, even though everybody else has money to spend. One by one, all the things malls sell acquired what I call the ugly disease and I simply won't buy it. What happened to nice clothing, nice furniture, nice accessories, nice anything? All gone in favor of trendy ugly garbage. High end malls are the worst, btw. My mall turned high end and I don't even bother, it is so boring. So the youngest garment I own is 10 years old, and I look and look for something worth buying (in stores, online, it doesn't matter) and find nothing. That is the real reason the malls are dying. Nobody wants what they sell. Bring back nice things and people would probably come back.
15
Buying Men's clothing is a lot easier. Over the years I have bought nearly everything I wear online. Cabelas. Lands End, Duluth Trading, etc. Rarely have I returned anything and prices are reasonable for quality goods. Even my shoes and slippers come from Cabelas. Women though have issues. My wife probably returns 20% of what she buys because of fit. Selection seems better from the catalogs because they can show all the colors and styles.
1
People who have money shop at Nordstrom's, not Walmart. The convenience and enthusiasm of shopping for fine things in a bricks-and-mortar store are worth the price to those who think of $20 bills as the smallest unit of useful currency. Furthermore, you get to see and use the item right away, not after a week of waiting. It's not Walmart or Amazon that's killing the mid-range malls, it is the stagnant real wages since 1977, and the job insecurity for the wage slaves that are still employed.
The media and politicians and boosters of the status quo like to talk about the (tepid) growth of real "household" earnings, ignoring that full-time moms have been squeezed out of existence by the actual decline in wages for each worker. Prior to the mid-1980s, household income was largely earned by one of the partners, and there was no expense for day care for the kids. We have growth in household income only because it is increasingly two earners,
The US Chamber of Commerce is the only US institution that can divert the party of the rich away from the current path that is killing their members. They had best get on with the task while there is still time.
The media and politicians and boosters of the status quo like to talk about the (tepid) growth of real "household" earnings, ignoring that full-time moms have been squeezed out of existence by the actual decline in wages for each worker. Prior to the mid-1980s, household income was largely earned by one of the partners, and there was no expense for day care for the kids. We have growth in household income only because it is increasingly two earners,
The US Chamber of Commerce is the only US institution that can divert the party of the rich away from the current path that is killing their members. They had best get on with the task while there is still time.
12
Don't hold your breath.
1
The secret to a successful mall: Orange Julius in the food court.
9
Convert some malls to destinations. Pot shops and growing facilities. How about elementary schools with large, indoor play areas. How about indoor food growing factories complete with a farmers market. How about converting to apartments for homeless people. These needs won't get replaced by Internet purchasers.
3
A mall near me that died was taken over by the local community college. The food hall there actually expanded - due to all those captive students at lunchtime.
2
Yes, the dead malls are a reflection of a shrinking middle class. They also can be a reflection of poor corporate management in the face of a changing economy. Have you tried go to Sears anytime in the past 10 years? The selection is uninspired at best and often repulsively ugly, the value isn't there, employees are dispirited by inept management, the lights are dim and stores look like they needed a facelift 20 years ago. You can feel the pall of depression set in the moment you approach the building. Who would want to shop there if they have any kind of an alternative?
On the other hand, being myself a member of this endangered middle class species who used to shop at Nordstrom's and Macy's but can't really afford it anymore, I was delighted to discover JC Penney during a trip to Northern California last spring. A bright store, fun selection, and competitive prices saw me walk out the door with 3 bulging shopping bags filled with fashionable practical clothing for under $300 - the price of 2 T-shirts and a pair of yoga pants at most local boutiques. Plus, JCP has a great website, which I visit often since Santa Barbara lost its JCP in the early 90s. It was replaced by a Saks 5th Avenue, where you can pick up face cream for $500 a jar.
On the other hand, being myself a member of this endangered middle class species who used to shop at Nordstrom's and Macy's but can't really afford it anymore, I was delighted to discover JC Penney during a trip to Northern California last spring. A bright store, fun selection, and competitive prices saw me walk out the door with 3 bulging shopping bags filled with fashionable practical clothing for under $300 - the price of 2 T-shirts and a pair of yoga pants at most local boutiques. Plus, JCP has a great website, which I visit often since Santa Barbara lost its JCP in the early 90s. It was replaced by a Saks 5th Avenue, where you can pick up face cream for $500 a jar.
10
How about turning dead malls into charter high schools or college campuses?
3
It's been done in some locations. Edgewater Mall in Biloxi has a branch of Tulane University under its roof.
2
This article fails to report the continuing costs to the dead mall's local taxpayers. All of them are built under agreements that the municipality will defer real estate taxes in exchange for "improving blighted property" or "developing in an enterprise zone" or "rehabilitating existing building stocks." The promise is that receipts for sales taxes will more than make up for the deferral. With the lifespan of the average mall less than 20 years and the abandonment of maintenance to the property - as well as vandalism and environmental degradation - few towns realize how much the mall gift horse is going to actually cost them.
9
The Hartford area (pop. 1.3 million) has essentially just two traditional malls, one on each side of the city, and they appear to be well-occupied by retailers. The secret of their success seems to be that nobody tried to build another mall of similar proportion over the years, even though some developers might have determined it feasible. Therefore, this region seems not to be over-saturated. And the two malls have slightly different customer orientation, one being a bit more upscale than the other.
2
The same subject was covered, two weeks ago, on PBS Newshour. Nice job, Times.
1
Along with malls came the mentality of shopping, aka consumerism, as "entertainment." I recall my sister-in-law having no better thought of what to do with our toddlers than to meet at the mall...start 'em early folks.
The malls, and the land they inhabit, are embematic of what the monied interests in this country have done to the middle class: bull-dozed and manipulated for their gain, used up whatever necessary, then spit the remnants back out. We are left with barren landscapes and lives.
The malls, and the land they inhabit, are embematic of what the monied interests in this country have done to the middle class: bull-dozed and manipulated for their gain, used up whatever necessary, then spit the remnants back out. We are left with barren landscapes and lives.
7
This isn't tragedy, it's business evolution. There will always be a Sam Walton or a Jeff Bezos ready to grow the next big shopping idea, and we'll embrace it as we once did the mall - until it outlives its usefulness.
In 1971, two guys named Rich Melman and Jerry Orzoff founded a company in Chicago called Lettuce Entertain You. Restaurants were their business, and they built them with the understanding that most restaurants have a very short period of profitability. Their solution was to open a place knowing it would eventually fail, close it before it actually did, and in the interim build other restaurants with different themes, and keep them going until they began to show signs of losing money. Some are still open and profitable, others are long gone. Ingenious. Throw in a savvy marketing campaign, and their company is still prosperous. In the sporting world this would be known as the Belichick Plan.
Melman and Orzoff had a great idea, but of course it had to be easier to open and close a relatively small storefront than a huge mall.
In 1971, two guys named Rich Melman and Jerry Orzoff founded a company in Chicago called Lettuce Entertain You. Restaurants were their business, and they built them with the understanding that most restaurants have a very short period of profitability. Their solution was to open a place knowing it would eventually fail, close it before it actually did, and in the interim build other restaurants with different themes, and keep them going until they began to show signs of losing money. Some are still open and profitable, others are long gone. Ingenious. Throw in a savvy marketing campaign, and their company is still prosperous. In the sporting world this would be known as the Belichick Plan.
Melman and Orzoff had a great idea, but of course it had to be easier to open and close a relatively small storefront than a huge mall.
1
I recently visited a thriving mall in Westchester County, NY. There was even a shop that sold TESLA automobiles! I was there to "return" a cashmere sweater that I had received as a gift. I couldn't find a thing in this mall that I would want or could afford to buy. The interior of the mall was like a palace and I enjoyed walking through. But it seemed rather empty -- yet the parking lot was jammed. I guess this is where the 1% shop. I think eating rather than shopping has become America's favorite past time. The frenzy to buy, buy, buy, spend, spend, spend -- at least for the strapped middle class, like myself, seems to have abated. Who needs malls when you can buy almost everything you need online or at the food store?
2
You know that's a criminal offense in many jurisdictions, right?
Just sell the thing on eBay.
Just sell the thing on eBay.
Ironically I lived in Baltimore when Owings Mills opened as a luxury mall when the concept of designer everything was in vogue. As a nonprofit professional in a different socio economic status, I was curious about it but could only shop at Macy's. Worse, I didn't understand who would want to shop with marble floors that had no give and were hard on my feet...at age 29.....I also remember White Flint fondly with my intro to the luxurious Neiman Marcus where the decorative fruit bowls and floral arrangements were real whose sale prices eclipsed my budget for regular pricing in a mid priced store.sigh...
3
I am not a fan of malls; they all seem to have the same old boring stuff. But they have their place especially in areas with bad weather. Maybe some malls are dying because people are getting tired of the constant urging by retailers to buy more stuff. How much STUFF do you need?
For me one of the saddest things about the dead malls is the waste of materials. All that marble, glass, stone, etc. Probably none of it will be salvaged- well maybe the metals- instead it will be going to landfills.
For me one of the saddest things about the dead malls is the waste of materials. All that marble, glass, stone, etc. Probably none of it will be salvaged- well maybe the metals- instead it will be going to landfills.
4
The death of malls is the death of mediocrity. Let's face it we live in a mass market economy where we are all consuming the same goods with very little variation. Is the really a difference in a polo shirt purchased from Lord & Taylor versus Macy's versus Nordstrom versus etc. versus etc. It took 50 years for American consumers to realize that the stores at the mall are all selling pretty much the same stuff and many times the exact same stuff. The illusion that malls give consumers an almost unlimited amount of choice is no longer there anymore, and malls are not giving consumers another reason or illusion as a replacement.
5
Judging from the dearth of parking spots this holiday season, the malls in Northern California are doing just fine.
4
In The Death and Life of American Cities, Jane Jacobs first made people aware of the importance of the street front as creating livable urban spaces. While it's easy to say that New York, with its compact grid pattern and high concentration of people, is unique, the virtues of walkable areas where stores go right up to the sidewalk has become popular even in cities like Los Angeles; e.g., Hancock Park, West Hollywood, Venice.
6
The chart says it all. Malls began to die in droves a year or two ahead of the the housing bust. This is obviously an early symptom of what really caused the Great Recession. All subsequent events are the normal progress of inadequate demand, the stores and malls catering to excessive consumption by people who should have been saving more are going to die. Once they do then the remaining malls and stores will be just fine.
Which is to say that when your life's blood is based on people going ever deeper into unmanageable debt you are bound to starve one day soon.
Which is to say that when your life's blood is based on people going ever deeper into unmanageable debt you are bound to starve one day soon.
7
The suburban city where I grew up lobbied hard to assure that the expressway under construction, the principal route southward from Boston, bypassed us. A couple of exits southward, where the road was re-routed, became the site of the local mall. We're talking 1960's when the mall phenomenon was new. That mall is still standing today and has been repeatedly remodeled. It's a great melting pot but it's got no local character. The retail in my hometown of 90,000 has totally disappeared. Believe it or not, there was a time when some suburbanites thought that peace and quiet and local retail was our future.
3
The Smithsonian needs a place to showcase a slice of this pure Americana.
6
If every mall in America went bankrupt tomorrow and disappeared, it would be an instant improvement across the land; i.e., to rid ourselves of this stupid idea, waste of land, and a, more importantly, a type of mind set we could afford to lose!
2
How is this a bad thing? Traditionally, Malls would hurt local businesses. Does this trend mean that local businesses have improved? I would like to know.
1
Having grown up & worked near 45th shopping street in the Wallingford District and seen Bellevue Square start and thrive in the blueberry fields across Lake Washington, this all rings very true to this now retired, residential architect. JG-
Last time I visited both the "main street" Wallingford district and Bell Square are thriving. Bellevue Square is a cornucopia of everything from 4star restaurants to local shops. And Wallingford is full of fabulous local businesses and restaurants. I think you need to get out more.
2
Most of the local malls are simply boring. They have become overwhelmed by clothing chains targeted toward the 14 - 26 age range with fashions that look pretty much the same from one store to anther. If you don't have family members in that market, there is very little in them to make it worth visiting them.
3
For the last twenty or so years we've watched images in the media of abandoned factories and the shrinking of the middle class. Homes are being torn down in mass as they are abandoned. Then came the abandoned shopping centers. Now we have a pro-rich anti-labor Republican Congress and Republican Governors elected by the poor and middle class who want to cut or eliminate any kind of benefit to the poor, or lower and middle income Americans. We are headed DOWN an interesting path.....
5
For the last twenty or so years we've watched images in the media of abandoned factories and the shrinking of the middle class. Homes are being torn down in mass as they are abandoned. Then came the abandoned shopping centers. Now we have a pro-rich anti-labor Republican Congress and Republican Governors elected by the poor and middle class who want to cut or eliminate any kind of benefit to the poor, or lower and middle income Americans. We are headed DOWN an interesting path.....
1
A few months ago I stopped for the night in Olathe, KS, at a hotel located in the shadow of the Great Mall of the Great Plains. Talk about depressing. There were clusters of cars around a few stores but mostly it was a vast wasteland of endless uninhabited parking spaces. The one store I remember was called Crazy Moe's Treasure Hunt Liquidation Center. I am not kidding. Out of curiosity I looked it up on Wikipedia. Even when it was new it had shoddy retail choices and makes me think it was a scam on the taxpayers by real estate developers. It opened in 1997 and it's been hemorrhaging stores for almost as long.
5
The real losers are communities like Amsterdam, New York that leveled downtowns to replace them with downtown malls. When those monstrosities die (and they almost universally did) the communities are left with a giant, empty parking garage in the middle of their cities and a rundown building where a downtown ought to be.
7
Most of the local malls are simply boring. They have become overwhelmed by clothing chains targeted toward the 14 - 26 age range with fashions that look pretty much the same from one store to anther. If you don't have family members in that market, there is very little in them to make it worth visiting them.
3
I rarely set foot in my local Mal. First of all I am a man and most of the stores do not cater to me. Secondly I prefer to be outside as much as possible. I find the artificial lighting and design of most malls oppressive. Thirdly the tightly controlled and edited, security managed environments of malls prevents the dynamic interchanges that real streets in real cities provide. I love vital downtowns. Many of the newest developments are trying to recreate them, but they can never effectively capture the more chaotic, humane and engaging culture that exists in downtown cores. These places, an essential part of all cites throughout the ages, permit the beggars, the preachers, the teenagers, the executives and the suburban moms to walk together on the same sidewalks and to develop a deeper understanding of humanity than simply as 'consumer'.
6
For the last twenty or so years we've watched images in the media of abandoned factories and the shrinking of the middle class. Homes are being torn down in mass as they are abandoned. Then came the abandoned shopping centers. Now we have a pro-rich anti-labor Republican Congress and Republican Governors elected by the poor and middle class who want to cut or eliminate any kind of benefit to the poor, or lower and middle income Americans. We are headed DOWN an interesting path.....
3
Creative destruction, they call it. We morph from one shopping experience to another, following trends dictated to us by market. The sad part is not the demise of the malls, but the destruction of the middle class once supporting them. Our power structure celebrates creative destruction as proof that we are "nimble" economically. Yippee! Oh, and one more thing, the destroyed humans will also shoulder the blame for the destruction of their lives. If you didn't know creative destruction also included human beings, well you don't understand the good old USA.
3
Before these malls were built, zoning laws should have required that the owners return the land to its pre-mall state once defunct. Of course, in the Berkshires, they removed a mountain top for a stale mall, that probably can't be undone.
5
Shopping malls, live or dead, are a blight on this country and on humanity. Small owner-run shops, in the downtown area, are the way to go.
Will anyone really miss some corporate cheesesteak chain?
The answer is yes of course---tens of millions with mall-induced sleepwalking disorder.
Will anyone really miss some corporate cheesesteak chain?
The answer is yes of course---tens of millions with mall-induced sleepwalking disorder.
Well, up here in the frozen north, we have the mother of all mega malls, The West Edmonton Mall, and you can tell by the ebbs and flows of its vacancy rate how well the middle and worker class is doing. Right now its booming, but when the trickle down of low oil prices hit, the mall will crumble just as it did the last time.
The demise of the common mall is inevitable, but we'll let the rich enjoy their shiny bauble stores a little while longer. They deserve these small comforts for working so hard keeping us all afloat. The rest of us need to get off our duffs and start to do something else besides shop for useless stuff we can't afford anymore.
Many commentators have excellent suggestions for what to do with empty malls, but the people who own them, the people who wouldn't be caught dead shopping in them, will do what their bottom line tells them to do. I suspect renovation doesn't come as cheap as demolition. So be it. Make a parks and urban gardens on the empty land. If you do find mall owners willing to give back to the community, the sky is the limit to what you can do. I've seen malls become vibrant community centers with arts spaces, skateboard runs, small theaters, local cafes, libraries. senior drop ins - you name it, you can do it.
The demise of the common mall is inevitable, but we'll let the rich enjoy their shiny bauble stores a little while longer. They deserve these small comforts for working so hard keeping us all afloat. The rest of us need to get off our duffs and start to do something else besides shop for useless stuff we can't afford anymore.
Many commentators have excellent suggestions for what to do with empty malls, but the people who own them, the people who wouldn't be caught dead shopping in them, will do what their bottom line tells them to do. I suspect renovation doesn't come as cheap as demolition. So be it. Make a parks and urban gardens on the empty land. If you do find mall owners willing to give back to the community, the sky is the limit to what you can do. I've seen malls become vibrant community centers with arts spaces, skateboard runs, small theaters, local cafes, libraries. senior drop ins - you name it, you can do it.
1
The second paragraph sums up why lots of people stopped going to malls. "Once home to retailers like H&M, Wet Seal and Kay Jewelers." All the malls sold the same things. They got boring. It used to be that the anchor stores were chains, like Sears and JCPenney. All the stores in-between were little boutiques with imaginative offerings. Most of them were locally owned. You could go to two malls in the same town and the offerings would be different.
Then the chains took over the malls. I used to go to malls in different states and found a regional flavor. Now you can buy the same stuff whether you are in Mississippi, Oklahoma, or California. I used to stop in malls when I traveled, in places like San Francisco and New Orleans. But there is no point now. They all sell the same thing.
Then the chains took over the malls. I used to go to malls in different states and found a regional flavor. Now you can buy the same stuff whether you are in Mississippi, Oklahoma, or California. I used to stop in malls when I traveled, in places like San Francisco and New Orleans. But there is no point now. They all sell the same thing.
30
The mall in our town is all about chain stores. The only thing that has local flavor is said to be some shady club.
The take-over by the chains is the result of excessive rents that small businesses cannot pay. Then the homogenized malls slowly die because there's nothing to draw anyone there. Unfortunately, the same problem of excessive commercial rents has brought more than a healthy proportion of chain establishments into some of the more popular street shopping districts as well. I suppose it's a cycle. Interesting small-buck local businesses draw people in, then the property owners crank up the rents and the chains take over as the only parties able to pay. Now the public loses interest in the area and the spaces go vacant and down goes the rent. If the town is lucky, a new generation of small-buck local businesses move into the empty and once-again cheap spaces. It probably takes 40 to 60 years altogether.
6
I believe that mid-level malls are dying, not because there are too many, but because of two other factors. First is poor quality merchandise. It is not fun to shop, when the materials and workmanship are shoddy. I still have sheet sets that I bought over 30 years ago, but the new ones fade or unravel in months. Further, the materials used to make clothing don't feel luxurious or well-made. The second thing is that stores skimp on sales staff. There is little staff, and those that remain do not seem to know their merchandise. This makes shopping is a do-it-yourself experience. The consolidation of retailers has accelerated these problems. Oh for the days when the big department stores were family-owned. Macy's can never replace Marshall Fields.
35
"Going to the mall" has become aspirational for many people I know. They will travel an hour or longer to an upscale mall and post an endless stream of "we're at Water Tower" selfies as if they can afford to shop there. Their best move is trying to pass off Wal-Mart junk as "I got this at ------- pretentious store."
6
Nothing new, really. When I was in high school, it was a standing joke that most of our clothes came from "Tar-zhay" or "Jacques Pennée."
4
I've haven't been to the US lately,but I can speak for the malls up here.
1. Most malls are now owned by huge mega real-estate conglomerates bent
on their # 1 goal - profit. To make a profit you have to charge high rents.
2. Most of the malls here have the same stores. Inside the malls the stores usually have several different names owned by several clothing conglomerates. Merchandise is slightly different, but you can tell it's owned by 1 conglomerate. Most of the merchandise is made in China, Viet-Nam, Cambodia, Pakistan, and a few other nations. It's of poor quality, and is similar in all of the stores.
3. Sales of any kind are a myth. If I venture to the malls,the prices are almost the same before and after the sales. I hardly even bother to go to the malls anymore.
4. The larger department stores:
We're down to 2 here in Montreal not counting Walmarts and Target. Walmart is usually a stand alone chain,while Target is in shopping malls.
The one national department store chain (owned by an American Conglomerate) is like a huge warehouse. You hardly ever find a salesperson, and have to wait in longer lines to pay.
There, as above there are always sales, but the prices hardly fluctuate. Where's the sale? The merchandise is lower quality (Try finding a 100% cotton shirt or 7-button dress shirt.Most of the merchandise is of the Big American names, with the quality mentioned previously.
1. Most malls are now owned by huge mega real-estate conglomerates bent
on their # 1 goal - profit. To make a profit you have to charge high rents.
2. Most of the malls here have the same stores. Inside the malls the stores usually have several different names owned by several clothing conglomerates. Merchandise is slightly different, but you can tell it's owned by 1 conglomerate. Most of the merchandise is made in China, Viet-Nam, Cambodia, Pakistan, and a few other nations. It's of poor quality, and is similar in all of the stores.
3. Sales of any kind are a myth. If I venture to the malls,the prices are almost the same before and after the sales. I hardly even bother to go to the malls anymore.
4. The larger department stores:
We're down to 2 here in Montreal not counting Walmarts and Target. Walmart is usually a stand alone chain,while Target is in shopping malls.
The one national department store chain (owned by an American Conglomerate) is like a huge warehouse. You hardly ever find a salesperson, and have to wait in longer lines to pay.
There, as above there are always sales, but the prices hardly fluctuate. Where's the sale? The merchandise is lower quality (Try finding a 100% cotton shirt or 7-button dress shirt.Most of the merchandise is of the Big American names, with the quality mentioned previously.
23
In the 90s I produced a "television" show that was shown exclusively in the Food Courts of high end malls on a continuous 30 minute loop. It was infotainment geared towards highlighting shopping trends, new products, newly released movies and music. There was time provided in each half hour for the local mall operator to use or sell
The more successful mall operators used that time for cross promotions with businesses not located in the mall, mostly car dealerships, and to promote other community events outside the mall.
They also used it to promote non-shopping events at the mall, the very existence of which I believe was the key to their success. These were the malls in areas of inclement weather which opened their doors hours before shopping began to "mall walkers," to avail themselves of a shopperless mall to exercise. They embraced those who come to the mall to do something other than shop. They attract them with performances by local musicians and shows for local artists which attract visitors who shopped when they came to the mall for some other purpose.
The successful malls in the future will be the ones which ingrain themselves in their communities and/or provide additional incentive to come visit other than just to shop. The operators of Mall of American certainly understood that when they included an amusement park, and wedding chapel in their design. Get the people in, and they'll shop while they're there. Come for the experience, exit through the gift shop.
The more successful mall operators used that time for cross promotions with businesses not located in the mall, mostly car dealerships, and to promote other community events outside the mall.
They also used it to promote non-shopping events at the mall, the very existence of which I believe was the key to their success. These were the malls in areas of inclement weather which opened their doors hours before shopping began to "mall walkers," to avail themselves of a shopperless mall to exercise. They embraced those who come to the mall to do something other than shop. They attract them with performances by local musicians and shows for local artists which attract visitors who shopped when they came to the mall for some other purpose.
The successful malls in the future will be the ones which ingrain themselves in their communities and/or provide additional incentive to come visit other than just to shop. The operators of Mall of American certainly understood that when they included an amusement park, and wedding chapel in their design. Get the people in, and they'll shop while they're there. Come for the experience, exit through the gift shop.
34
Ahhh. The two-dimensional business mind.
As a child growing up in Detroit, I remember the deadly effect that a newly constructed ring of suburban shopping malls had on retail enterprises in the city. The idea that shoppers would travel to downtown Detroit to shop in an old, cold and homely department store became quaint at best and nutty at worst, especially when they could instead swing their sedans into capacious parking spaces and mingle in modern and luxurious shopping malls. Now many of these suburban Detroit malls are failing, racked by obsolescence and crime.
The purveyors of these shopping malls would have laughed at us for daring to suggest that their enterprises would one day rest on the junk heap of history, along with the urban retailers!
The purveyors of these shopping malls would have laughed at us for daring to suggest that their enterprises would one day rest on the junk heap of history, along with the urban retailers!
15
I view such as Overdevelopment of thee Mall. My Lord they are so close in proximity----did and do we really need one in almost every suburban Neighborhood? Shopping areas and centers have grown significantly to the point of over powering in too many neighborhoods; but most don't get all of the Shoppers as intended.
And then Developers decided to Build Open Malls Which personally I find annoying at best for you can get lost among the many streets and turns if you do not visit them regularly.
Is it really Sears and JC Penny bringing these Malls down or is it more of the fact that there are Too Many Malls, overtaking neighborhoods as well as Neighborhood Parks! And I view such as the result of giving developers fee reign to build build and over build! I don't believe that JC penny and sears is bringing these Malls down but lack of people buying with lack of dollars to spend. Besides when there are so many Malls offering the same things----Humans will never fill the sellers' attempt to sell sell sell!
And then Developers decided to Build Open Malls Which personally I find annoying at best for you can get lost among the many streets and turns if you do not visit them regularly.
Is it really Sears and JC Penny bringing these Malls down or is it more of the fact that there are Too Many Malls, overtaking neighborhoods as well as Neighborhood Parks! And I view such as the result of giving developers fee reign to build build and over build! I don't believe that JC penny and sears is bringing these Malls down but lack of people buying with lack of dollars to spend. Besides when there are so many Malls offering the same things----Humans will never fill the sellers' attempt to sell sell sell!
4
In the Dallas-Fort Worth area we have several dying malls. But one, Valley View, has been temporarily revived as a kind of artists' cooperative. Retails spaces have become galleries and studios for local artists. They've encouraged artists to move in through cheap rents and a since of community. It's a fabulous place. Sadly, once the mall is demolished--whether that will be a year or five from now, no one can say--the community that is flourishing there will have nowhere to go.
16
Valley View (as a mall) is dead and surrounded by another city-killer: cheaply built, sprawling apartment complexes that deteriorate quickly and become ghettos. I can't wait to see Valley View demolished.
But I agree about the artist cooperative. Wouldn't it be great if the developers would build space just for them in the new development? They'd be really smart to do so to prevent this new project from dying/decaying in 10 years.
But I agree about the artist cooperative. Wouldn't it be great if the developers would build space just for them in the new development? They'd be really smart to do so to prevent this new project from dying/decaying in 10 years.
Which is exactly what happened with Crestwood Court in suburban St. Louis: artist/artisan space for a while, but only until the developer changed its mind about what to do with the property.
Valley View once had Dallas's only Bloomies, but it got crushed between the hammer of Galleria and the anvil of NorthPark Center. But at least it outlived Prestonwood Town Center and Sakowitz Village.
Valley View once had Dallas's only Bloomies, but it got crushed between the hammer of Galleria and the anvil of NorthPark Center. But at least it outlived Prestonwood Town Center and Sakowitz Village.
I'm not sure I buy the whole apartment/ghetto/mall-killer argument. The Village went up fast 'n cheap on a former golf course, and it hasn't exactly killed NorthPark.
And one more thing: "ghetto"? The 1960s called, honey, and want their talking points back.
And one more thing: "ghetto"? The 1960s called, honey, and want their talking points back.
3
Re the defunct Austin mall appropriated by the community college: I feel sorry for the people - here, mostly immigrants' kids - sold by the education industry on the idea that going to class in an old Dillard's approximates the ticket to success called "college." Hopefully it will morph into a trade school when the college mania is over.
6
Independent small retailers do it as a labor of love. So do restauranteurs. These people work 80 hour per week jobs. They give it up when it becomes thankless.
6
@Steve Bolger. These dedicated people give up their enterprises when they can no longer financially maintain them even by obtaining other employment to subsidize them; in most cases their offerings of quality goods and services went "without thanks" from inception. "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence/taste of the American public" said H. L. Menken at the beginning of the 20th Century and time has proven his theory to be correct.
4
A country littered with empty malls because a shrinking middle class can no longer sustain them - this is the sort of country that the wealthy intended, and their politicians have implemented the policies that have made it happen. This wasn't some capricious act of God - it was the result of NAFTA, strong dollar policies, the financialization of the economy etc.
Those dead malls, along with all the misery statistics heading in the direction of third world levels (we recently surpassed Romania in prevalence of child poverty), are the unavoidable consequence of the creation of large amounts of superfluous wealth among a tiny slice of the population, now mostly parked in off-shore tax havens because the wealthy cannot bear even a small portion of it going to the common good via taxation.
The wealthy are not "successful" people to be admired and emulated. They are pathological people to be pitied and guided to therapy - after we wrest their hands from the levers of power.
Those dead malls, along with all the misery statistics heading in the direction of third world levels (we recently surpassed Romania in prevalence of child poverty), are the unavoidable consequence of the creation of large amounts of superfluous wealth among a tiny slice of the population, now mostly parked in off-shore tax havens because the wealthy cannot bear even a small portion of it going to the common good via taxation.
The wealthy are not "successful" people to be admired and emulated. They are pathological people to be pitied and guided to therapy - after we wrest their hands from the levers of power.
40
I agree but I think there is a silver lining. Shopping to live instead of living to shop will be a positive evolution in the US. Maybe more of us will start to focus on the things and people who matter instead of chasing more useless junk that will eventually end up in a landfill.
9
What kind of sociopathic avarice wants to destroy Social Security in the gambling halls of Wall St? I just cannot fathom why the 1% need that niggling amount, a financial base for those who've worked for 40 years?
2
The basic principle in a market economy (and a democracy) is that people get what they choose (whether they vote with their dollars or their ballots). An earlier generation chose middle-market malls where they shopped at Sears and J.C. Penney. A new generation is choosing Walmart, Target, online -- and specialty boutiques in upscale malls. Just as Boomers' parents lamented the loss of downtown retailing, the Boomers now lament the loss of the mid-market mall. It's all simply a matter of evolutionary succession, isn't it -- the survival of the fittest?
5
Many years ago my wife and I retired to Guatemala and generally make at least one annual trip back to the states to visit family and old friends. Even in this 3rd world country there are large modern shopping malls with all too familiar US brand names. The Guatemalan malls are always thriving with people, but with a much different level of energy. Most of the patrons are there for the cafes and restaurants. Few are ever making purchases for merchandise which they know they can't afford and don't need.
But there is a very noted difference between the malls in these 2 countries. Here, there is a sense of life. In the US, we too often find that shopping seems like a form of recreation for the bored. In the US malls we see people as sleep walkers. It is depressing to see this from the outside looking in.
But there is a very noted difference between the malls in these 2 countries. Here, there is a sense of life. In the US, we too often find that shopping seems like a form of recreation for the bored. In the US malls we see people as sleep walkers. It is depressing to see this from the outside looking in.
24
Exactly! Living a life based on chasing useless consumer goods is impoverishing our culture.
1
It's so sad, and they are empty during regular business hours, because everyone is working. Maybe if they redesign themselves to sell services and conference space and only a few stores maybe they can make good use of the space.
3
Supposedly malls replaced Main Street. Unless they offer those things that made Main Street attractive their future is bleak. In some areas Malls became the social center of the communities and as a result thrived. A small example exists nearby. We used to frequent the Barboursville Mall in WV. Due to recent medical complications my wife has difficulty walking a great distance and is dependent on electric carts or wheel chairs. At best the Barboursville Mall can only offer one broken down chair. We now shop elsewhere. The Food Courts have become bland. Scatter Cafe setting throughout the mall. Offer good enough food or specialties to draw people. When did benign neglect become a marketing strategy?
9
I've watched malls casually for a few decades now. It always intrigued me how every mall, the enclosed type, seems to be no different than they were in the 70's, 80's, etc. The names may be a little different, but overall there's been little if any change other than cosmetic. When I was traveling for business I would notice that a mall in Dallas is the same as a mall in L.A., Denver, Minneapolis, Landover, Atlanta, etc. That was fine for my business travels because if I forgot something I needed for business attire, I could easily find the same item at the same chain (or owned by the same chain) in a mall in any city I traveled to. But I always thought if I were on vacation or personal travel, why would I go there? When I shop for personal reasons, I often look for a shop or store that ISN'T a cookie-cutter chain. Frankly, I'm baffled how these malls have survived this long. Most are eyesores in my opinion.
A new trend here in Colorado are "Street Malls" where you go outside to get to another store. This style baffles me. In the summer it's great, but we get snow and cold every winter here. The narrow streets & sidewalks require constant snow & ice removal but they don't keep up. There's very limited parking by each shop or restaurant, and ice builds up quickly in the shade of the bldg's. It's an uncomfortable mess in winter, and I just don't go to them. They're now renovating a mall near my house to be a "Street Mall", just 10 min drive from 2 others.
A new trend here in Colorado are "Street Malls" where you go outside to get to another store. This style baffles me. In the summer it's great, but we get snow and cold every winter here. The narrow streets & sidewalks require constant snow & ice removal but they don't keep up. There's very limited parking by each shop or restaurant, and ice builds up quickly in the shade of the bldg's. It's an uncomfortable mess in winter, and I just don't go to them. They're now renovating a mall near my house to be a "Street Mall", just 10 min drive from 2 others.
9
When I lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I went to a western suburb to get lunch at a new restaurant. This was located in an outdoor mall with a huge parking garage under the stores. I'd seen outdoor malls like this in San Diego, California, but this was the first one I ever saw in Minnesota. It felt strangely out of time and place. Weather extremes in Minnesota demanded protection and imagination. Thus, the whole idea of an indoor mall as opposed to an outdoor shopping area started in Minnesota with the Southdale Mall and culminated with the Mall of America a few miles away. So to find an outdoor mall in Minnesota was unique and odd to say the least. Unfortunately, it was not a step forward due to obvious weather concerns and bad timing. This shopping area was created in the midst of 2008 when the economy took a huge turn for the worst and subsequently 80% of the retail space went unused. To mask these vast areas of empty stores, large murals were placed in the windows to give the illusion of actual stores all along the sidewalks. Like most malls, mindless music was piped onto the streets. I walked past these empty, fictional stores with cheerful music bouncing off the empty canyons of glass. Rather than draw me into its retail world, I had an overwhelming urge to get in my car and never come back. I don't know what has happened to that mall since, but it had that feel of a western ghost town all dressed up for a party that would never happen.
9
Des Moines is a perfect example of mall- and de-mallification. Once it was ringed by malls, all of which are dead or dying. And yet, out on the prairie to the west, a mind-boggling lay vast complex has arisen, with Jordan Creek mall and a huge array of big and little box stores and expensive restaurants. It's bigger, it's fancier, but in the end, it's a mall. And as Mark Hinshaw says, I for one am sick of them. The kiosks with cheap junk, the same tired mall food, the racks and racks of jeans and tops, the elevator music. The endless maze of parking lots. Tear them all down.
22
Lord & Taylor and Penney's and KMart and Sears are all lumped together? Really? Out here in flyover country KMart was the place that people who couldn't afford Walmart went. Penney's clientele are the elderly and slightly better off. Sears is a company that has been run by utter incompetents who can't even get its employees to sweep its floors and straighten its displays and makes it hard to even try on clothes with its nasty employees and unwelcoming "Rules". Lord & Taylor was an unknown entity in the Rocky Mtn West and never caught on. I wouldn't argue at all that there are too many malls and that department stores have long passed their sell by date, but mismanagement and misunderstanding is a big part of the picture as well.
12
Birmingham, AL's venerable Eastwood Mall was demolished circa 2006 for---what else? Another Walmart. Makes me weep--us 1960s/70s kids spent many a happy afternoon there. But it's an empty-nester neighborhood now. We grew up and left. And the Mall faded away, like our childhoods...
What I wouldn't give to spend another day hanging out there with my buddies and a few dollars in my pocket.
What I wouldn't give to spend another day hanging out there with my buddies and a few dollars in my pocket.
7
I remember back in the 80's the thrill of shopping at the New Cinderella Mall in Englewood, Colorado was such an upper. I was shocked in the early 2000's wile visiting in Boulder, Colorado, driving into what once was a thriving place. Yes, we need to be aware of change in all areas of life. So what now? I like the 29th Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado, whereby you walk outside, then into a shop where specialized goods are sold. Flatirons Mall seems ok because it is culling a large demographic area and the only option is to go downtown Denver or further into Cherry Creek. Times, they are a'changin'
2
In Boulder, the old Crossroads mall was torn down and now there is a thriving Twenty Ninth Street Mall with outdoor storefronts, sit down and fast casual restaurants as well as unique and popular stores such as Forever 21, H&M, Helly Hansen and the Apple Store (this is a college town in Colorado). The upper levels are filled with salons, yoga and other fitness studios and provides even more foot traffic for the whole marketplace. There is a Trader Joe's in walking distance and Whole Foods has their headquarters in mall as well. It's been wildly successful for most of the stores and is packed during the day and on weekends. They also provide free parking in their garages for the Buffalo football home games, smart marketing. I think more areas should look to do this sort of redevelopment that accurately targets the demographics that are currently in the market, not the ones that were there 30 years ago.
5
These cynically slapped together boxes planted in swamps and cornfields need to go. Repurpose the most solidly build, maybe, and make sure all those acres of roof space have solar panels.
13
Growing up in Minnesota, I remember as a young adult when the first malls opened. At that time, they offered what was considered civilization to a young teenager not yet old enough to drive: in one (warm) place, I could meet my friends, see a movie, play video games, and get those white leather Nike tennis shoes. Lacking our modern communications and social media technology, we needed a destination, and malls provided that for us. The mall concentrated the opportunities into one place.
Jumping forward to today; with my children now in their teens: with current technology, the same oppportunites are available via a smart phone: movies and music not only on demand but customized to invididual preference, online shopping, text/video/social media interaction - the mall does not and cannot offer the same concentration of opportunties as it once did.
Jumping forward to today; with my children now in their teens: with current technology, the same oppportunites are available via a smart phone: movies and music not only on demand but customized to invididual preference, online shopping, text/video/social media interaction - the mall does not and cannot offer the same concentration of opportunties as it once did.
52
I guess I grew up a bit before there were many malls. The closest one to us was a 30 to 40 min. drive. We always met at the local game room or movie theater and had to get in touch with everyone through our land line telephone. Heck we actually had a rotary phone back then. I have never thought of it quite that way, but it seems you have a pretty valid point .
1
How many shopping centers of any design can expect to succeed after our jobs were sent to other countries? They're not dying because people prefer to shop elsewhere. They're dying because the customers they depend upon can't afford to spend as we once did, and the flush-with-cash 1% shops at Costco.
17
One of the main reasons I don't visit malls regularly anymore is my health. I don't have the stamina to walk the distances from one end to the other as I used to. I also changed how I read books. I have an e-reader now so I am not visiting the mega book stores (now that all the independents are gone) with their line-ups to pay. Many clothing retailers are not interest in women my age and they don't carrying clothing I like. I buy most of my clothes online now without any problems. Times change, new technology is developed, existing systems become obsolete, and baby boomers age.
6
Repurpose those dinosaurs into the things they displaced: bowling alleys, indoor skating rinks, skate parks, community fleas, or greenspaces. Or turn them into shared spaces with low rents for independent retailers and artisans. Then - SUPPORT - them. We live too much in our homes.
14
Pave paradise, put up a parking lot.
12
Online retail is surly a factor in the demise of the brick and mortor store. Income inequality seems like a stretch - lack of middle class wage growth doesn't mean less money to spend.
2
The demise of some malls has been caused by the bad quality of the merchandise their retailers sell. As a majority of merchandise is now made in china, and of very poor quality, there is a perception of less and less differentiation of merchandise from store to store. At the same time, there is no excitement buying these chinese-made products that will soon break, and which will be a disappointing experience to have dealt with. The success of malls in Milan and other major cities is that their stores are offering quality, differentiated goods to pleased shoppers.
17
A lot of the comments here are as boring and predictable as the malls the ' smarter and superior ' appear to hate . Don't get me wrong I like the old town Main Street shopping experience as much as the next person but some of us can appreciate both. Where I live (suburbs of Philly) there's a mall (Oxford Valley) surrounded by some big box shopping centers and there are also quaint old colonial towns that still have a vibrant Main Street shopping district. I frequent both and around the holidays I'll occasionally hop a train to Philly or New York . So what's the solution to the dying mall problem? I don't claim to have all the answers but if condescension worked the answer would definitely be among the comments here. The suburbs are here to stay,like it or not, and if everyone saw the light and flocked to the small town experience how would that work? Most of these towns were built before the car and aren't designed for heavy traffic,hence the quaintness, and people aren't going to walk miles down dark back roads in the middle of winter to go shopping. As for the people who live in cities like New York and tout the virtues of being able to walk everywhere, well that's great but what are you going to do kick millions of families out of their houses ,demolish entire towns and build 50 mini New York's all over America?
The real problem is flat middle class wages, partly due to big retailers, but mostly due to global competition and the assault on collective bargaining.
The real problem is flat middle class wages, partly due to big retailers, but mostly due to global competition and the assault on collective bargaining.
11
The condescension in your comment doesn't work either. The suburbs are here to stay as you say, but why does that mean the mall has to? The malls are dying, not because people hate them, but because they are no longer serving the needs of the community. Free enterprise works like that - free choice and all that.
I don't recall anyone suggesting that we kick people out of their houses and demolish entire towns and build 50 mini New York's all over America. I do recall many commentators making excellent suggestions about how to repurpose dead malls or the land they sit on to better serve the community that surrounds them.
I don't recall anyone suggesting that we kick people out of their houses and demolish entire towns and build 50 mini New York's all over America. I do recall many commentators making excellent suggestions about how to repurpose dead malls or the land they sit on to better serve the community that surrounds them.
2
When I didn't read a word about the rent charged by mall operators in the first paragraph the reporter lost me. Shoppers want diversity, they want to see new products, unusual products as well as the common place pot, pans, and wedding gowns. If malls impose not only high rents but also contracts that call on a percentage of the profits to be paid to them, then you will only get very high-end retailer able to afford to operate in the mall platform. Just look at New York City and how rents have killed small businesses in Manhattan moving them to Brooklyn where, most likely, the same processes will happen. Like Manhattan, Brooklyn will become rich and boring.
7
You nailed it. It's all about the high rents, the boring chain look, the lack of creative and fresh merchandising and the fake urgency of "sales." And, yes, Brooklyn already has become rich and boring. Seventh Ave in Park Slope used to be such a cool array of shops, services, restaurants and bars. Now it's bank branches, cell phone stores, real estate offices, frozen yogurt chains, coffee bars and lots of overpriced boutiques for the rich and the rich alone. In a word, depressing.
1
The problem with anchor stores at malls is that they carry so little variety of goods any more. I walked though an entire mall several years ago just searching for a pair of pajamas for my seven year old and found nothing.
Whereas I can online shop and find what I need in 5 minutes - without going out of my house.
As for the dead malls - they should rip up all the concrete, plant some trees and create parks.
Whereas I can online shop and find what I need in 5 minutes - without going out of my house.
As for the dead malls - they should rip up all the concrete, plant some trees and create parks.
13
OMG!!! What an opportunity to take these 'dead' malls into a wonderful new direction. By this I mean rare loft spaces for artists, sculptors,sculptors, fabricators of all kinds and the like. What an opportunity! The vast number of parking areas in these malls could be used for housing. Some of the mall buildings could be converted to specialized schools, e.g. Art, music, vocational and the sciences. There would be plenty of parking for small manufacturing industries! Great! There could Lincoln Centeresque pavilions in some of these 'dead' malls. Museums, Gardens, parks, walking paths, bicycle paths, doggie parks.
No. They don't have to be blights, but wondrous places for artists, music lovers, students, lovers of the outdoors, and people in the need of attractive and moderately priced housing. So, now where are the visionaries? The developers? The Town Boards? Where is Robert Moses when we need him?
No. They don't have to be blights, but wondrous places for artists, music lovers, students, lovers of the outdoors, and people in the need of attractive and moderately priced housing. So, now where are the visionaries? The developers? The Town Boards? Where is Robert Moses when we need him?
7
And so it goes in the United Stores of America-good riddance!
3
The real story, reflected in the graphs, is that malls are coming to back life under the Obama administration. But no, all we hear are comparisons from 2006 and a story of decline.
Shut em down! We need Apartments! Not cash-pits for overseas labor, you wanna create jobs for College Graduates? Improve our education system, this country is breeding consumers, not skilled workers
12
If you are in New Jersey, you may freely substitue the word "Casino" for "Mall". All else applies.
If you are in Washington DC you may freely substitute the word "Ethics".
If you are in Washington DC you may freely substitute the word "Ethics".
7
Since the buildings are already there, let's use them as business incubators to grow tomorrow's businesses. A combination of rent subsidies and tax credits could grow new retail operations selling locally made products creating jobs. Increased tax credits could be given to those businesses that offer job training to people on welfare.
5
Good riddance!
4
I'm torn. Is this such a terrible thing? These malls are blights in our communities, and the collateral damage they inflict is massive: multiple-football-field sized parking lots that allow nasty oil-infused runoff water to soak nearby grassy areas; Mom and Pop stores out of business; money from rent and chain-store purchases immediately sent out of the communities.
I don't know the last time I went to a mall. They're simply a relic of their time and place, like many other things in our disposable society.
I don't know the last time I went to a mall. They're simply a relic of their time and place, like many other things in our disposable society.
13
We should just take down these ugly monoliths and turn the land into urban organic farmlands. All the unemployed people who aren't otherwise close to any farmland can now work there, experience the joy of working outdoors, working with your hands, and growing healthful fruit and vegetables for everyone to enjoy.
10
There was an article in the WSJ on Friday entitled: Young Drive Urban Rebound. The article noted that there is a growing preference for urban over suburban living especially among younger professionals and recent graduates -a preference for living in walkable neighborhoods with restaurants and night life nearby. Companies driven by job recruiting considerations are locating new offices in urban centers and in some cases relocating from suburban campus headquarters complexes back to major cities . Likely this also has an impact on the economics of suburban malls.
41
I wish your generation so much success!
I was a fish out of water for most of my life; my values aligned with NYC (walkability, density, museums vs malls, an emphasize on ideas vs objects) but I lived in low-income, suburban sprawl with no way to leave.
I remember going to to NYC for the 1st time AFTER my husband had taken a job as a new attorney--he had just passed the Texas bar and wasn't ever going to take another one. I looked around and thought, "Here's what I've been missing." By that time, it was too late. 2 years later, my husband went and his reaction was the same. If we had only known…
It's been a challenge, but we've managed to build a life that is not suburban even as all our friends moved to distant suburbs where the streets are deserted from 7 am - 6 pm. The funny thing is, the most expensive part of Dallas to live in is the area where all the kids can walk to public school, with shops and grocery stores sprinkled throughout instead of clustered on vast intersections. Don't settle for less!!
I was a fish out of water for most of my life; my values aligned with NYC (walkability, density, museums vs malls, an emphasize on ideas vs objects) but I lived in low-income, suburban sprawl with no way to leave.
I remember going to to NYC for the 1st time AFTER my husband had taken a job as a new attorney--he had just passed the Texas bar and wasn't ever going to take another one. I looked around and thought, "Here's what I've been missing." By that time, it was too late. 2 years later, my husband went and his reaction was the same. If we had only known…
It's been a challenge, but we've managed to build a life that is not suburban even as all our friends moved to distant suburbs where the streets are deserted from 7 am - 6 pm. The funny thing is, the most expensive part of Dallas to live in is the area where all the kids can walk to public school, with shops and grocery stores sprinkled throughout instead of clustered on vast intersections. Don't settle for less!!
2
Shopping malls are dying because stores are selling the same stuff as one another. There is no more originality in stores vis-a-vis women's fashion.
There is also no need for so many stores, regardless of on-line shopping.
What is needed? We should be ripping the old monstrosities down and building affordable housing.
There is also no need for so many stores, regardless of on-line shopping.
What is needed? We should be ripping the old monstrosities down and building affordable housing.
10
One reason why there are few signs of the redevelopment of the White Flint Mall property in evidence is that, at least as of a few weeks ago, the Lord & Taylor and one restaurant were still open. Therefore, it is premature to expect to see extensive signs of redevelopment. Also, the county has already approved the proposed redevelopment plan. But I guess none of that fits the narrative.
Is anyone aware of similar data for unenclosed ("strip") malls ?
1
And we have paid, and paid and continue to pay for these , for the most part economically not feasible Land Scarring "THINGS". I was a young man when these creatures of doom got going. I did small renovations on houses, one at a time and resold them as an income supplemental. About one a year. Nights and week ends working. I had a construction loan, many times, with various Banks. When the big boys would get behind on their loans it was inevitable ; I would get a notice that my Loan Rate was increasing. Those big loans on Malls were made at cocktail parties between Lending Institutions Presidents or merely on the reputation/friendship of the borrowers. When they defaulted on loan payments the small borrower saw their payments increase.
1
Malls are a Boomer thing. If anything, the decline of malls heralds the fading of Boomer values. I personally think that's a good thing. Malls, McMansions, "designer" jeans, sprawling suburban wastelands, latchkey kids…ugh.
I don't think dead malls signal the demise the of the middle class. I'm middle class and I don't shop at malls, but not because I can't afford to. I (and most of my friends) simply prefer Target.
The Target (higher end) vs Walmart (low end) market is one that is waiting to be exploited. A Target/Nordstrom blend would do very well, trust me.
I don't think dead malls signal the demise the of the middle class. I'm middle class and I don't shop at malls, but not because I can't afford to. I (and most of my friends) simply prefer Target.
The Target (higher end) vs Walmart (low end) market is one that is waiting to be exploited. A Target/Nordstrom blend would do very well, trust me.
2
I've been waiting for the requisite ageist comments bashing and blaming Boomers yet again for everything one can imagine.
It needs to be clarified that the oldest Boomers, that is, the oldest 50%, were the generation that rejected these suburban values. We protested the war, participated in women's liberation, and fought racism. The youngest half of Boomerdom -- people who came of age in the late 70s and 80s -- (and who should be labeled another name other than Boomers) -- had opposite values. They opted for careers in business rather than the arts and education, and in every way represented opposite values of older Boomers. I think it's time we differentiate between the two and stop calling the oldest Boomers commercialists. We were the exact opposite, and remain proud of our anti-consumer values today.
It needs to be clarified that the oldest Boomers, that is, the oldest 50%, were the generation that rejected these suburban values. We protested the war, participated in women's liberation, and fought racism. The youngest half of Boomerdom -- people who came of age in the late 70s and 80s -- (and who should be labeled another name other than Boomers) -- had opposite values. They opted for careers in business rather than the arts and education, and in every way represented opposite values of older Boomers. I think it's time we differentiate between the two and stop calling the oldest Boomers commercialists. We were the exact opposite, and remain proud of our anti-consumer values today.
4
Many boomers were happy to live in urban areas, restore older homes, and shop at local Mom and Pop stores. We fixed up Victorians with stuff purchased at the local hardware store where a guy named Bill knew exactly what you needed and explained DIY techniques. The local Mexican grocery store was very good too. Target is o.k. but I find better stuff at lower prices at the flea markets and garage sales.
Small and medium retailers can't compete with mega-stores. They have been disappearing everywhere in the past few decades, but in the malls it's more noticeable because of their concentration. Other significant factors: smaller incomes of the lower and middle classes and new intertainment alternatives for teenagers.
For a handy guide to such things as "dead malls" and "mall glut" readers would benefit from consulting an instructive, mirthful, and richly illustrated book written by Dolores Hayden entitled "A Field Guide to Sprawl" (W. W. Norton, 2004).
Consider what Hayden wrote in the category entitled Mall Glut: "The United States has about 40,000 shopping centers holding 19 square feet of retail space per citizen, twice that of any other country. This excess cannot be sustained." (Reader alert > these statistics date back at least 10 years.)
I would also observe that the advent of on-line retail shopping has exerted an adverse impact not only on malls but also in local central business districts.
Drive thru the central business districts along Chicago's North Shore communities (e.g., Lake Forest, Highland Park, Winneta, etc.). What you will encounter is a succession of vacated storefronts with "for rent/for lease" signs.
I have lived in Lake Forest for almost 40 years -- thru multiple ups and downs of the cyclical economy -- but I have never observed such a situation as it exists in its present-day form.
While I cannot explain satisfactorily the source of this dilemma, I suspect that Dolores Hayden's analysis of "mall glut" might prove useful in understanding the present-day circumstances.
Consider what Hayden wrote in the category entitled Mall Glut: "The United States has about 40,000 shopping centers holding 19 square feet of retail space per citizen, twice that of any other country. This excess cannot be sustained." (Reader alert > these statistics date back at least 10 years.)
I would also observe that the advent of on-line retail shopping has exerted an adverse impact not only on malls but also in local central business districts.
Drive thru the central business districts along Chicago's North Shore communities (e.g., Lake Forest, Highland Park, Winneta, etc.). What you will encounter is a succession of vacated storefronts with "for rent/for lease" signs.
I have lived in Lake Forest for almost 40 years -- thru multiple ups and downs of the cyclical economy -- but I have never observed such a situation as it exists in its present-day form.
While I cannot explain satisfactorily the source of this dilemma, I suspect that Dolores Hayden's analysis of "mall glut" might prove useful in understanding the present-day circumstances.
4
This article starts by offering the economic inequality reason for dying malls, but then undermines itself by pointing out that presumed upscale malls are also in trouble, or have closed. The reality is that each mall has its own unique reasons for success or failure, and the formula is too complicated to allow one to generalize about the subject nationwide. For example, one element not mentioned in this article is the replacement of the once ubiquitous mall 'shoebox' movie theaters by giant stand alone multiplexes, which removed an important source of regular traffic through a mall by customers who would come for a movie, but then stop at a few stores or the food court on the way in or out.
6
A nation of boutique shops and their keepers seems like a revolution--the wheel going full circle. Might even attract tourists.
Imagine clerks who care and know what they are selling--maybe even making or baking!
Imagine clerks who care and know what they are selling--maybe even making or baking!
1
Everything for the rich, nothing for YOU. Keep voting Republican dumb Americans: you'll be eating grass before long while the rich and their GOP stooges laugh in your stupid faces.
5
Good Grief! And of course Dems have done everything they can to enrich the middle-class: NAFTA, granting China most favored trading status, repealing Glass-Steagall, and now pushing the Trans-Pacific Trade Treaty? Neither party has our best interests at heart.
3
Online shopping means not having to find a parking space, not getting mugged, not having to hassle with the bustling crowds of rude shoppers or rude sales clerks. If I need anything I hit Wal Mart around 6:00 a.m.
6
But there are a lot of people who like to see and touch while shopping. Try clothes on. Smell a fragrance. Feel the weight of a wine glass. Shopping can be a fun experience and a social one. Visually and viscerally, shopping can inspire creative ideas. So, while convenient, online isn't good for all shopping needs. I think we need more entertaining and imaginative stores and boutiques. Malls have become a place to avoid because they are joyless, bland places where one can never discover anything new. Traditional retailers (especially department stores) have been like lemmings following each other over the cliff since the 80s. After the '87 stock market crash, retailers stopped spending money to put on a show. They stopped sending their creatives on location to shoot books and ads. Instead of what was once referred to as "ad space," the new vernacular was "real estate" space on a print page. They skimped on events. The buyers started thinking more about $$ than interesting inventory. They mistreated and overworked and underpaid their employees so that staff didn't care about their jobs--or their customers. The safe, boring approach continues to this day with the big brand names.
3
As a country, we need to decide whether having unique main street based products and shopping is a relevant and meaningful experience that has economic value. If so, we need to make a conscience effort to put forth policies to promote that. If left to its own devices, you can see the result. Main street was decimated by Walmart and then small businesses were again put at an unfair disadvantage by having to be burdened by local taxes whereas internet retailers did not.
3
Not sure why this story acts as if dead malls are a new trend. The first wave of enclosed malls began to die off in the late 1980s or early 90s, especially in the Northeast. In fact, there have been websites devoted to the study and appreciation of dead malls for many years now. But I guess trends are only real if they happen where America's wealthiest citizens live.
7
This is not a complicated phenomenon and not related to income equality that certain media outlets seem bent on.
Malls have been replaced by stand-alone retailers in ever expanding strip malls. Rather than pay rent these retailers bought cheap properties near malls and built their own, more massive, stores. These became destination shopping experiences and promoted other retailers and restaurants to join in the trend. See, for instance, the rise of Gander Mountain and Cabela's which are expanding while malls fail.
Malls have been replaced by stand-alone retailers in ever expanding strip malls. Rather than pay rent these retailers bought cheap properties near malls and built their own, more massive, stores. These became destination shopping experiences and promoted other retailers and restaurants to join in the trend. See, for instance, the rise of Gander Mountain and Cabela's which are expanding while malls fail.
8
If a person does not have a LOT of money to blow away, they do not want to go to malls and be tortured by seeing things they cannot afford. That is the case with over half the population. They have no money to buy other than basic things, because their wages have declined or stagnated.
3
In 2008, right after the financial crash, I went to a mall outside of Seattle called Factoria Mall. It was always a bit of a struggling mall, kept barely alive by a Target, Old Navy, Nordstrom Rack and a popular Children's Museum. In 2008 after the financial meltdown, I went there by chance and noticed it was almost 50% empty. Many stores were shut, boarded up with no sign saying what they will be replaced by, it was almost eery.
Imagine my surprise when last summer, 6 years later, I went back and saw the mall so crowded I couldn't even find a parking spot. A new Walmart has opened next to the mall, along with a huge DFW Shoe Warehouse. Each of the large department stores has an outside entrance in the back with a separate parking lot, but they still draw traffic to the mall. Either the economy has come roaring back or they figured out a way to make it work.
The thing that draws most people to the mall is food. Any mall that has a good food court will do well. Shopping makes people hungry!
Imagine my surprise when last summer, 6 years later, I went back and saw the mall so crowded I couldn't even find a parking spot. A new Walmart has opened next to the mall, along with a huge DFW Shoe Warehouse. Each of the large department stores has an outside entrance in the back with a separate parking lot, but they still draw traffic to the mall. Either the economy has come roaring back or they figured out a way to make it work.
The thing that draws most people to the mall is food. Any mall that has a good food court will do well. Shopping makes people hungry!
2
Informative reporting by Nelson Schwartz. I was in Akron at Christmas and wondered about that defunct property as I drove past. Indeed, this capitalistic detritus seems to be common. Well, the malls destroyed the city, so now it is they that are being marginalized.
The nasty aspect of uncontrolled capitalism is waste and decay. The Eastern Corridor is littered with dead factories that no longer manufacture products for the dead malls. It's the badge we wear.
An interesting aspect that the real estate executives didn't mention directly is the influence of the big box stores. That's where the middle class and below are going. The traffic into Costco here can be large. I avoid it altogether.
And the parking at the surviving upscale malls can be difficult. I don't go because I can't stand either malls or big box stores. They're somthing out of "1984" or "Brave New World". One thing that is absent from the malls is any culture. It's the mediocre family environment frequented by those who have no artistic interests. Thus, with only the capitalist draw of shopping, malls risk their demise for some other flap.
The genie may be out of the bottle and it looks like we've expended our three wishes. My first wish would have been that these places never existed.
The nasty aspect of uncontrolled capitalism is waste and decay. The Eastern Corridor is littered with dead factories that no longer manufacture products for the dead malls. It's the badge we wear.
An interesting aspect that the real estate executives didn't mention directly is the influence of the big box stores. That's where the middle class and below are going. The traffic into Costco here can be large. I avoid it altogether.
And the parking at the surviving upscale malls can be difficult. I don't go because I can't stand either malls or big box stores. They're somthing out of "1984" or "Brave New World". One thing that is absent from the malls is any culture. It's the mediocre family environment frequented by those who have no artistic interests. Thus, with only the capitalist draw of shopping, malls risk their demise for some other flap.
The genie may be out of the bottle and it looks like we've expended our three wishes. My first wish would have been that these places never existed.
3
"Over-retailed" indeed, and it isn't just malls closing.
The CBDs of Minneapolis and St. Paul have lost a lot of large and small-scale retail business in the downtown areas. The second floors of buildings (the 'skyway' level) used to be dense with retail, and now are largely what they started out as -- hallways -- just lonelier. Neiman Marcus and Saks have closed in DT Minneapolis, Macy's closed in St. Paul. The Mall of America attracts a lot of hallway traffic, but Macy's, Nordstroms, and Sears don't seem to have that many customers (not that Sears and Nordstroms serve the same demographic). Lots of small neighborhood shopping nodes have been emptied out as well.
Too many malls, too many stores in one place, too much duplication. People are also very sensitive to signs of staleness--hard to define, and hard to ignore.
The CBDs of Minneapolis and St. Paul have lost a lot of large and small-scale retail business in the downtown areas. The second floors of buildings (the 'skyway' level) used to be dense with retail, and now are largely what they started out as -- hallways -- just lonelier. Neiman Marcus and Saks have closed in DT Minneapolis, Macy's closed in St. Paul. The Mall of America attracts a lot of hallway traffic, but Macy's, Nordstroms, and Sears don't seem to have that many customers (not that Sears and Nordstroms serve the same demographic). Lots of small neighborhood shopping nodes have been emptied out as well.
Too many malls, too many stores in one place, too much duplication. People are also very sensitive to signs of staleness--hard to define, and hard to ignore.
10
I do not believe this article gives a true picture of the mall industry or shopping in general and the comments reflect this. I live in a location where some older malls have closed but the ones that are left are thriving because there is no other kind of shopping or entertainment areas available around here tjhat are convenient or easy to park at. As a consequence of the closure of one of the major malls around here shopping during events like Christmas can be difficult at best. Online shopping is fine but it is not for everyone who considers shopping a total experience with touching the merchandise and comparing brands kind of like a meal without dessert. I miss the days of the sidewalk sales twice a year at all the malls. They, too, have fallen by the wayside. This article in no way encompasses the future of retailing and the constant criticism of Walmart is needless since they have upped the quality of their merchandise. Much more information is needed to draw all these conclusions in the commentary.
3
There have been two new malls and an outlet mall all built within the past several years in this area. All are thriving. There was skepticism that they could all succeed, but in fact, they have. What they have in common is this: they are all huge, they are all open air, they have a wide variety of shops and restaurants within a relatively small area, they all cater to slightly different customer sets, and they are all in areas where the population is growing. And they are all 'destinations,' places to walk around and browse while enjoying the weather--and air conditioned stores to duck into if it gets too hot. They have tried for the 'village' feel--the modern equivalent of wandering around downtown while window shopping.
21
Except in freezing cold states,why go into an enclosed space on your shopping trip? I have never understood the joy and never choose the mall unless the price drives me to its noise and blinding lights and phony joyous atmosphere. Give me a quiet shop on a street in the USA where I can speak to a merchant who knows the product. I then can perhaps sit in an open air cafe for a cup of coffee rather than line up for?
1
Mall stores sicken me when I see rows and rows of clothes. No wonder the earth, the land our resources are being raped. Our advertising media persuades us to believe in more, more. It saps my soul.
9
"Soul sapping" is the perfect description.
1
Malls are a boring, tiring experience whether or not they thrive financially. They killed the great downtown department stores and associated smaller retail businesses in most cities. I lament the fact that most of today's young people will never know the fun and excitement of a vibrant downtown with crowded streets and truly unique stores started and run by local families for generations.
I lived in downtown Washington when White Flint Mall opened. My first visit was my last. Not long after White Flint and seemingly-countless other suburban malls arrived, one-by-one the wonderful downtown establishments of Woodward & Lothrop, Garfinkle's, Kann's, etc., with their distinctive landmark buildings, faded and closed. It is encouraging to see some downtowns reviving, although the usual national-chain stores now seem to dominate even the big cities.
What examples of poor planning and land use these malls are.
I lived in downtown Washington when White Flint Mall opened. My first visit was my last. Not long after White Flint and seemingly-countless other suburban malls arrived, one-by-one the wonderful downtown establishments of Woodward & Lothrop, Garfinkle's, Kann's, etc., with their distinctive landmark buildings, faded and closed. It is encouraging to see some downtowns reviving, although the usual national-chain stores now seem to dominate even the big cities.
What examples of poor planning and land use these malls are.
6
...but Walmarts are booming.
Another triumph of the "free market",.. tear down nature, destroy it for spawl. then after a few years you have empty gutted sprawl and ruined environment... Repeat over and over.
8
I always found malls a testament to a society that equated the acquisition of things with achieving the good life. Bringing all those big plastic bags into the house was a symbol of what it means to be an American---as a former president recommended, when the world becomes chaotic go shopping. I wish I could say that the decline of these monuments to materialism means Americas are moving beyond these baser capitalistic instincts. But, I fear that our entire culture has exchanged mall attendance for staring at whatever electronic device is nearest to them for hours on end.
6
Soon we will be living inside our own virtual reality helmets, now that the motion sickness issue with VR has been solved by software that takes head motion into account when displaying the image. At least it will further reduce per capita energy consumption in first world countries. We have seen the future, and it is The Matrix. We won't even need our bodies when the technology is perfected.
Sure - its a Crazy thought ,but what a Society we are - Maybe Millions (?) homeless and we tear down Huge ,unused spaces that could be used to shelter Many Many Thousands or more.
What a Crazy ,Wasteful & Useless Collection of Human Beings we are.
What a Crazy ,Wasteful & Useless Collection of Human Beings we are.
1
It conjures a vision of life in the Superdome in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to me.
2
No mention about the many jobs that are lost when these mega-malls close their doors. Another milestone on the road to a declining economy and civilization that has been rooted for years in greed that led to over-expansion and unchecked consumerism.
In 1988 I took a cross-country road trip in moving from the East Coast to the West Coast. Great country, wonderful people. Most enriching was the diversity from one region to the next.
By 1996 when I did the trip in reverse, nearly every major region was dominated by the same chain stores. Even the Pier district in San Francisco and the entertainment hub in Dallas had fallen to the cookie cutter "mega" malls with the same retailers.
As we have ceded the the control of our consumer product providers to ever larger corporations and even international ownership, we have not only lost our identities, we have fed the monster. Corporations have an obligation to their stockholders...and few of the middle class belong to that elite group. Only people with expendable income can afford to play the money game.
I do wonder how, as the smaller retail owners keep disappearing along with the jobs and character they represent, the Goliath owners will survive. Financial strength "trickles up", not down, and someday there will not be the foundation of lower/middle income fuel to keep the machine rolling.
Does the image of Rome burning while Nero sits in a drunken stupor come to anyone's mind?
In 1988 I took a cross-country road trip in moving from the East Coast to the West Coast. Great country, wonderful people. Most enriching was the diversity from one region to the next.
By 1996 when I did the trip in reverse, nearly every major region was dominated by the same chain stores. Even the Pier district in San Francisco and the entertainment hub in Dallas had fallen to the cookie cutter "mega" malls with the same retailers.
As we have ceded the the control of our consumer product providers to ever larger corporations and even international ownership, we have not only lost our identities, we have fed the monster. Corporations have an obligation to their stockholders...and few of the middle class belong to that elite group. Only people with expendable income can afford to play the money game.
I do wonder how, as the smaller retail owners keep disappearing along with the jobs and character they represent, the Goliath owners will survive. Financial strength "trickles up", not down, and someday there will not be the foundation of lower/middle income fuel to keep the machine rolling.
Does the image of Rome burning while Nero sits in a drunken stupor come to anyone's mind?
3
The interlocked directorship of CEOs considers stockholders a mob of putzes too.
1
Ok, I live near a mall. One that I used to work in as a matter of fact. That was about 11 years ago. Even back then, there were a lot of empty store fronts. And stores were constantly coming and going. Even the store I managed, the owner closed it down after 1 year. As for shopping. I've not liked shopping in the mall for years. Why? They have the wrong stores. They have stores that draw the teenage crowd, then they complain when there's a problem with the kids or because they just go to the mall to hang out. I've seen, no joke, when I worked there, I seen parents actually drop off young kids, 11, 12, and such, at the mall, with the money, to spend the day there while they went to work. They used it as a babysitting tool. Not a smart thing to do. We constantly had problem with kids. Not just the younger ones, but the teens too. When you start replacing stores that the adults might frequent, with stores aimed at teens, you are going to lose a large number of shoppers. The last place I want to be, is in a mall that caters to Forever 21, Hot Topix, Alley Kat, Buckle, Charming Charlie and so on. I've looked at the list of stores. There's none that I would bother to shop at. Sears? JC Penny's ? I would. But, they need to go back to some of their old ways of things. Such as great customer service would be a huge bonus. And hire women, Instead of these young girls who have absolutely no clue on how to help someone in their 30's, 40', 50's + .
8
Sears was never known for customer service. The sign above the door simply said, "Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back." Sounds great, but what does it mean? Only that a refund clears the slate, from Sears's point of view anyway.
What built Sears was credit - specifically its willingness to extend credit to the middle class when few others would. Take away that first-mover advantage, and you have nothing.
What built Sears was credit - specifically its willingness to extend credit to the middle class when few others would. Take away that first-mover advantage, and you have nothing.
1
Malls have evolved. Those that are near affluent areas can survive with fancy brand stores in them. Others have been replaced by Walmart.
Guys like me are always mystified why people spend their money in there, but this is human nature.
Guys like me are always mystified why people spend their money in there, but this is human nature.
3
So many good comments on this article. I can only add that I see my own young adult children being extremely anti materialist, and not in an activist way,but more like someone who grew up during the great depression. I suspect that earlier depression generation likewise didn't spend very much money in malls because deep down they didn't enjoy spending and they were too savvy to be marketed too. It took the fat and lazy boomers who were raised in good times in expanding suburbs ( with cheap gas) to believe that mall shopping was an event. So I think the demographics and history are changing the meaning of malls, striping away their image as a fun place or an entertainment place. With that illusion gone, they really don't have that much to offer except maybe for the cloistered rich, who can still get a thrill out of spending $200 for a jacket and $100 on lunch. Cities, on the other hand, still promise a more authentic experience and a unique texture and feel that the younger generation sees the value of. Not so much corporate as cultural. This is all good in a way.
10
My kids are the same way. Paying retail is for chumps. They'd rather buy at consignment shops.
1
High and low economic class and the stuff that services those opposite layers of life are permanent, but the middle of everything is gone.
4
Developers have targeted the malls because they have run out of space to erect tall, high occupancy buildings -- modern day rabbit warrens-- that generate income for them. So, we end up with lots more people, more congestion, and little space left for recreation, schools, or anything else of value. We create more problems than we solve.
The dead mall phenomenon has been around since at least the 90s. Retail construction outpaced population growth from the 60s onward. A lot of malls, like Rolling Acres, served areas that weren't growing and probably never should have been built. Other malls, like Randall Park, once the largest in the country, duplicated shopping that already existed. Malls also moved heavily toward fashion/clothing and reliance on national chains as they evolved from the 60s to the 80s. Stagnating wages could not support shopping at those kinds of stores, but they became necessary for supporting the high cost of maintaining enclosed space. Some malls were poorly located--White Flint is really on the edge of its affluent population base and places like downtown Bethesda and the Friendship Heights area on the DC/MD border were better placed to serve that clientele. The death of malls isn't necessarily a bad thing---these places ultimately relied on national retailers and hurt local ones and created high homogenized shopping environments. Old strip malls in economically healthy areas have proven more robust and often outlived them, which is why "power centers" and "Lifestyle centers" became popular among developers. These complexes often welcome the "off price" stores and warehouse operations like Costco that also helped kill off malls.
3
Many, many years ago when we had thousands of vibrant downtowns across the United States we also had another overlooked important element. Ownership and equity in property and in the community. Mom and pop and other small speciality stores not only had interest in doing business, find new products and customer service. They also had a real, equity interest in the downtown and the community. We all despair the loss of our downtowns We all miss the speciality retail stores that were part and parcel of our communities. And we certainly miss not knowing the shop owners and their children who owned and operated these businesses for generations. Sometimes as they aged they sold to new families coming to the community thus sustaining it when the originating families moved on. We all miss the most important parts of community; Ownership, equity and participation in the community.
The malls never offered that. The malls literally sucked the life from thousands of not just communities but of lives. Instead of making a profit, offering new and different products and then reinvesting in the community as did the mom and pop and other private businesses, the malls collected rent and then built a new, competing mall across the other side of town. The result was bankrupting the malls and the community.
I will not shed a single tear for the malls. Not one. We can't rebuild our downtowns and bring back the past. But we can and we must build a new future. Less malls, more jobs.
The malls never offered that. The malls literally sucked the life from thousands of not just communities but of lives. Instead of making a profit, offering new and different products and then reinvesting in the community as did the mom and pop and other private businesses, the malls collected rent and then built a new, competing mall across the other side of town. The result was bankrupting the malls and the community.
I will not shed a single tear for the malls. Not one. We can't rebuild our downtowns and bring back the past. But we can and we must build a new future. Less malls, more jobs.
9
Went into a mall a few weeks before the holidays, something I do every two or so years. As usual I felt claustrophobic, there was nothing for sale that really appealed to me at any store there, and the air inside was warm and static, not having a germ phobia, I suddenly felt like I had one, as everyone coughed into the air that probably has never seen the light of day.
I am certainly fascinated by the idea of people "going to the mall" on the weekend. Even though the cross section of race is there, the people all seem homogenized and reaching for the same goal in life. To purchase and much stuff as they can. I don't understand the appeal when I'd rather be "outside" enjoying the natural environment.
I am certainly fascinated by the idea of people "going to the mall" on the weekend. Even though the cross section of race is there, the people all seem homogenized and reaching for the same goal in life. To purchase and much stuff as they can. I don't understand the appeal when I'd rather be "outside" enjoying the natural environment.
1
I'll dance on the graves of the mall. I'd rather buy from a small mom & pop shop down the street than fight for parking to get sweatshop made junk. Good riddance, I hope these buildings get re-designed to house the homeless...
3
With all sympathies to good people who through misfortune end up homeless the fact is many in that situation are addicts, criminals or mentally ill. I don't think many middle class families will like the idea of demolishing the local mall to put a homeless shelter next door.
The small town 'mom and pop' store sounds great and I frequent them whenever but the idea that the big retailers are going to go under and it will return to some Norman Rockwell type experience is a fantasy. What's happening is a reflection of our economy . There is class warfare but not the one's the Republicans keep ginning up. It's warfare on the middle class. The high end stores are doing great and so are the low end dollar stores. It's the middle end that's dying off so while Republicans worry about millionaires and Democrats abandon labor (so 20th century) and concern themselves only with the noble poor this is what you get. By the way along with quality public education organized labor is what helped lift so many poor into the middle class .
The small town 'mom and pop' store sounds great and I frequent them whenever but the idea that the big retailers are going to go under and it will return to some Norman Rockwell type experience is a fantasy. What's happening is a reflection of our economy . There is class warfare but not the one's the Republicans keep ginning up. It's warfare on the middle class. The high end stores are doing great and so are the low end dollar stores. It's the middle end that's dying off so while Republicans worry about millionaires and Democrats abandon labor (so 20th century) and concern themselves only with the noble poor this is what you get. By the way along with quality public education organized labor is what helped lift so many poor into the middle class .
1
I enjoyed living in a somewhat depressed area in the big city because it had all of these little mom and pop stores that sold buttons and fish hooks and used books and second-hand clothes and all the odds and ends one needed while living on a small income. I could get whatever I needed within walking distance. But prosperity came to my neighborhood and all of the quaint stores selling notions and bows and needles and thread and cheap household goods could not pay the doubling and tripling and quadrupling of their leases — the irony was, that these little shops were what attracted the new residents to the area.
Now, if I need any buttons or bows, pill-splitters or cheap electronics, I simply go on-line. You need a car to get to those dying malls and I no longer drive.
Now, if I need any buttons or bows, pill-splitters or cheap electronics, I simply go on-line. You need a car to get to those dying malls and I no longer drive.
14
It's nostalgic Americana for me. We used to call it "the shopping center" and I looked forward to fried chicken at the food court because my mother wouldn't make it for me (it was too messy). I'd get a model airplane or baseball cards and my brother got a book (you can guess which of us has the nicer house). It was a big deal to go there -- we'd save money, a 60-mile round trip, wear nicer clothes. Wealth and expectations have grown too much in the past half century, future generations may not understand the term "interior life."
2
Our long-term plans include relocating to an older, close-in, lower-middle-class suburb in the west whose housing stock is modest but whose level of citizen involvement in community-building is downright inspiring.
An example, one of many:
Perhaps a decade ago, this older town was trying to figure out what to do with a no-longer-fashionable mall. They entertained a lot of proposals that would have attempted to reverse a powerful long-term retail trend favoring newer malls in newer suburbs. But in the end, the town came up with a much better plan.
The town completely redeveloped the site, extending the existing street grid into the former mall property. Then they relocated municipal offices --- including a state-of-the-art town library --- to this very walkable site and attracted a variety of retail establishments as well.
To head off the possibility that the site would become a ghost town at night, the town included a ton of housing and other amenities, ensuring nearly round-the-clock vitality for the new development.
What made this sizable investment attractive was that the former mall site was adjacent to the path of a new regional light rail system, including a stop only steps away from the planned redevelopment. Now, several years on, the 'recycled' site is an unqualified success.
Most striking to me was that this happened not in some hip enclave but in a diverse, lower-middle-class suburb with an unusually high level of civic participation. As I said, inspiring.
An example, one of many:
Perhaps a decade ago, this older town was trying to figure out what to do with a no-longer-fashionable mall. They entertained a lot of proposals that would have attempted to reverse a powerful long-term retail trend favoring newer malls in newer suburbs. But in the end, the town came up with a much better plan.
The town completely redeveloped the site, extending the existing street grid into the former mall property. Then they relocated municipal offices --- including a state-of-the-art town library --- to this very walkable site and attracted a variety of retail establishments as well.
To head off the possibility that the site would become a ghost town at night, the town included a ton of housing and other amenities, ensuring nearly round-the-clock vitality for the new development.
What made this sizable investment attractive was that the former mall site was adjacent to the path of a new regional light rail system, including a stop only steps away from the planned redevelopment. Now, several years on, the 'recycled' site is an unqualified success.
Most striking to me was that this happened not in some hip enclave but in a diverse, lower-middle-class suburb with an unusually high level of civic participation. As I said, inspiring.
9
I'm afraid it is asking too much of our politicians to actually make something positive and benefitting the common good out of this tragic hollowing out of the middle class that they engineered.
For me, that hollowing-out began more than 30 years ago, when Reagan destroyed the flight controllers union and continued with Clinton's job-destroying, community-decimating NAFTA and the bogus sales pitch he delivered extolling the glories of global capitalism.
In the western (U.S.) community I referred to above, two-party electoral politics aside, the town council does an excellent job of keeping people informed and active concerning issues of large and small import. The re-imagining and redevelopment of the site of a vacant mall is only one.
In the western (U.S.) community I referred to above, two-party electoral politics aside, the town council does an excellent job of keeping people informed and active concerning issues of large and small import. The re-imagining and redevelopment of the site of a vacant mall is only one.
Within 20 miles of where I have lived there have been no fewer than 4 malls that have come and gone since they started showing up in the 1970s. I'm not sure to say that the NYT didn't cover each one at least peripherally and/or post mortem.
All 4 are still shopping areas, after a fashion. The Mays Department Store is now a flea market. Service Merchandise, a Home Depot. They all died of the same disease, a new mall right down the street. One Mall is still standing only because the credit crunch of 2008 put the Ginormous Mall plans across the street on "hold." But it will one day be #5 (if not a higher #).
What to do with the old mall? Let's see. An exceptionally large building with ample, flattened space around it, generally located in an area with easy access and egress to and from local roads and main arteries. Infrastructure in place... Sounds like a perfect area to put a central school district.
Sounds like a perfect place to put a "Downtown Strip" of Dance Clubs, Health Clubs, restaurants, skating rinks, indoor soccer...
Sounds like a perfect place to put a multifamily (mega multi) community housing project.
These behemoths can easily be repurposed. letting them rot is a crime against the community and the resources used to make them.
Not to go down this road, but... What is the purpose of "Planning boards" if they aren't going to plan beyond the rosy outlook for the shiny new development?
All 4 are still shopping areas, after a fashion. The Mays Department Store is now a flea market. Service Merchandise, a Home Depot. They all died of the same disease, a new mall right down the street. One Mall is still standing only because the credit crunch of 2008 put the Ginormous Mall plans across the street on "hold." But it will one day be #5 (if not a higher #).
What to do with the old mall? Let's see. An exceptionally large building with ample, flattened space around it, generally located in an area with easy access and egress to and from local roads and main arteries. Infrastructure in place... Sounds like a perfect area to put a central school district.
Sounds like a perfect place to put a "Downtown Strip" of Dance Clubs, Health Clubs, restaurants, skating rinks, indoor soccer...
Sounds like a perfect place to put a multifamily (mega multi) community housing project.
These behemoths can easily be repurposed. letting them rot is a crime against the community and the resources used to make them.
Not to go down this road, but... What is the purpose of "Planning boards" if they aren't going to plan beyond the rosy outlook for the shiny new development?
2
In my town there is an abundance of super-duper supermarkets including an enormous Market Basket that opened recently with much fanfare after the very public dispute that raged through the summer between the owners, with the workers and customers backing one owner, "Good Arthur" as he was dubbed in the Boston Globe comments, versus "Bad Arthur." This store is mobbed, but all the food chains seem to be doing well here. Could it be that as Americans find themselves with less disposable income food shopping, in mega food stores, is become the shopping experience of choice?
3
American society is changing, due to the huge economic dislocations of the past 20 years. Both Wal-mart and McDonalds are in a slight, but noticeable revenue declines now. Where are people going to instead of these places? If you believe the experts, the more healthy Chipotle Mexican chain to eat, and the various dollar stores. I believe the part about the dollar stores grabbing business because there are many of them around here, but I don't even know where a local Chipotle is around here, so I don't think that is the answer.
As for malls, a big local land owner and developer down here, Burroughs and Chapin, turned one downtown mall, Myrtle Square Mall, into an enormous parking lot about 9 years ago, after opening an even bigger mall, the Coastal Grand Mall, less than 10 miles away from it.
The Coastal Grand Mall is considered to be a regional shopping center, and is the second largest mall in the entire state, but when I visited it the last time, its food court area had shrunk markedly, with many vacant spaces in it. It also has a multiplex movie theater inside it as well as the big flagship anchor stores, such as Belk, an upscale regional clothing store, a Penny's and a Sears store. But it, too, has many vacant store fronts in it. I actually preferred the more intimate feel of the old Myrtle Square Mall to the new one. It seems Americans don't find driving long distances for major shopping excursions to be as desirable as they did in more prosperous times.
2
This seems to be a rebalancing of retail.
Malls exploded in the 80's and by the 90's many local downtown areas were entirely closed. (For those on Long Island, see Bay Shore).
As all the malls and super centers over-saturated the areas and incomes fell, the downtown areas served a need again. A central, small locale that locals can walk to and get what they need. In the last 15 years, downtown Bay Shore went from a boarded up downtown area with only 5 bars open to a thriving shopping and restaurant destination.
People were once excited about going to the mall, but it's lost it's newness - so they go somewhere else.
The retail areas level themselves and its up to retailers to figure out how to make it work. Only up to 20% of the malls are falling off - maybe for the industry that's huge, but in reality, the malls that are changing with the times, updating and trying to think of new ways to keep and attract customers seems to be working. The one's who don't offer this, fall away.
Malls exploded in the 80's and by the 90's many local downtown areas were entirely closed. (For those on Long Island, see Bay Shore).
As all the malls and super centers over-saturated the areas and incomes fell, the downtown areas served a need again. A central, small locale that locals can walk to and get what they need. In the last 15 years, downtown Bay Shore went from a boarded up downtown area with only 5 bars open to a thriving shopping and restaurant destination.
People were once excited about going to the mall, but it's lost it's newness - so they go somewhere else.
The retail areas level themselves and its up to retailers to figure out how to make it work. Only up to 20% of the malls are falling off - maybe for the industry that's huge, but in reality, the malls that are changing with the times, updating and trying to think of new ways to keep and attract customers seems to be working. The one's who don't offer this, fall away.
3
I am an American expat from Vermont, where there are fewer malls and box stores than in most parts of the country. The high-end Church Street pedestrian mall and shopping area in Burlington has outgrown the available parking, at least at peak times, and risks becoming a victim of its own success. Most of the time, however, I shop in a variety of locations in south-central Ontario --when I shop at all. In my household we have one good job and one contract job. That makes us able to gawk and occasionally to buy. This is what I see: because consumer goods are more expensive in Canada, what is perceived as "middle class" in your article is closer to "upper middle class" here. (In reality, some of the "middle class" stores you describe are out of reach for the middle class in both countries, but maybe the NY Times is in bit of a bubble about that.) Once I make that adjustment and also adjust for the weather, which makes malls more viable in Canada, I see the same broad trends at work. The owners of the nearest higher-end malls won't get rich on yours truly. When I do buy, it is usually for a durable piece of kitchenware or footwear that is worth the money. These items are treated with respect. For clothes I have generally been shopping on line for years, as there are still places on the Internet where one can get well-made items for less than an extortionate price. And don't get me started on the shortage of disabled parking at two high-end malls in suburban Toronto...
3
The local mall here where I live is the Phillipsburg Mall, and I have observed a similar transformation. There are many vacant stores and the new tenants are more services, such as a gym, beauty or nail salon, and (feh!) an e-cigarette parlor. We went there on Dec. 1 because my smartphone died and I wanted a new one right away. Luckily, the folks at the Verizon store there had just what I wanted in stock. However, I couldn't help noticing that the mall was practically empty on a Friday night during the holiday season. The next closest enclosed mall is probably either Palmer Park in Easton, PA or Rockaway Mall, so I don't think there's too much competition here. The county demographic is aging and the middle class is struggling. My own shopping habits are now 100% online - Amazon, Chicos, Talbots, Zappos, etc. I recently bought ready-made window treatments from Amazon and dress slacks for my husband online at Macy's and we were 100% satisfied with both. It's easier to browse online and compare items than to schlep around the mall and the online retailers' return policy make it zero risk. I don't have any great ideas to revive malls. I think their time has come and gone.
4
In Austin part of one of our malls has been converted to a branch of our local community college- it is beautiful and thriving. I hear that some related non-profits are scheduled to be housed there as well. Our old airport is now a film studio and lot.
6
Let's factor in the role that internet shopping plays in the demise of these malls. I would speculate that it plays a considerable and ever increasing role in the demise of brick and mortar stores.
3
RIP: May Company, Bullock's, The Broadway, Montgomery Ward, Robinson's, Walker Scott, Ohrbach's, and some others I'm not remembering right now. They're middle class department stores, children, around which middle class shopping malls were built and which became extinct over the past 25 years. (J.C. Penney's and Sears are still with us, but just barely. hanging on by their corporate fingernails.) Most have become Macy's, Target, and a few Bloomingdale's; and it's probably only a matter of time before those become Wal-marts.
As the middle class itself declines, so do its shopping venues. Technology, of course, hasn't helped, either: malls used to have at least one bookstore and record store.
Somebody really should preserve a couple of mid-level malls for posterity's sake; tourists can walk through them the way they do Versailles and Hearst Castle.
As the middle class itself declines, so do its shopping venues. Technology, of course, hasn't helped, either: malls used to have at least one bookstore and record store.
Somebody really should preserve a couple of mid-level malls for posterity's sake; tourists can walk through them the way they do Versailles and Hearst Castle.
3
I live a few miles from both Malls described in this article and have shopped in both of them over the years . I am 65+ years old . There is more to this story . The Owings Mills mall area is no longer safe due to crime . My daughter works for T Rowe Price which built a beautiful campus in Owings Mills decades ago ( when it was safe ) and she will not go into that Mall even for lunch due to fear . The Towsontown Mall area is safe and that is the main reason it's stores are thriving . However there has been a small uptick in crime in Towson so we shall see what happens . No one I know enjoys shopping in that Mall after 12 noon due to the regular presence of noisy groups of young people who seem to always congregate there . We do our shopping in the morning .
13
What built the malls? Accelerated Depreciation passed by the Republican Congress of 1954, intended to increase construction of factories, but accidentally applying to retail establishments. No tax break on land, just on construction, so cheaper land farther away from the city was used.
In 1981, Congress changed the depreciation from 40 years to 15 years, leading to shoddy and pointless construction of malls and office buildings just for a tax break. This disastrous policy was repealed in 1986. The "developers" of many malls built in the early 80's did not care whether the malls succeeded..
In 1981, Congress changed the depreciation from 40 years to 15 years, leading to shoddy and pointless construction of malls and office buildings just for a tax break. This disastrous policy was repealed in 1986. The "developers" of many malls built in the early 80's did not care whether the malls succeeded..
16
This is an important angle to this story and should have been mentioned if only in passing by the reporter.
2
It would be nice if a mall had a computer store, a library, a medical clinic, a government service center, a swimming pool. The mall near my place has only clothing stores. I don't go there anymore.
4
This is simply the process of evolution. Mall culture served a useful purpose, and now society is changing. I have never been a fan of malls, except for Cameron Village shopping center in Raleigh NC, founded over a half-century ago, human scale, pedestrian friendly, close to downtown and university and residential community. These abandoned malls might be good sites for homeless housing.
5
The B and C malls aren't all bad. In my area, they attract lots of local, startup retailers who can't afford the high rents of healthy malls or trendy urban strips. The result is an ironic reversal of the prior norm - shopping at the mall can now be a blow against the cookie-cutter national chains in favor of the local mom and pop proprietor (or entrepreneurial kid). I never imagined that one day I'd shop at a suburban mall to support a local business, but that is exactly what is happening.
4
Malls have their place, including climates that are inhospitable to outdoor shopping. As for the return to mom and pop stores, those will exist, but even in vibrant downtown, we see a lot of chain stores that are very popular, and other stores that are less so.
We are not going back to the 1950s, and I'm OK with that. In the olden days, women rarely worked, and where primarily homemakers. They could spread their household shopping out during workweek day. Now shopping is more compressed to after 5PM, and on weekends. To support that, you need to scale parking, and clustering of stores. Families don't have the time they used to anymore to bounce around a town to get what they need.
If you want the 1950s, you'll need to change a lot more than where people shop.
We are not going back to the 1950s, and I'm OK with that. In the olden days, women rarely worked, and where primarily homemakers. They could spread their household shopping out during workweek day. Now shopping is more compressed to after 5PM, and on weekends. To support that, you need to scale parking, and clustering of stores. Families don't have the time they used to anymore to bounce around a town to get what they need.
If you want the 1950s, you'll need to change a lot more than where people shop.
5
As noted in the article, "over-retailed" is a fundamemental reason for maill/retailing failure. The proliferation of chain stores everywhere, throughout the country has resulted in cannibalization. Developers contimue to build malls and the same chains also have inserted themselves in many local shopping areas - such as Bethesda, MD or Alexandria, VA - which were once full of independent, local stores.
3
It would be great if some of this space could be used to house the homeless; to provide additional classrooms, libraries, gymnasiums, or performing arts centers for overcrowded schools; to provide additional medical facilities; or put to some other square-footage-intensive public or private use.
Unfortunately, many of our upper middle-scale malls were designed as extra-urban islands such that, even if you can reach them without a private automobile, they are so pedestrian-unfriendly that navigating their exterior access roads and parking areas on foot can be "taking your life in your hand."
Unfortunately, many of our upper middle-scale malls were designed as extra-urban islands such that, even if you can reach them without a private automobile, they are so pedestrian-unfriendly that navigating their exterior access roads and parking areas on foot can be "taking your life in your hand."
3
Visit Easton Town Center for a vision of what malls should be, and what they could have been if they were not built everywhere else as a series of suffocating airless boxes strung together:
http://www.eastontowncenter.com/
http://www.eastontowncenter.com/
2
Evolution is speeding up.
2
Tear the ugly things down, support a return of mom 'n' pop stores in large and small downtowns, and encourage local governments to organize community gardens.
4
I grew up in a small town with a downtown (probably not far from you) of mom-and-pop stores. The Capra-esque nostalgia for the imaginary small towns is just that - imagination. Malls are faltering because they're overbuilt and because the middle class is hollowed. Not because they are intrinsically a bad idea in themselves. Initially they were a good idea, a possible counter to suburban sprawl, concentrating the retail in one place rather than in hundreds of duplicative little 'downtowns' all offering a handful of overpriced goods to an insular community. Shop in downtown, see your neighbours. Shop at the mall, see your entire region. It's honestly a much more democratic institution than the small town.
Funny how things change. The hipsters of the 1920s, reading Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis on the stifling parochialism of small towns (not excluding their commerce), would laugh their wazoos off at the nostalgia of hipsters for Grover's Corners.
Funny how things change. The hipsters of the 1920s, reading Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis on the stifling parochialism of small towns (not excluding their commerce), would laugh their wazoos off at the nostalgia of hipsters for Grover's Corners.
5
Nope. Grew up in the South.
I'm reminded of The Talking Heads song "(Nothing But) Flowers". Maybe Mr. Byrne was channeling his inner Jane Jacobs??
1
Between the Great Recession and retail marketing that continually tries to reinvent the shopping experience...
Malls have been springing into life, having a heyday run then declining and closing for at least the past 50+ years that I have been a retail shopper. In attendant with articles lamenting the malls' decline, in which only the date needs changed to stay relevant.
That they represent huge financial investments, little wonder there's always a huge scramble to save the mall and keep them profitable...
Malls have been springing into life, having a heyday run then declining and closing for at least the past 50+ years that I have been a retail shopper. In attendant with articles lamenting the malls' decline, in which only the date needs changed to stay relevant.
That they represent huge financial investments, little wonder there's always a huge scramble to save the mall and keep them profitable...
1
Perhaps Americans are just getting sick of seeing all the "Made in China" junk the Cayman Island Leveraged Buyout Barons import into America for their Chinese Communist partners? Why go to a Mall to support Chinese workers, their Communist over-lords, and their Cayman Island Leveraged Buyout Baron partners?
8
Dead malls have been a problem for a long time. In the NY suburbs malls have died and some were reborn. Some lie fallow forever. They are born during heady times facilitated by lenders and developers propelled by making money by loaning and spending. In the fallout they cry for bailout. That's the American way. The alternative is a Soviet planned economy. Generalizing about this sector make good news reading. Real estate is local and is a case by case challenge. In the worst case these malls are the land value less the cost of demolition and carrying costs.
3
Like everything, you either evolve or you die. Outside Atlanta there's an old mall that has become a, uh, mecca for Latino families, with small shops and entertainment geared specifically for them. It grew somewhat organically
(if that word can be used for a concrete marketplace) with the efforts of a small business entrepreneur, not a corporation viewing the local community from an office building hundreds of miles away.
In Chapel Hill, I watched University Mall flourish, languish and struggle to renew itself. Today it has more local retailers than a stereotypical mall and the one remaining anchor store (Dillards) closed up within the year. It's a different kind of mall now, for the better I hope.
Then there is the always-booming Tysons Corner Mall in Northern Virginia. With Nordstrom, Bloomies, Apple and Macys, it's upper-middle scale and the clientele is international. And now the Metro makes it accessible without a car.
The bottom line is there is no one formula for a successful bottom line because all retail is local, despite the corporate blueprints.
(if that word can be used for a concrete marketplace) with the efforts of a small business entrepreneur, not a corporation viewing the local community from an office building hundreds of miles away.
In Chapel Hill, I watched University Mall flourish, languish and struggle to renew itself. Today it has more local retailers than a stereotypical mall and the one remaining anchor store (Dillards) closed up within the year. It's a different kind of mall now, for the better I hope.
Then there is the always-booming Tysons Corner Mall in Northern Virginia. With Nordstrom, Bloomies, Apple and Macys, it's upper-middle scale and the clientele is international. And now the Metro makes it accessible without a car.
The bottom line is there is no one formula for a successful bottom line because all retail is local, despite the corporate blueprints.
5
As someone with 35 + years in retail experience, 23 in a mom and pop sporting goods store and 12 in a hockey rink pro shop, now I'm supposed to feel sorry for the death of malls?! The malls killed simple basic thriving downtown shopping districts across America. Amazon with the rest of online purchasing is reducing brick and mortar stores to showrooms for online shoppers to check out the product(happens all the time in my pro shop with hockey gear buyers) before they buy it online. Walmart pays pennies on the dollar to its employees and the workers have no choice as people continue to shop there. And now these malls are dying? Well, duh.
8
I gew up in a small New England town that had a thriving downtown with quite a variety of stores. In the late 1960s a mall opened on the edge of town. By the 1970s, four malls had attached themselves like barnacles to the town and the downtown businesses were struggling to survive.
On a recent visit, I observed that the malls had a large number of vacancies and three were obviously struggling while the downtown area had reestablished itself. I guess shopping patterns had changed, but consider that these malls catered to national and regional chain stores and pretty much froze out local businesses. Had the malls accommodated local businesses I suspect they’d be in much better shape than they are.
On a recent visit, I observed that the malls had a large number of vacancies and three were obviously struggling while the downtown area had reestablished itself. I guess shopping patterns had changed, but consider that these malls catered to national and regional chain stores and pretty much froze out local businesses. Had the malls accommodated local businesses I suspect they’d be in much better shape than they are.
5
Where I live in Washington DC, there are lots of "Town Centers" being built, like Rockville Town Center, Bowie Town Center, and Dulles Town Center, which are like malls turned inside-out. To me, they seem like rather sad efforts at trying to recreate the ideal small-town Main Street, which was obliterated by big box retail stores, but in a completely controlled, prefabricated way. They all seem to have the same stores as well. We seem to be fixated on try to find a small-town experience for millions of well-trained mass market consumers.
12
Canada does not have this problem because the banks refused to lend to build retail centers for which there was no demand, causing Canadian retailers to be more valuable because they have higher sales per square foot! And in America the Beautiful, we have a blighted landscape sacrificed on the alter of Wall Street making a fee from doing a one time transaction.
10
Maybe not in Canada, but Seminary South Shopping Center was converted to an enclosed mall in the 1980s with a loan from the Bank of Montreal.
I recall a title of a book "The Malling Of America". How true.
1
Just like with TV, I mostly stopped going to Sears-based and J.C. Penney-based malls many decades ago.
2
Over the last thirty years, households first put more people to work, then borrowed against raising home values, and finally are reducing discretionary expenditures to match stagnate real wages. Each year the basics - food, housing, medical care, etc.…increase - while income growth trails behind.
As the hand to mouth economy inches up the income distribution, frustration and bewilderment grows, while both political parties play distracting tunes.
The Democrats say workers are too dumb and need more education. Republicans say give more tax breaks to the “job creators” and your boss will share his windfall with you.
Neither strikes at the underlying business models and sociopathic corporate governance policies that extract worker productivity for the exclusive benefit of CEOs and capital accounts.
We are all waiting for the next economic crisis, a Minsky Moment, when another FDR or Jefferson will appear and save us from our fate. The truth is we have to save ourselves by engaging the political process, and the next great leader will show up.
As the hand to mouth economy inches up the income distribution, frustration and bewilderment grows, while both political parties play distracting tunes.
The Democrats say workers are too dumb and need more education. Republicans say give more tax breaks to the “job creators” and your boss will share his windfall with you.
Neither strikes at the underlying business models and sociopathic corporate governance policies that extract worker productivity for the exclusive benefit of CEOs and capital accounts.
We are all waiting for the next economic crisis, a Minsky Moment, when another FDR or Jefferson will appear and save us from our fate. The truth is we have to save ourselves by engaging the political process, and the next great leader will show up.
1
why go to these depressing malls with bad service and high prices?? buy everything online--2 day free shipping, low prices, thousands of merchants to select from!
4
When we decide that educating our children is more important than buying junk to through- or store-away later, perhaps can convert them into schools with bright central, enclosed play areas. Or...how about assisted care centers..with their parking lots occupied by the care-giver's homes...or well spaced-out apartments, whose rents help subsidize the care centers. Or.... But then, that requires we thing of our selves as living in communities. end.
2
Will dead shopping malls be allocated burial space in the same hollowed grounds as the dearly departed Main Streets that they killed?
2
No! They'll push them out.
1
Local governments helped to foster the excessive amount of retail space in the hopes of generating revenue. Poor zoning enforcement has allowed retailers to vacate locations only to open new ones in the same areas, leaving the old ones to rot. In the end nothing was gained in the revenue area but blight was surely increased.
Retailers should be forced by good zoning and regional development plans to keep their existing locations fresh rather than abandoning them and creating sprawl.
The Toledo, Ohio area has had three large malls go from grand openings to abandonment in a forty year period. In one area of North Toledo Kroger has been in three locations in thirty years. The first two locations have been essentially abandoned.
Retailers should be forced by good zoning and regional development plans to keep their existing locations fresh rather than abandoning them and creating sprawl.
The Toledo, Ohio area has had three large malls go from grand openings to abandonment in a forty year period. In one area of North Toledo Kroger has been in three locations in thirty years. The first two locations have been essentially abandoned.
4
You can't pay a kid $7.00 an hour to flip burgers, vote for a guy who's "proud" of the fact that he sent the kid's dad's job off to China, and then work take away his mother's health insurance and then expect him to go to the store next door and buy a $100 pair of sneakers.
14
"Everyone" does NOT have "memories from childhood of going to the mall." Not all families considered spending a day cruising storefronts and envying people who had more to spend, quality entertainment. I have prized memories of being taken on the Rapid Transit to tall, windy, crowded, cheerful downtown Cleveland for Christmas shopping. Christmas! Not every weekend. Other weekends we had homework, reading and outdoor play. A sad day, as they say, for us when shopping - consumption - became, not a task to obtain necessities but a leisure pastime.
Of course too many malls were built. Too many houses were built, too, with too much credit, and filled with too much low-value, low-use stuff. How do you like knowing you are now grouped and herded around as "A" consumers, or "B" or mere "C" shoppers?
Planners and promoters, you figure out what to do with these depressing hulks. They aren't my problem, but then, they never were.
Of course too many malls were built. Too many houses were built, too, with too much credit, and filled with too much low-value, low-use stuff. How do you like knowing you are now grouped and herded around as "A" consumers, or "B" or mere "C" shoppers?
Planners and promoters, you figure out what to do with these depressing hulks. They aren't my problem, but then, they never were.
13
Higbee's next to the Terminal Tower, and the tall Christmas tree at Halle's, downtoen Cleveland 50's, 60's, good times as a kid!
2
Yeah till they traded Colavito.
What about the role of the sharing economy, sustainability and hyper-local neighborhood-based online yard sale groups? I'm a 30-something mom of two with a six-figure household income, but haven't been the mall in years. Our society is awash in excess high-quality possessions in like-new condition, and those of us concerning about sustainability simply see no reason to buy new. Thanks to these online yard sale groups, neighbors can buy and sell to each other for 10-20% of retail price and keep 100% of the money circulating in our own local economy. With over 1000 members in our neighborhood yard sale group all living within two miles of each other, I can buy or sell almost anything and It's all far more convenient than driving to the mall. And with every sale I get to meet or get to know a neighbor a little better. Plus we're keeping things out of the landfill. This truly is my main retail experience these days especially for clothing, shoes, jewelry, toys, books, etc. Sorry national retailers, but malls are 100% over for Generation Social and our Sharing Economy....and our society will be better for it. On a separate but related note, this is also intertwined with our generation's desire for walkable communities with local small business.
84
Why visit a mall when Walmart has everything. Then you have the shopping 4 or 5 mega shopping clubs. Add the Internet and all three combined will make up the loss shares of the malls.
3
No John, Walmart does not have everything; this is a misconception. Just try to find anything you actually need, from plumbing (a certain size "O" ring, for example) to electronics ( a replacement charger for a Samsung phone), or even fresh fruit that does not rot the day after you buy it.
Manufacturers make lower quality goods to Walmart's specs to maintain low prices. Just compare Walmart men's name brand underwear with the same brand offered at other retailers; not the same. It's the same story across merchandise lines. Uninformed people deserve what they get.
Manufacturers make lower quality goods to Walmart's specs to maintain low prices. Just compare Walmart men's name brand underwear with the same brand offered at other retailers; not the same. It's the same story across merchandise lines. Uninformed people deserve what they get.
7
WalMart is a problem, too. Even more so than dead malls.
4
The final photo of the kids on bikes with the perfect donut in the foreground is brilliant!
2
We didn't have to build our country as a consumer economy. That was the short-sighted 1950s plan of suburban sprawl and shopping malls. And our conspicuous consumption is not as grand and soaring as it appears in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade - which, by the way, commits two of our major holidays to shopping instead of family, getaways, or even faith.
Most low-end purchases from these stores are cheap, Chinese-made schlock. Made from Mideast oil into plastic. Or low-quality Asian cotton into fabric that lasts a year. Or non-sustainably harvested wood into quickly-disposed paper cards, boxes, packaging, and wrapping.
Neither the mall-sprawl or the foreign manufacturers are sustainable. Hence, the return to downtowns and shopping local for handmade, domestic goods and services.
Most low-end purchases from these stores are cheap, Chinese-made schlock. Made from Mideast oil into plastic. Or low-quality Asian cotton into fabric that lasts a year. Or non-sustainably harvested wood into quickly-disposed paper cards, boxes, packaging, and wrapping.
Neither the mall-sprawl or the foreign manufacturers are sustainable. Hence, the return to downtowns and shopping local for handmade, domestic goods and services.
6
Maybe if these places were paying their full share of property taxes instead of existing under some tax abatement giveaway there would be more incentive for the owners to repurpose the property. How about building low income homes or Senior Residential Facilities.
The owners just need to think outside the box and quit being so greedy thinking how to get retailing to return.
The owners just need to think outside the box and quit being so greedy thinking how to get retailing to return.
3
As the economy continues to improve, most of these malls will be repurposed as schools, state or county facilities consolidation, indoor small business parks, or something more imaginative. Possibly the anchor store buildings will repurpose better as school, office, commercial or institutional space without the costly mall sections attached - it's been done, just look around the country. Someone will make each one happen without tearing them down, as safely constructed buildings of size are generally too costly to replace on the taxpayers' dime.
3
For some of us baseball and shopping have never been our favorite pastimes. Maybe the rest of America is finally catching on and catching up with us?
4
The mall owners and the large retailers as well as the brand name manufacturers all have a substantial role in the decline of the malls and dearth of merchandise. Not too forget the loss of manufacturing and jobs.
Don't forget too how malls and stores demanded Sunday sales and extended their hours from 9AM to 9PM every day. Instead of shopping being an exciting event that you looked forward to it became less new. The reason to shop ended because they were always there. This also encouraged more part time employment to fill retail hours with less experienced and less knowledgeable, lower paid employees.
The outsourcing of manufacturing and jobs is a major factor of the malls' decline as is the reduction of product offerings by only a handful of remaining manufacturing. And it's not just apparel. It's furniture, Jewelry, shoes, bedding, household goods, toys, clocks, radios, lamps, glassware, dinnerware, pens, lawn furniture and on and on. We just don't have any small and medium unique manufacturers that supply our stores and have fresh and new goods for consumers. Our family closed 9 apparel factories and 2 retail stores. We lost everything. Including all of our skilled workers and designers. Those people who used to shop used to have jobs. No working people, no jobs, no stores and no malls. It's truly a great depression.
Don't forget too how malls and stores demanded Sunday sales and extended their hours from 9AM to 9PM every day. Instead of shopping being an exciting event that you looked forward to it became less new. The reason to shop ended because they were always there. This also encouraged more part time employment to fill retail hours with less experienced and less knowledgeable, lower paid employees.
The outsourcing of manufacturing and jobs is a major factor of the malls' decline as is the reduction of product offerings by only a handful of remaining manufacturing. And it's not just apparel. It's furniture, Jewelry, shoes, bedding, household goods, toys, clocks, radios, lamps, glassware, dinnerware, pens, lawn furniture and on and on. We just don't have any small and medium unique manufacturers that supply our stores and have fresh and new goods for consumers. Our family closed 9 apparel factories and 2 retail stores. We lost everything. Including all of our skilled workers and designers. Those people who used to shop used to have jobs. No working people, no jobs, no stores and no malls. It's truly a great depression.
2
"Hopefully the death of the mall will bring back downtowns and mom-and-pop stores."
Please, enough with the faux nostalgia.
Downtown mom-and-pops died because they had limited inventories, unsustainable prices because of that. and were inconvenient to get to.
Malls provided copious variety in a climate-controlled, if sterile, one-stop environment. Their pricing model was unsustainable, however, because you can't profit from a chain of stores with a niche market, unless there is a continuous flow of heavy foot-traffic.
So we've ended up with big-box "supercenters" and Amazon. The big-box has an extensive inventory of staples. Prices are artificially low due to their immense buying power. Amazon, provides access to niche products we never could have fathomed during the mall heyday.
Of course, the evisceration of middle class buying power rather limits the viability of mid-range retails of any form today. Can't buy what you can't afford.
Please, enough with the faux nostalgia.
Downtown mom-and-pops died because they had limited inventories, unsustainable prices because of that. and were inconvenient to get to.
Malls provided copious variety in a climate-controlled, if sterile, one-stop environment. Their pricing model was unsustainable, however, because you can't profit from a chain of stores with a niche market, unless there is a continuous flow of heavy foot-traffic.
So we've ended up with big-box "supercenters" and Amazon. The big-box has an extensive inventory of staples. Prices are artificially low due to their immense buying power. Amazon, provides access to niche products we never could have fathomed during the mall heyday.
Of course, the evisceration of middle class buying power rather limits the viability of mid-range retails of any form today. Can't buy what you can't afford.
7
Malls can be appealing alternatives to the 'downtown' which I agree is over-romanticized. (Alas, shortsighted mall management sometimes discourages these activities in the belief they distract from shopping.)
For instance, senior walking clubs provide a year-round safe environment for the elderly to socialise while exercising. Teenagers congregated at food courts. There was a better retail mix, with good bookstores and small shops as well as the anchor stores, and more mixed uses besides shopping - Bergen Mall at one time had a book-in theatre hosting professional tours with well-known, or soon to be well-known, actors. Malls had (and some still do have) kiddie rides; professional offices such as accountants and doctors; even a chapel. There were kiddie rides. Special events, such as antiques and collectibles shows, art shows, performances by local dance and music groups. Actually far more vital and varied than anything offered by the standard small-town downtown. And because a mall is regional, people who'd never meet in their stratified neighbourhoods rub elbows; black teens from Paterson and affluent whites from Ho-Ho-Kus would never cross paths if they shopped solely in their respective inadequate downtowns.
The death of malls is due to two things. One, overbuilding. Two, the hollowing out of the middle class. The derision of smug hipsters notwithstanding, it is nothing to celebrate.
For instance, senior walking clubs provide a year-round safe environment for the elderly to socialise while exercising. Teenagers congregated at food courts. There was a better retail mix, with good bookstores and small shops as well as the anchor stores, and more mixed uses besides shopping - Bergen Mall at one time had a book-in theatre hosting professional tours with well-known, or soon to be well-known, actors. Malls had (and some still do have) kiddie rides; professional offices such as accountants and doctors; even a chapel. There were kiddie rides. Special events, such as antiques and collectibles shows, art shows, performances by local dance and music groups. Actually far more vital and varied than anything offered by the standard small-town downtown. And because a mall is regional, people who'd never meet in their stratified neighbourhoods rub elbows; black teens from Paterson and affluent whites from Ho-Ho-Kus would never cross paths if they shopped solely in their respective inadequate downtowns.
The death of malls is due to two things. One, overbuilding. Two, the hollowing out of the middle class. The derision of smug hipsters notwithstanding, it is nothing to celebrate.
2
The Darwinian process of selecting the best suited malls to survive is what makes capitalism flurish.
Many years ago when i first moved to Atlanta, Lenox square was booming and people from Alabama and Tennessee would take special busses and come to shop for the weekend. This was one of the first fully enclosed malls in the SE.
Today, if what I want is not readily available in a local big box store - it is Amazon. Amazon is the next step in consumer retailing and their rating system is extremely helpful.
I still remember a Russian chandelier factory's output was judged by the pounds of chandeliers they produced. So the managers kept incrreasing the weight of their chandeliers until they started pulling down ceilings. A favorite Russian worker saying was, "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work".
Hopefully some bright people can come up with a way to recycle those dead malls. Being a over the road salesman, I have seen new highways being built with the old shattered concrete being used for roadbed material instead of hauled many miles at signicant cost.
Many years ago when i first moved to Atlanta, Lenox square was booming and people from Alabama and Tennessee would take special busses and come to shop for the weekend. This was one of the first fully enclosed malls in the SE.
Today, if what I want is not readily available in a local big box store - it is Amazon. Amazon is the next step in consumer retailing and their rating system is extremely helpful.
I still remember a Russian chandelier factory's output was judged by the pounds of chandeliers they produced. So the managers kept incrreasing the weight of their chandeliers until they started pulling down ceilings. A favorite Russian worker saying was, "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work".
Hopefully some bright people can come up with a way to recycle those dead malls. Being a over the road salesman, I have seen new highways being built with the old shattered concrete being used for roadbed material instead of hauled many miles at signicant cost.
5
The death of malls is another interesting example of how things that many of us have come to take for granted as key parts of the American culture were really just passing fads. We have seen midwestern towns created and emptied in a span of 100 years. We have seen a generation or two be the first and last to take permanent retirement in their early sixties, when that doesn't even seem desirable to most folks any more. Newspapers went from the first mass media to be almost dead in a little more than 100 years. Railroads dominated American travel for about 60 years and rapidly became irrelevant to that sector.
Contrast the rapid change that we and the previous few generations to that experienced by an average American from 200 years ago, who lived much like those who came hundreds of years before him. Change can be scary and there are always losers in that change, but shame on those who do nothing but whine about how things need to be the way they were when they were younger or use the negative impacts of change to get on their political hobby horse. We live in the most exciting and dynamic times era in human history and those who pine for the "good old days" are just as foolish as those who did so in the old days.
Contrast the rapid change that we and the previous few generations to that experienced by an average American from 200 years ago, who lived much like those who came hundreds of years before him. Change can be scary and there are always losers in that change, but shame on those who do nothing but whine about how things need to be the way they were when they were younger or use the negative impacts of change to get on their political hobby horse. We live in the most exciting and dynamic times era in human history and those who pine for the "good old days" are just as foolish as those who did so in the old days.
4
We are moving into America's future lifestyle. You sit in your little space with a fiber optic connection in and out. Everything you want or need will be available from Amazon, and delivered to your door by a drone. Cash will be as irrelevant as wampum. Your wealth will be measured by the amount of pre-buy credits in your Amazon account.
And instead of going on vacation, you will sit in a virtual chamber, with Google glasses and a climate machine to bring you to anyplace, real or imaginary, in the universe.
And instead of going on vacation, you will sit in a virtual chamber, with Google glasses and a climate machine to bring you to anyplace, real or imaginary, in the universe.
I'm surprised that there hasn't been some effort to convert some of the newer, more upscale malls into true mixed-use spaces by converting portions of them into condos and townhomes. Many have large atriums and the upper tiers of retail seem like they could easily be made into condos or townhomes.
The residents, especially in northern climates, could gain a year-round outdoor patio space looking out onto an atrium and shops and restaurants could gain built-in customers literally living within walking distance.
Larger department store spaces could become fitness centers or other businesses capable of attracting both inside and outside customers or be converted into higher-density apartments or hotels.
I'm sure the construction economics don't work, which is why it isn't done, but it would create a unique living space and seems like it should get a lot of value out of a large building that still has a long structure life in front of it.
The residents, especially in northern climates, could gain a year-round outdoor patio space looking out onto an atrium and shops and restaurants could gain built-in customers literally living within walking distance.
Larger department store spaces could become fitness centers or other businesses capable of attracting both inside and outside customers or be converted into higher-density apartments or hotels.
I'm sure the construction economics don't work, which is why it isn't done, but it would create a unique living space and seems like it should get a lot of value out of a large building that still has a long structure life in front of it.
58
The problem is windows. Residents like natural light, but retail spaces are narrow and deep. And consider what the outside of a mall looks like.
1
A lack of imagination among real estate developers since the 1950s have produced "little boxes" housing developments, "big box" stores, large shopping malls and endless parking lots.
I think it can be done, that integrating people with retail spaces, cultural venues, and government services outlets -- connected with local public transportation, or within walking distance -- is what future communities need most.
The problem is that business doesn't like to take risks, and would prefer to build copy-cat malls with standardized designs to doing anything original.
To change this, it would be great if we could beat them at their game. That is, have schools of architecture and urban planning develop new, innovative plans which could be duplicated and sold to businessmen for the same amount or less as the staid plans they use now, so that it is not difficult for real estate developers to join in creating something better. If these new plans also incorporated principles of green building and sustainability, permeable surfaces and energy efficiency, you would have intentional, long-term design replacing scatter-shot, obsolete development.
The trick is to take innovation and make it cool and cheap for the average real estate developer who lacks visual sense and imagination. Convince developers that they can play a positive role in changing the future, and then make it easy for them. They'd be hopping on the bandwagon.
I think it can be done, that integrating people with retail spaces, cultural venues, and government services outlets -- connected with local public transportation, or within walking distance -- is what future communities need most.
The problem is that business doesn't like to take risks, and would prefer to build copy-cat malls with standardized designs to doing anything original.
To change this, it would be great if we could beat them at their game. That is, have schools of architecture and urban planning develop new, innovative plans which could be duplicated and sold to businessmen for the same amount or less as the staid plans they use now, so that it is not difficult for real estate developers to join in creating something better. If these new plans also incorporated principles of green building and sustainability, permeable surfaces and energy efficiency, you would have intentional, long-term design replacing scatter-shot, obsolete development.
The trick is to take innovation and make it cool and cheap for the average real estate developer who lacks visual sense and imagination. Convince developers that they can play a positive role in changing the future, and then make it easy for them. They'd be hopping on the bandwagon.
We used to have what you are talking about, they were called "downtown."
2
Facts notwithstanding, The theory of income inequality is going to be injected into every article in the Times forever. Despite the fact that the mall shopping environment is tired and overbuilt - and unable to compete with the big box power centers anchored by a wealth of middle market retailers - the author makes a dishonest and half hearted attempt to link the demise of middle America malls with the scourge of income inequality. It is getting more difficult by the day to remain an interested reader when everyone from the food columnist to the sportswriter is immersed in this mindless ideological propaganda.
6
I thought the same thing. In this instance, the connection to inequality is so strained, however, that it appears to have been inserted as bait. Kudos to the Times' marketing department.
1
It only seems mindless if you don't have to mind your money, yes?
2
It's obviously easy to ignore the abundant and growing evidence of this very real problem from the comfort of suburban/rural Morris County.
1
What about using/converting some of these structures for affordable housing? Or even homeless shelters. Seems like some of them are in areas where this could be a very valuable asset. Yes, there'd be renovation and redesign, but, maybe it's worth considering.
2
Quite frankly, good riddance.
2
Changing neighborhood demographics are the cause of the decline of many, if not most of the dead malls. For example, in the St. Louis area, changing demographics and fear of crime have caused the closure of River Roads, Northland, Northwest Plaza, and Jamestown Malls. Understandable fear of crime also caused shoppers to flee these malls ;Northwest Plaza was the noted for murder on its' premises. For those unfamiliar with the region, they are all located in the northern suburbs of St. Louis, which have experienced rapid demographic change over the last 20-30 years. St. Louis Centre also closed, which suffered from a combination of a poor idea along with an unwillingness of many to shop there. These are just examples of what has gone on nationwide. I understand that in the Southwest some failed malls are bieng repurposed into Hispanic shopping destinations. Finally, the Obama "recovery" certainly hasn't aided the American shopping mall.
5
I am 92 years of age and my wife won't let me drive her car. She is only 87. I do all my shopping from my chair. Works great. I am trying to convince my wife that she doesn't have to drive to town to shop. She takes me to buy whiskey and get a haircut.
10
Why doesn't someone think outside the box and re-purpose these large indoor spaces as fitness parks -- with wall climbing, skateboarding, walking, running, swimming--with related food and retail venues? This would be very popular where weather inhibits regular outdoor activity
4
I ask the question ,RENT ,RENT ,RENT , when greedy landlords won't move to help shop keepers , this game of cat and mouse starts , landlords un willing to drop rent to help tenants , tenants threaten to leave , landlord does nothing , then tenat leaves then other tenants leave - result dead mails.
4
So what's new?
The demise of the "mall industry" can't happen soon enough. The sterility and vulgarity of these temples to Mammon, over-consumption, and vulgarity are unfathomable. When forced by circumstances to visit a mall, the first thing i do upon arriving home is take a shower.
3
I never liked shopping in closed malls, though I have good memories of my best friend and I exploring the Garden State Plaza and what was then called Bergen Mall in the 1960s.
They were small, manageable, human-scale malls, then. Bergen Mall even had a professional book-in house, the Playhouse on the Mall. John Lithgow in his memoir 'Drama' mentions appearing there, and somewhere in my house I have a playbill for 'There's a Girl in My Soup' signed by William Shatner in the days just after Star Trek and before TJ Hooker.
Malls do not have to be soulless places. The inevitable comments gloating over the fall of consumer giants overlook that, as the article points out, our choices are now Bergdorf's or All for a Dollar. And people who are not either very rich or (yet) entirely destitute do still need stuff, not just for the sake of buying things, but because what we have wears out. Our Kmart closed last month. There is now no affordable place within travelling distance for my handicapped sister to buy shoes.
The death of the mall is nothing to celebrate, in that it is another sign of the death rattle of the middle class.
They were small, manageable, human-scale malls, then. Bergen Mall even had a professional book-in house, the Playhouse on the Mall. John Lithgow in his memoir 'Drama' mentions appearing there, and somewhere in my house I have a playbill for 'There's a Girl in My Soup' signed by William Shatner in the days just after Star Trek and before TJ Hooker.
Malls do not have to be soulless places. The inevitable comments gloating over the fall of consumer giants overlook that, as the article points out, our choices are now Bergdorf's or All for a Dollar. And people who are not either very rich or (yet) entirely destitute do still need stuff, not just for the sake of buying things, but because what we have wears out. Our Kmart closed last month. There is now no affordable place within travelling distance for my handicapped sister to buy shoes.
The death of the mall is nothing to celebrate, in that it is another sign of the death rattle of the middle class.
4
In an ideal world at least some of these malls, which take up vast amounts of horizontal space, would be turned into modern manufacturing centers making cutting-edge, highly engineered products like smart phones or machine tools for both domestic markets and export. Because manufacturing products for export is how nations become and remain wealthy. Instead, we are more likely to see some of them turned into casinos. And who can even pretend that casinos generate wealth for the nation. America 2014.
1
Walking through any of these malls is depressing. This is what so many Americans do for entertainment - go to the mall and eat junk food. There are still some malls here doing very well - the original Tyson's, Montgomery Westfield - always full of people.
The only good thing about malls is being under cover in bad weather. Our cute re-developed downtown shopping areas (i.e., Bethesda) must see big downturns in sales during wet or cold or very hot weather. I predict the eventual resurgence of the mall for this reason.
The only good thing about malls is being under cover in bad weather. Our cute re-developed downtown shopping areas (i.e., Bethesda) must see big downturns in sales during wet or cold or very hot weather. I predict the eventual resurgence of the mall for this reason.
1
One of the retail trends I don't understand is the new, faux-downtown outdoor mall. I understand why outer-tier suburbs want to create an urban center -- their city planners are fully up to date on all the latest high-density urban planning trends and they don't want to end up with the dated, asphalt wastelands of their inner-tier suburban neighbors.
Yet most of these developments I've seen aren't actually dense, mixed use spaces. They are retail spaces built on a city-like, drivable grid but with the required parking out back and the residential living a half a mile or more away in dedicated townhomes and apartment complexes.
As alternatives to enclosed malls, they're less convenient since shopping multiple stores requires covering more distance, outside in winter climates often requiring you to drive to other stores even within the same development area.
As "urban cores" they lack true mixed use space -- there's no housing above the shops and the shops required for true mixed use, like grocery and pharmacy, remain in big-box standalone developments. The housing that is "nearby" isn't close enough to make restaurants or coffee shops appealing in inclement weather, like winter.
My best guess is that what these developments really are is a new-look retail facade to convince consumers and suburban politicians "its not a mall" while dramatically cutting the cost of development and operation of climate-controlled indoor spaces.
Yet most of these developments I've seen aren't actually dense, mixed use spaces. They are retail spaces built on a city-like, drivable grid but with the required parking out back and the residential living a half a mile or more away in dedicated townhomes and apartment complexes.
As alternatives to enclosed malls, they're less convenient since shopping multiple stores requires covering more distance, outside in winter climates often requiring you to drive to other stores even within the same development area.
As "urban cores" they lack true mixed use space -- there's no housing above the shops and the shops required for true mixed use, like grocery and pharmacy, remain in big-box standalone developments. The housing that is "nearby" isn't close enough to make restaurants or coffee shops appealing in inclement weather, like winter.
My best guess is that what these developments really are is a new-look retail facade to convince consumers and suburban politicians "its not a mall" while dramatically cutting the cost of development and operation of climate-controlled indoor spaces.
6
HIGHLAND MALL / Austin Community College ( ACC ) , Austin Texas ... once the only mall in Austin, J.C. Penney, Macy's etc. left in droves years ago... weeds grew... mobs congregated on giant, vacant parking lots... then ACC stepped in and built an amazing 21st century community college campus... will be the envy of the country ... opened Fall, 2015 as the future flagship campus for a thriving 55,000 student campus in arguably the greatest community in America... every conceivable technical and academic discipline is there... dramatic expansion planned over the coming years ... light rail, buses, 8 minutes to downtown Austin and the Texas Capitol...10 minutes to the UT campus ..every day at Highland Learning Center Center is a walk through an academic wonderland .. perhaps America's dead malls can rise like a Phoenix from the ashes and replicate HLC all over this great land ...
1
Sad story on on many fronts. The first showing the realities of income inequality and America's resistance to stem it, e.g. closing loopholes for the undertaxed rich and corporations and increasing the rate on the rich. The second shows the resistance to redevelop these sites. Mixed use with affordable housing comes to mind. Filling the market with houses will curb it short term growth and be a positive for lower income citizens. Yes this story does represent the realities of America in 2015, but I feel that we can meet these and many other challenges in a positive manner to ensure that all our citizens benefit, not just a select few. which has been the case, more predominantly in the recent past.
This is more about the decline of the traditional department store (eg Sears, Penneys). The traditional mall economics provided said Department Stores with cheap leases as they were the 'draw' then the landlord made up for that with higher rents to the Abercrombies/Gap/Spencer's in the center. One outcome of this was that while JCP/Sears had cheap rent, they were locked into long term contracts that were very difficult to break, since the landlord needed the Sears and JCP's locked in.
Note that very few malls have been build since the early 1990's, but in that time frame you have added at least 1000 each of Kohls, Target, TJ Maxx, & Marshalls, and Wal Mart. And these are predominantly off mall and suck traffic at the margin.
Now if you are a mall owner you might think "OK, I need to change my store mix - maybe a Costco or Target is a better anchor than JC Penney". However you go back to the lease with Macy's/Sears and realize you need them to consent - and why would they agree to have a stronger competitor? So the thing that gave you leverage in the early days - long term department store leases - is now the albatross around your neck.
For an example of what can happen if you can kick out the the traditional anchors, see Bergen Town Center in Paramus. They negotiated the exit of Sterns and A&S, it is now anchored by Whole Foods and Target and outlines from the likes of NIKE and J. Crew as and Yogi Berra would say "no one goes there it is too crowded".
Note that very few malls have been build since the early 1990's, but in that time frame you have added at least 1000 each of Kohls, Target, TJ Maxx, & Marshalls, and Wal Mart. And these are predominantly off mall and suck traffic at the margin.
Now if you are a mall owner you might think "OK, I need to change my store mix - maybe a Costco or Target is a better anchor than JC Penney". However you go back to the lease with Macy's/Sears and realize you need them to consent - and why would they agree to have a stronger competitor? So the thing that gave you leverage in the early days - long term department store leases - is now the albatross around your neck.
For an example of what can happen if you can kick out the the traditional anchors, see Bergen Town Center in Paramus. They negotiated the exit of Sterns and A&S, it is now anchored by Whole Foods and Target and outlines from the likes of NIKE and J. Crew as and Yogi Berra would say "no one goes there it is too crowded".
57
As much as everyone is into main street, shop-local nostalgia, nobody seems to remember when many malls weren't comprised solely of national chain stores but instead had a fair number of locally owned businesses.
I remember in the 1970s a school friend's parents had a furniture store in Edina's Southdale mall and old pictures of the mall clearly show other single-instance stores or small (3-4 store) local chains in it.
I wonder if part of the decline of malls isn't that there's something wrong with an enclosed space with multiple vendors -- at its core, the idea isn't that different than a Roman Forum, a middle-eastern bazaar or a covered food market -- but that somehow real-estate investors and the Wall Street finance wizards figured out to make more money by jacking up rents to drive out small merchants and bring in national chain stores with deeper pockets.
Combine this with hedge funds and real estate investment trusts with promised high rates of return, the finance guys have priced out local entrepreneurs and small business people.
I don't quite understand why "dying" malls couldn't find a new lease on life by lowering rents and trying to attract the buy local crowds and their handcrafted, curated selection style of vendors. Add in a couple of tap rooms and funky restaurants and you might just make them hipster friendly enough to forget their John Hughes era stylistic references.
I remember in the 1970s a school friend's parents had a furniture store in Edina's Southdale mall and old pictures of the mall clearly show other single-instance stores or small (3-4 store) local chains in it.
I wonder if part of the decline of malls isn't that there's something wrong with an enclosed space with multiple vendors -- at its core, the idea isn't that different than a Roman Forum, a middle-eastern bazaar or a covered food market -- but that somehow real-estate investors and the Wall Street finance wizards figured out to make more money by jacking up rents to drive out small merchants and bring in national chain stores with deeper pockets.
Combine this with hedge funds and real estate investment trusts with promised high rates of return, the finance guys have priced out local entrepreneurs and small business people.
I don't quite understand why "dying" malls couldn't find a new lease on life by lowering rents and trying to attract the buy local crowds and their handcrafted, curated selection style of vendors. Add in a couple of tap rooms and funky restaurants and you might just make them hipster friendly enough to forget their John Hughes era stylistic references.
2
Malls brought better shopping options, and things have improved with big box. When I was a kid your choices were the Gap, Sears or a surplus army store that had an awful smell to it. Not great.
It's rather depressing that these huge spaces can't be repurposed into schools or community colleges or other educational campuses. Punching holes in the exterior walls would allow in natural light for classrooms.
A community center could also work. Government offices could be placed inside with ample parking outside.
I just seems that, in these times of tight budgets, a pre-existing structure cannot be repurposed into something for the community.
A community center could also work. Government offices could be placed inside with ample parking outside.
I just seems that, in these times of tight budgets, a pre-existing structure cannot be repurposed into something for the community.
88
My wife is a teacher in a private school, and the school purchased a vacant corporate office building to use as a school. I think it is a great idea.
It is a win-win situation for everyone. The property owner can sell a piece of property that will likely sit and decay for decades, the purchaser gets a lower-priced building, and society avoids having a blighted abandoned building in its midst.
It is a win-win situation for everyone. The property owner can sell a piece of property that will likely sit and decay for decades, the purchaser gets a lower-priced building, and society avoids having a blighted abandoned building in its midst.
1
My wife is a teacher in a private school, and the school purchased a vacant corporate office building to use as a school. I think it is a great idea.
It is a win-win situation for everyone. The property owner can sell a piece of property that will likely sit and decay for decades, the purchaser gets a lower-priced building, and society avoids having a blighted abandoned building in its midst.
It is a win-win situation for everyone. The property owner can sell a piece of property that will likely sit and decay for decades, the purchaser gets a lower-priced building, and society avoids having a blighted abandoned building in its midst.
Re-using and re-purposing make entirely too much ordinary common sense to register in the developers' minds. How often have we seen perfectly sound buildings in desirable locations torn down so another perfectly sound building, built to the precise specifications of a big chain, can rise on the same ground?
Here, it was a Fred Meyer store, a victim of over-extension, torn down so a Lowe's could be built on the same site. Now, a Marie Callender's restaurant building is going down so a new building housing two restaurants can be built on the same site.
Wasteful, much?
Here, it was a Fred Meyer store, a victim of over-extension, torn down so a Lowe's could be built on the same site. Now, a Marie Callender's restaurant building is going down so a new building housing two restaurants can be built on the same site.
Wasteful, much?
2
I was there when Southdale, the first mall in the world,opened in Minnesota in the '50s. It was one one of the wonders of the modern world. Much like the old movie palaces of an earlier era, Southdale let everyone get a taste of luxury without having to pay for it.
We're spoiled now.
One side effect of our national obsession with buying stuff is our national obsession with selling stuff at garage sales. What comes in must go out. I know people who calculate resale value as soon as they get their stuff home from the mall. Then there are the hoarders.... The beat goes on.
We're spoiled now.
One side effect of our national obsession with buying stuff is our national obsession with selling stuff at garage sales. What comes in must go out. I know people who calculate resale value as soon as they get their stuff home from the mall. Then there are the hoarders.... The beat goes on.
4
A lot of the malls that die or are dying seem to have been built in first or second tier suburbs that have seen major demographic changes, usually a shift from lower and middle tier middle class homeowners to more low-income renters and substantial minority populations. As the original demographic moved to further outer ring suburbs, the shopping moved with them and also changed to reflect their new (and declining) economic mobility, featuring more big box discount chains and fewer traditional department stores.
In Minneapolis, as suburban Brooklyn Park's demographics shifted, Brookdale Center basically disintegrated. There were (likely exaggerated, but not wholly so; my brother-in-law was an operations manager at an anchor department store there) problems with unruly teenagers and shoplifting that made it a turn-off to area shoppers. Ridgedale Center, in affluent Minnetonka, seems to remain a going concern as its demographic has largely remained middle-to-upper class.
The mystery is Southdale Center in affluent Edina. While old (it is the nation's first enclosed mall), it has been refurbished several times with new interiors, upper-tier exterior facing restaurants, a theater, and retains a fair amount of better retail -- Apple, Macy's, yet seems to have a disturbing number of empty store fronts and its newly remodeled food court has only half or less of its food spaces filled.
In Minneapolis, as suburban Brooklyn Park's demographics shifted, Brookdale Center basically disintegrated. There were (likely exaggerated, but not wholly so; my brother-in-law was an operations manager at an anchor department store there) problems with unruly teenagers and shoplifting that made it a turn-off to area shoppers. Ridgedale Center, in affluent Minnetonka, seems to remain a going concern as its demographic has largely remained middle-to-upper class.
The mystery is Southdale Center in affluent Edina. While old (it is the nation's first enclosed mall), it has been refurbished several times with new interiors, upper-tier exterior facing restaurants, a theater, and retains a fair amount of better retail -- Apple, Macy's, yet seems to have a disturbing number of empty store fronts and its newly remodeled food court has only half or less of its food spaces filled.
3
Remember when malls were populated with former downtown stores? Remember when every downtown in America had a downtown that reflected the culture and uniqueness of that community? And Remember when we had one or two large or medium department stores in each downtown that was privately owned by a local owner? And every store had different merchandise? Now every mall and every store is exactly the same carrying the exact same merchandise. Why bother to shop?
The dearth of distinct and different merchandise is a contributing factor in the decline of the malls. At every mall all we see are large, brand name goods made in China. The same thing over and over again. In driving costs to the bottom big box retailers sourced mass produced products over new and unique designs and different offerings. Small and medium Independent manufacturers died off. In order to offer cheap goods it must be produced over and over again, just changing color now and then. Retailers then only offered the "heart" sizes and also ended the market of speciality goods. No extra small or 3X large.
In New York Macy's, and Bloomingdales used to offer different fashion merchandise. Buyers would go the marts right there in Manhattan and order up fresh new merchandise from a multitude of manufacturers who in turn had it made almost immediately in NY or neighboring states. But, the retailers drove small manufacturers out of business and all that is left is a few brand names. No small manufacturers remain.
The dearth of distinct and different merchandise is a contributing factor in the decline of the malls. At every mall all we see are large, brand name goods made in China. The same thing over and over again. In driving costs to the bottom big box retailers sourced mass produced products over new and unique designs and different offerings. Small and medium Independent manufacturers died off. In order to offer cheap goods it must be produced over and over again, just changing color now and then. Retailers then only offered the "heart" sizes and also ended the market of speciality goods. No extra small or 3X large.
In New York Macy's, and Bloomingdales used to offer different fashion merchandise. Buyers would go the marts right there in Manhattan and order up fresh new merchandise from a multitude of manufacturers who in turn had it made almost immediately in NY or neighboring states. But, the retailers drove small manufacturers out of business and all that is left is a few brand names. No small manufacturers remain.
7
Dixie Square Mall, in my hometown Harvey, Illinois, replaced a very popular public golf course in the early 1960's. The ruin of our vibrant downtown followed. The mall went under in the late 1970's. One can see the abandoned space in "The Blues Brothers", starring John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd, used for the big car chase.
3
My wife and I are old enough to remember the glory days of downtown stores. I'm from the city and I recall the big stores of downtown Brooklyn where my mother would treat me to a soft ice cream treat that A&S, the biggest department store; it had wonderful a soda counter. I also recall the bustle of 34th St in Manhattan where I'd love to see the fancy Christmas windows of Macy's and Gimbals.
My wife recalls the bustling downtown of relatively small Hagerstown MD, with their competing department stores.
Now there are still major shopping districts in the big city, but all far less in small towns where people go to the shopping malls. Much of that is due to the primacy of personal cars, vans, and trucks - with people seeking lots of parking.
Even in towns, there are big malls with big box stores like the one in the Bronx Terminal Market and they seem to do well enough.
In Washington DC, the Columbia Heights mall anticipated many more would be arriving by car - it has a surplus of parking. It is doing well by being on top of a Metro station.
All shopping areas would do even better for themselves and the environment if they were more accommodating for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users.
My wife recalls the bustling downtown of relatively small Hagerstown MD, with their competing department stores.
Now there are still major shopping districts in the big city, but all far less in small towns where people go to the shopping malls. Much of that is due to the primacy of personal cars, vans, and trucks - with people seeking lots of parking.
Even in towns, there are big malls with big box stores like the one in the Bronx Terminal Market and they seem to do well enough.
In Washington DC, the Columbia Heights mall anticipated many more would be arriving by car - it has a surplus of parking. It is doing well by being on top of a Metro station.
All shopping areas would do even better for themselves and the environment if they were more accommodating for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users.
5
Perhaps this phenomenon is no different than other aspects of the American way of life. Simply put, over consumption, whether it be of food, fuel, housing or retail goods eventually kills the host. There is something sick about multiple acres of land being destroyed for such purposes. Perhaps if Americans spent a few more percentage points of their income on education and culture, we would have a better society, instead of high-end consumer product envy.
6
One hopes there are positive forces emerging. Perhaps the decline of the suburban mall is an indication of the decline of the suburban lifestyle in general, with its dependence on the automobile for everything.
4
Other reasons middle malls are dying:
1. They are boring. The same stuff in all the stores, over and over again everywhere.
2. They are noisy. Not because of customers but the never ending loud music everywhere.
3. The stores are overstuffed. Crowded racks, tables and shelves of merchandise narrow aisles, sensory overload everywhere.
Yes, I used the word 'everywhere' redundantly. The malls have been redundant for decades.
They are like the white on green highway signs used wold wide, no way to tell the difference except the language giving directions or taking money.
1. They are boring. The same stuff in all the stores, over and over again everywhere.
2. They are noisy. Not because of customers but the never ending loud music everywhere.
3. The stores are overstuffed. Crowded racks, tables and shelves of merchandise narrow aisles, sensory overload everywhere.
Yes, I used the word 'everywhere' redundantly. The malls have been redundant for decades.
They are like the white on green highway signs used wold wide, no way to tell the difference except the language giving directions or taking money.
6
The savvy consumer uses the internet. Nostalgia for yesterday is a waste of time. Change is the only constant.
1
Most of us don't shop at Saks or Neiman-Marcus. Those who do belong on a chain gang in horizontal broad stripes, not vertical pin-stripes.
4
Some key factors that lie at the roots of mall failures are ignored in this article.
First, the shift in social psychology; living beyond the means is the new normal. Millennials are spending 45-50% of their net income on paying of credit card debts. Mid tier malls smack of "living within my means."
Second, we abhor anything smacking of middle class (JC Penny and Sears on decline), and want to shop like we are Kardashian. We have personal relationships TV personalities, we deserve to have what they have. And they don't shop at mid-tier malls.
Third, we obsess over clothes and shoes we never wear. They are so expensive, we are afraid of wearing them (out). The fantasy is ownership, not use. Of course mid tier malls will disappear.
Fourth, malls are soul sucking in their pastels, beige, dull music uniformity. Slight differentiation by upscales go a long way, of course mid tier malls will disappear.
Fifth, malls are dinosaurs; unable to adapt. The average American is XL, malls are catering to size zero and under. People with money are old, malls are catering to the 16 year old who has no money. Disabled and handicapped people are unwelcome. Definition of entertainment: a dull food court with a carousel (blah) The entire excitement is created not by assortment of goods, but by sales. Only the glitziest malls that offer psychological release and excitement survive.
RIP mid-tier malls, you remind me too much of my sorry life; I am plain hungry for fantasy.
First, the shift in social psychology; living beyond the means is the new normal. Millennials are spending 45-50% of their net income on paying of credit card debts. Mid tier malls smack of "living within my means."
Second, we abhor anything smacking of middle class (JC Penny and Sears on decline), and want to shop like we are Kardashian. We have personal relationships TV personalities, we deserve to have what they have. And they don't shop at mid-tier malls.
Third, we obsess over clothes and shoes we never wear. They are so expensive, we are afraid of wearing them (out). The fantasy is ownership, not use. Of course mid tier malls will disappear.
Fourth, malls are soul sucking in their pastels, beige, dull music uniformity. Slight differentiation by upscales go a long way, of course mid tier malls will disappear.
Fifth, malls are dinosaurs; unable to adapt. The average American is XL, malls are catering to size zero and under. People with money are old, malls are catering to the 16 year old who has no money. Disabled and handicapped people are unwelcome. Definition of entertainment: a dull food court with a carousel (blah) The entire excitement is created not by assortment of goods, but by sales. Only the glitziest malls that offer psychological release and excitement survive.
RIP mid-tier malls, you remind me too much of my sorry life; I am plain hungry for fantasy.
5
Kim Kardashian's clothing line is at Sears, so I guess I don't understand the comment.
2
A key point missing is that "low end", or outlet, malls are thriving, such as, Arundell Mills Mall in Hanover, MD, not far from the story's Owings Mills mall.
2
I haven't gone to a mall in almost 20 years. I wasn't interested in the crowding and high prices. One of our malls has closed and is now torn down. It's problem according to the CEO of a chain of department stores was the "change in demographics". Too many teens hanging around especially on weekends. The fights made people afraid to go and the two shootings were the final straw. When a book store can put a sign saying, " We ship to all correctional facilities" and the merchandise mix caters to one ethnic group that doesn't spend enough the national chains start packing up. This mall had a closed SEARS which didn't help. The city now owns the land and as et hasn't figured out what to do with it. But at least the buildings are gone and they planted grass.
3
Good riddance. Can't wait for my local "main street" to come full circle and once again have shops.
4
Main street shops contributed to their own decline by charging for parking. Malls touted free parking and lots of it.
Nothing prevented Main Street shop owners from getting together and investing in large, free parking lots within close distance to their stores.
Nothing prevented Main Street shop owners from getting together and investing in large, free parking lots within close distance to their stores.
3
Sinclair Lewis had a lot to say about Main Street. So did Sherwood Anderson and a lot of other writers.
I fall on the floor laughing to see the wheel come full circle, as today's self-styled hipster intellectuals embrace what yesterday's hipster intellectuals abhorred.
I fall on the floor laughing to see the wheel come full circle, as today's self-styled hipster intellectuals embrace what yesterday's hipster intellectuals abhorred.
1
The cline of the middle class? Hardly. Where did the mall shoppers go? Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes is one answer. These big box retailers are doing just fine. Siecondly we have seen the slow but continuing decline of the "anchor" department stores in these dying malls as shoppers have sought better prices and/or prefer specialty stores (think Sur la Table and Williams Sonoma rather than Macy's) the smaller versions of these specialty stores don't work all that well in a mall setting. And finally outlet malls have also proliferated, I know people here in Rockland County who are happy to drive 25 miles to Woodbury Common to shop rather than the Palisades a Center there in our own backyard. The demise of the malls isn't so much economics as it is evolution.
3
In Phoenix, the owner of one of our first mall chose not to expand due to changing demographics. Instead they built a new, larger upscale mall 10 miles away. The anchors in the older mall became bargain outlets and the smaller stores served a poor and Hispanic population. Business drastically fell off and the declining mall was sold to a wealthy owner with connections. Recently, the city approved a light rail extension to the mall and an expensive upgrade of the surrounding neighborhood. The redevelopment project is explicitly designed, in part. to revive the struggling mall. That makes for a reversal of the ordinary scheme of things -- residential upgrades to serve the interests of a struggling retail. The middle class is being courted explicitly to shop. When the interests of a mall drive the development of a community priorities are clearly out of whack.
67
Great opportunity for local governments and schools to pick up high quality space at bargain prices, as Austin Community College recently did in TX
2
Many Malls layouts are designed for leisure shopper and not easily navigated - the shopper becomes captive. Quite personally I know what I want and prefer a store setup where I can drive up or walk up as close as I can to store I came to the mall for. I am not there for the experience or to hang out or socialize., that's for kids and teens.
Malls were always about using people's need for social contact & participation to get them to waste money. Now the internet does that so much better; now we live in a shopping mall.
1
What would you expect in a country where the rich have gotten richer and everyone else has gotten poorer.
It is only going to get worse since the rich control the media and government and most American are too dumb to realize what has happened.
It is only going to get worse since the rich control the media and government and most American are too dumb to realize what has happened.
8
Who shopped at the vast offerings of malls other than women. It was not actually much of a man's experience, except when he was dragged to one by his significant other. So where have the buyers - women - gone instead if not buying at mall stores?
Online and downtown. With the responsibility and workload working and stay-at-home moms command, women simply don't have the time and energy for the mall experience. And, with the ubiquitous Internet and associated multitude of online offerings plus - and this is where online is being heavily exploited by savvy retailers - the sharing of product knowledge, satisfaction, and uniqueness through ever more social networking sites - online occupies and fills the need.
A revitalized upscale downtown also works because it is able to turn shopping - a chore - into entertainment and a respite. King Street in Charleston is an example. Once a bunch of seedy food shops and now seeded with Williams-Sonama, Gucci, and many other high-end retailers. Unlike a mall it's fun to walk, gaze, and shop.
Mall owners should know when they are defeated and obsolete - and now - they are.
Online and downtown. With the responsibility and workload working and stay-at-home moms command, women simply don't have the time and energy for the mall experience. And, with the ubiquitous Internet and associated multitude of online offerings plus - and this is where online is being heavily exploited by savvy retailers - the sharing of product knowledge, satisfaction, and uniqueness through ever more social networking sites - online occupies and fills the need.
A revitalized upscale downtown also works because it is able to turn shopping - a chore - into entertainment and a respite. King Street in Charleston is an example. Once a bunch of seedy food shops and now seeded with Williams-Sonama, Gucci, and many other high-end retailers. Unlike a mall it's fun to walk, gaze, and shop.
Mall owners should know when they are defeated and obsolete - and now - they are.
2
Let's all have another Orange Julius
Thick syrup standing in lines
The malls are the soon to be ghost towns
So long, farewell, good-bye
Thick syrup standing in lines
The malls are the soon to be ghost towns
So long, farewell, good-bye
2
We need to talk to George Romero and George Carlin about shopping malls.
They were so insightful about the roles shopping malls played in the rise of excessive consumerism and the ensuing unhealthy lifestyle (aka, individualism and obesity). Thousands of people spent money they didn't have and bought things that they didn't need. I am not particularly sad to see them go. I agree with many readers that many of these so called malls should be turned back to the nature. Trees, flowers, and maybe even urban or suburban farming?
I am not sure if the author of the article was right to use the 2006 statistics to depict the decline of shopping malls. We all now know that the credit binge before the great recession was a disaster waiting to happen. The malls and the shopping should not have taken place in the beginning.
Lastly while I am singing praise to two Georges (Carlin and Romero) for their intellect, I am still seething at the folly and thoughtlessness of another George with a W. Remember after 9/11 he encouraged Americans to go shopping. Otherwise, terrorists would win. Unfortunately so many people listened to him.....
History tends to repeat itself. With the country once again choosing to elect the GOP congress and weaken the reforms made after 2008, the decline of shopping malls and middle class can only be the beginning of another disaster waiting to happen.
They were so insightful about the roles shopping malls played in the rise of excessive consumerism and the ensuing unhealthy lifestyle (aka, individualism and obesity). Thousands of people spent money they didn't have and bought things that they didn't need. I am not particularly sad to see them go. I agree with many readers that many of these so called malls should be turned back to the nature. Trees, flowers, and maybe even urban or suburban farming?
I am not sure if the author of the article was right to use the 2006 statistics to depict the decline of shopping malls. We all now know that the credit binge before the great recession was a disaster waiting to happen. The malls and the shopping should not have taken place in the beginning.
Lastly while I am singing praise to two Georges (Carlin and Romero) for their intellect, I am still seething at the folly and thoughtlessness of another George with a W. Remember after 9/11 he encouraged Americans to go shopping. Otherwise, terrorists would win. Unfortunately so many people listened to him.....
History tends to repeat itself. With the country once again choosing to elect the GOP congress and weaken the reforms made after 2008, the decline of shopping malls and middle class can only be the beginning of another disaster waiting to happen.
5
The article nails it. This is simply what happens when the middle-class abandons Sears and J.C. Penney and moves to Walmart, Dollar Tree (and even Salvation Army and Goodwill). There is no reason for this trend to stop. In fact, it will accelerate in the years to come. If you shopped at a Mall in your youth, you will be able to tell your grandchildren what it was like and wax nostalgic about food courts and mall cops.
2
Up to four years ago, I lived six blocks from Santa Monica Place, so I could walk or bike there. The only times I drove and parked there was to buy and pick up a large item - and each time this added half an hour to the experience - if there was an open spot. I felt badly for people who have to drive to malls rather than walk to a local store.
Also, across the street from an enclosed Santa Monica Place was Third Street Promenade, which was outdoors, had (for a time) free concerts and a mix of high and low end shop as well as sidewalk cafes from which to gawk at all this. Its popularity drew in people from the enclosed mall. In turn, this attracted higher end and chain stores at the expense of mom and pop stores, ultimately rendering the Promenade nearly as boring as the enclosed mall - which fought back by renovating and going very upscale.
The article makes the death of malls into a story about shopping. An equal issue, however, is the sterile feel of most malls set apart from residences, schools, and so forth. Malls have segregated themselves out of our every day lives - the opposite of what Jane Jacobs advocated in her seminal "The Death and Life of American Cities." Meanwhile, chain stores invade even open air venues, like the Promenade. We need to create more integrated, diverse public squares, accessible by mass transit, where shopping is one part of the whole, not the entirety.
Also, across the street from an enclosed Santa Monica Place was Third Street Promenade, which was outdoors, had (for a time) free concerts and a mix of high and low end shop as well as sidewalk cafes from which to gawk at all this. Its popularity drew in people from the enclosed mall. In turn, this attracted higher end and chain stores at the expense of mom and pop stores, ultimately rendering the Promenade nearly as boring as the enclosed mall - which fought back by renovating and going very upscale.
The article makes the death of malls into a story about shopping. An equal issue, however, is the sterile feel of most malls set apart from residences, schools, and so forth. Malls have segregated themselves out of our every day lives - the opposite of what Jane Jacobs advocated in her seminal "The Death and Life of American Cities." Meanwhile, chain stores invade even open air venues, like the Promenade. We need to create more integrated, diverse public squares, accessible by mass transit, where shopping is one part of the whole, not the entirety.
132
Good. Maybe this will help reduce the consumer craze in US culture We cannot go on consuming and wasting as we have. Reuse, Reduce, and Recycle.
4
It is not enclosed malls that are subject to closure. it is also neighbourhoods, local stores, and the employees who knew all nearby residents as well. Most areas in large cities, especially where I grew up, New York's Lower East Side have become like airports filled with the same retailers, Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, Victory Secret, GAP. KFC, Burger King, McDonalds, H&M, Zara, Dominos and your sushi or Chinese take out joint. All these stores can be found anywhere and therefore standing one street corner will be no different from any other. They all look alike. Each neighbourhood, airport and mall with no diversity, character or community ethnic culture. That is what is killing off malls and neighbourhoods that once thrived with substance rather than retailers with superficial scripted hello can I help you, and mirages of neon corporate logos. Where is the mom and pop store, where is the dinner that has a cook who remembers how I like my eggs, where is the clothing store who remembers my favourite colour or neck size. aahh
Most malls were not energy efficient so repurposing them is difficult. But there is a lot of space there. It could be garden space, or windmill space, or solar panel space. I vote for parks and gardens: with a nice doggie-romp area. Add a few windmills and veggie plots and space for local vendors of crafts. Could be interesting.
1
Why not concede the defeat of America's once-powerful middle class, whose spending and spending power alike have been hit by devastating macroeconomic forces? Because that's the real reason these ugly energy-and land-hogging monstrosities exist. After WWII America lost its soul and one of the many tokens of the infernal pact this country made with the new false deity Money was to build innumerable shopping outlets, starting with the ones I grew up with near Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa. Kline Village in Harrisburg was a vestige of the late Depression, and the ugly mall excresences began to appear, and then to morph into other things, in the 1960s. The false religion Americans took part in had the sacramental purchase, where an adherent would go and buy something in the deep-rooted belief that one felt better and was somehow intrinsically improved. We now see that a certain group of unscrupulous commercial real estate people were among the few real beneficiaries of the environmentally destructive and energy-gobbling bazaars, none of which have any redeeming aesthetic or cultural worth.
2
Those who were, or want to be, the middle class, would be wise to invest instead of spend. One must decline to listen to the sales pitch. How do you think the 1% got where they are, and how do the new additions to the list get there every year? It isn't because they know how to say "charge it" or "give me 20 of the scratch-offs."
2
Some of this reflects a saturation point with the "anchor" stores. There was a time when getting a Nordstrom in your metro area was a big and anticipated event. Now that these stronger retailers are moving out from their traditional base, the weaker companies like Sears and Penney have nowhere to turn, and they bring nothing to a mall. It is classic disruptive business: a bunch of companies fumble their oligopoly and, presto, we don't go there anymore.
Targets and Walmart are the new Sears and JC Penney...Sears was trying to be anything BUT a retailer for much of the last thirty years. When you are left, the question for mall sociologists should be: "what is a mall", rather than "why are they concentrating in certain economic areas"?
There are a lot of reasons for the demise of the mall. Limited high quality anchor stores. The end of record and video stores. The availability of sporting goods in so many outlets, removing the aura of mall retailers. The choice by many retail stores to "pair up" in different configuations like home improvement lines.
American tastes are highly variable and subject to burn out. Now we have outdoor lifestyle centers. They are hip, cool, different. But the parking is a pain in the neck. And it is a drag walking around outdoors in Boston when you could be standing in a mall at 72 degrees.
Ring the bell on the outdoor lifestyle center. Americans hate to be inconvenienced and will reassert roofs and attached parking.
Targets and Walmart are the new Sears and JC Penney...Sears was trying to be anything BUT a retailer for much of the last thirty years. When you are left, the question for mall sociologists should be: "what is a mall", rather than "why are they concentrating in certain economic areas"?
There are a lot of reasons for the demise of the mall. Limited high quality anchor stores. The end of record and video stores. The availability of sporting goods in so many outlets, removing the aura of mall retailers. The choice by many retail stores to "pair up" in different configuations like home improvement lines.
American tastes are highly variable and subject to burn out. Now we have outdoor lifestyle centers. They are hip, cool, different. But the parking is a pain in the neck. And it is a drag walking around outdoors in Boston when you could be standing in a mall at 72 degrees.
Ring the bell on the outdoor lifestyle center. Americans hate to be inconvenienced and will reassert roofs and attached parking.
2
It's called centralization of capital and is related to capital accumulation. Two of the many concepts Marx described as inherent contradictions in capital. The over production of commodities is catching up with both consumers and capital. We can only hope this will, sooner or later, lead to a class consciousness to replace capitalism with a socio-economic system that is more compassionate, less wasteful and more sustainable.
1
Naw, can't agree. This is not proof of the ultimate truth of the Marxist dialectic. Actually, a good example that Marx was fairly good at description, but lousy at prediction. In 2008, the economic "crash" put consumer spending on the skids, but it didn't stop it. (In my personal opinion, it made most people a little more sensible in the very short run, maybe too scared.) It's not going to "replace" capitalism with "class consciousness." People are just going to buy different things, maybe more rationally in the short run, until they forget and the next bubble comes. As to how this affects malls, we are just using different "stuff" delivery vehicles, described in the article and these comments. Sorry, Karl, but while we will tweak our habits when reality invades our life, I don't see any great push to give up consumerism.
1
@Gordon
Dreams of utopia will always be dreams. Most of us, mere mortals, deal with reality every day. You'll need capitalism to save your behind the minute (fast approaching) when we all run out of fresh water. That, or an army. Most humans just don't plan very far ahead.
Dreams of utopia will always be dreams. Most of us, mere mortals, deal with reality every day. You'll need capitalism to save your behind the minute (fast approaching) when we all run out of fresh water. That, or an army. Most humans just don't plan very far ahead.
The article is wrong when it downplays the affect of the internet.
First I don't believe the numbers they give.
However even if the numbers are correct the stores in the malls have to compete to stay in business with online sellers and to stay competitive profit margins are smaller and the rent these stores can afford to pay is reduced.
These malls need a lot of money to run them and if the stores in these malls can not pay what it cost to operate these malls then the malls will go out of business.
First I don't believe the numbers they give.
However even if the numbers are correct the stores in the malls have to compete to stay in business with online sellers and to stay competitive profit margins are smaller and the rent these stores can afford to pay is reduced.
These malls need a lot of money to run them and if the stores in these malls can not pay what it cost to operate these malls then the malls will go out of business.
An underlying current for malls was that teenagers could easily walk around and flirt with other teenagers from their town and other nearby areas under the pretense of shopping or going to the movies. If you can use social media to flirt 24/7, why waste time at a mall where your ability to meet other kids is not as ensured as logging on?
2
Malls have no one to blame but themselves. Many malls feature the exact same stores filled with identical merchandise. Totally predictable and too boring to bother leaving the house for.
Plus maybe people have enough "stuff".
Plus maybe people have enough "stuff".
2
Of particular interest is the rise of the fast food mall. Multiple food outlets with drive thru service combined with food assembly restaurants like Applebee's and Chili's.
This, it seems to me, is the the intersection of obesity and convenience; a uniquely American invention.
This, it seems to me, is the the intersection of obesity and convenience; a uniquely American invention.
Maybe we're just all shopped out? Between the gazillions of storage units filled to the rafters, the garages filled with everything but cars, basements, attics and extra bedrooms stuffed to the gills, maybe we've finally got enough stuff?
Whenever I take excess clothing or household goods to the thrift store or books to the library for their book sale, I'm shocked at just how much stuff we Americans discard. And that doesn't include yard sales , eBay, Craigslist and the stuff that's just dumped in trash bags.
So perhaps we should recognize that we had way too much retail; still do really. Shopping isn't a hobby (or shouldn't be); it's just a means to acquire goods needed for ones household. So if most Americans, either by necessity due to lower incomes, or just running out of a place to stash more stuff, cut back on their shopping, that will result in a need for less retail. The writing is on the wall.
Whenever I take excess clothing or household goods to the thrift store or books to the library for their book sale, I'm shocked at just how much stuff we Americans discard. And that doesn't include yard sales , eBay, Craigslist and the stuff that's just dumped in trash bags.
So perhaps we should recognize that we had way too much retail; still do really. Shopping isn't a hobby (or shouldn't be); it's just a means to acquire goods needed for ones household. So if most Americans, either by necessity due to lower incomes, or just running out of a place to stash more stuff, cut back on their shopping, that will result in a need for less retail. The writing is on the wall.
196
I am in the "shopped out" boat--at least as far as retail goes. As my spouse and I approach retirement, it is more a matter of "shedding" and less of "getting," at least as far as retail goes. No more "clothes for work," and we have all the tools we need and the furniture, too and enough pots/pans/dishware/knives and all that. More than we need. Dropped down to one car, too.
As the baby-boomers retire, they will buy less and less of the "mall" stuff.
As the baby-boomers retire, they will buy less and less of the "mall" stuff.
3
For many of those with shopping can also be compared to a pastime.
I remember when an older wealthy friend passed on and I volunteered to clean out her closet. The amount of just Shoes this woman had blew me away---especially since most were never worn or possibly worn once.
Did she need so many shoes, no but a mutual friend told me it helped her fill the loneliness she felt since her husband has passed years before.
I remember when an older wealthy friend passed on and I volunteered to clean out her closet. The amount of just Shoes this woman had blew me away---especially since most were never worn or possibly worn once.
Did she need so many shoes, no but a mutual friend told me it helped her fill the loneliness she felt since her husband has passed years before.
2
Totally agree ,this country is too obsessed with retail and shopping -and where does all this stuff go when you tired of it !!!
2
Maybe I missed it, but it seems like this article should say something about Wal-Mart. It seems obvious that Wal-Mart (and a few other big box stores) have contributed to the decline of malls. Wal-Mart is where many non-affluent people now go to shop. Meanwhile, the Internet has done its part. Even if only 10 percent of shopping happens online, that's a huge amount of shopping that is not happening in malls. I expect the rise of Internet shopping and the decline of malls will continue for some time.
72
I agree non-affluent people shop at Wal-Mart. However, I believe all classes of people shop there to save money. Well, maybe not the 1 percent.
1
Exactly so! "10%" is precisely the level of vacancy considered "a sign of trouble.
We're a consumer society. People go to Walmart shopping for all manner of stuff they need to last them for only a relatively short, defined period of time. Not everyone wants to pay a lot to invest in stuff that has to be relocated from place to place, only to hand down to great grand-kids who won't want any of it, even if they could ever use it. Needless to say, Walmart also sells lots of food and consumable items. One advantage of Walmart is the absence of the mall salespersons who pushed stuff onto shoppers for a commission. I'm guessing half of the things at the malls have never been sold in Walmart stores anywhere.
Another example of how the middle class is going down the toilet. You can buy cheap clothes made from awful fabrics that fall apart and aren't even useful for ragging or you can spend a fortune at an upscale shop. Even places like LL Bean, once a seller of well-made clothes, now uses lower-quality fabric. You can get all kinds of "bargains" at Wal-Mart -- like small appliances that need to be replaced constantly. Nothing in the middle anymore--just a short hop from Wal-Mart to the consumer to the landfill. I wish there was a warehouse that time forgot full of things that last.
6
Good riddance to them. A small and hastily built enclosed mall on cheap land on the outskirts of my family's hometown (in upstate NY) opened in the mid 1980s. It decimated the downtown retail precinct. Within 24 months, 95% of established retail in the town centre had gone. Today, the mall is closed, the town center is sputtering and nearly everyone drives 40 miles to the nearest city for basics. Its difficult to imagine anything that mall contributed to society and culture, but sadly the evidence of what their presence helped to destroyed is plentiful.
295
The Irondequoit Mall in suburban Rochester?
Just riding bicycles? Why not sell "Blues Brothers Mall Demolition" reenactments to the one percenters?
2
Like all things in our capitalistic system, change is the order of the day. If you do not participate in it, you fall to the wayside. It is true for real estate as for people. Think about it, on line shopping took business away from somebody, those malls that did not offer a special shopping experience, like Short Hills Mall in New Jersey were the first to go. I go to the Short Hills Mall often, not to buy but to people watch and enjoy checking out the have's. It is fun, and costs nothing. Amazon, eat your heart out.
1
Xanadu in North Jersey - this means YOU. Stay closed. Never open. The area is over-malled, the amusement park will be overpriced for the faded middle class, and everyone I know has no interest in going there.
2
Not only are we over retailed,but so much being sold is so badly made and charmless. We are up to our necks in Stuff.
9
"Less than 10 percent of retail sales take place online, and those sales tend to hit big-box stores harder, rather than the fashion chains and other specialty retailers in enclosed malls."
I'm wondering what kind of research came to this conclusion because for myself and the people I know, the reality is the opposite: If you go to eBay or Amazon, you can type in a lot of specifics for a request and get pages of items, which makes it easy to hone in on exactly what you want.
The kind of generic items from big-box stores, on the other hand, I can get in, well, big-box stores. Living in New York without a car, I often go to the website for a big-box store that's in the city, but will order online, since it's impossible for me to transport large items. Delivery is often free for purchases over a certain price — usually a surprisingly low threshold.
I'm wondering what kind of research came to this conclusion because for myself and the people I know, the reality is the opposite: If you go to eBay or Amazon, you can type in a lot of specifics for a request and get pages of items, which makes it easy to hone in on exactly what you want.
The kind of generic items from big-box stores, on the other hand, I can get in, well, big-box stores. Living in New York without a car, I often go to the website for a big-box store that's in the city, but will order online, since it's impossible for me to transport large items. Delivery is often free for purchases over a certain price — usually a surprisingly low threshold.
45
The 10% is a total average across all types of consumer goods and industries. In some specific retail sectors such a electronics, the percentage bought on-line is high but in other retail categories or sectors such as grocery the percentage is much lower. The story of on-line retailing is not that it's only 10% of the total but its solid year over year increase in sales as a percent to total.
1
I'm in that "under 10%" with you. I just spent over $100 and I'm still in my pajamas.
1
"the people I know, the reality is the opposite" & "Living in New York without a car, I often go.."
I believe that you have answered your own question. It may surprise you (as someone who reads the NY Times) that most of America does NOT fit into the that mold.
I believe that you have answered your own question. It may surprise you (as someone who reads the NY Times) that most of America does NOT fit into the that mold.
3
So its 2014 and there's a glut of mismanaged, out-of-the-way located properties littered with tired brands that no one's going to and now they're closing and being torn down and this means something? Come on.. its just business not the the story of our lives. Unless you happen to live in a mall.
58
I suspect that you are young and thus don't remember the wide open spaces to play and run in that are now MALLS with lots of asphault!
No, it means that the once-prosperous American middle class that these entities were built to serve is dying as well, and that should concern all of us.
Dismissing symptoms is dangerous folly.
Dismissing symptoms is dangerous folly.
2
@Nancy
Parks, playgrounds, wildlife areas, ice skating rinks, dog runs, sports facilities for youths, etc are the result of local Zoning and Planning Commissions. Doesn't Colorado have them?
Parks, playgrounds, wildlife areas, ice skating rinks, dog runs, sports facilities for youths, etc are the result of local Zoning and Planning Commissions. Doesn't Colorado have them?
Looking at the photos of the dead and dying malls left me a little teary-eyed. When I was growing up the nearest mall was 45 minutes away and it was a big deal when Mom put us in the car and took us there for the day. I was visiting home this Christmas and my old high school friends and I reminisced about mall trips. Those days certainly are over. Everyone shops at Amazon, Target, Costco and the outlet centers.
34
Take a trip down memory lane and revisit the heyday of acid-washed jeans, frizzy hairstyles and public smoking. America's once thriving middle class never had it so good.
http://mashable.com/2014/12/02/80s-shopping-malls/#:eyJzIjoiZiIsImkiOiJf...
http://mashable.com/2014/12/02/80s-shopping-malls/#:eyJzIjoiZiIsImkiOiJf...
2
One factor many shoppers blame for the decline of malls — online shopping — is having only a small effect, experts say.
Experts are wrong. Haven't set a foot in a mall or WalMart in years. Strictly supermarkets, Dollar Stores, and Amazon. And I'm not alone.
Experts are wrong. Haven't set a foot in a mall or WalMart in years. Strictly supermarkets, Dollar Stores, and Amazon. And I'm not alone.
2
Wouldn't it be nice to see these buildings demolished and the land given back to mother nature, turned into parks and trails and farmland for community gardens and micro farmers? If only.
14
Involved in the planning, political manipulating for, design and construction of more than a dozen, +/- million-square-foot malls in the 1970s, I began to wonder during the first petroleum crisis in '73 what would happen to them as the cost of cooling and heating 15 million cubic feet of air space became prohibitive. That took two decades longer than anyone thought at the time, but when oil hit about $75 a barrel, and natural gas and electricity went berserk for commercial users, =new= mall development hit the proverbial wall. And the modern ring of individual megastores =surrounding= (instead of in the middle of) a sea of asphalt began.
The mall as a retail development at any level other than "high demo" is over for the time being, so the thinking that asks "How will we fix the strictly retail lessee mix?" seems stuck in the paradigmatic box. Can we move on?
see following comment
The mall as a retail development at any level other than "high demo" is over for the time being, so the thinking that asks "How will we fix the strictly retail lessee mix?" seems stuck in the paradigmatic box. Can we move on?
see following comment
1
Personally, I love a good mall. It's SO much more convenient to buy clothes and shoes and whatever else in one location, in one 3-hour stretch than over the course of weeks one store at a time. Although people like to say they online-shop, it's actually a huge waste of time. You spend more time combing through each and every item, only to find it's out of stock in your size ONLINE as well. You'd have better luck in the store, and you don't have to waste time and energy returning things so often either because it didn't fit. Of the 50 shoes I've ordered for myself on Zappos, I've kept 1. Huge waste of time, waiting for the mail, shipping boxes, yada yada. I am afraid of violence at the mall though. It seems to attract kids with idle hands more and more. Parking lots have become a scary place as well
1
Fifty shoes, really? No wonder you get tired of returning them. I bet Zappos gets sick of it too. Hurry to your nearest mall!!
2
If the safety situation at your mall is indeed as you describe, it is in what is called a vicious circle. This is reversible simply by a sufficient number of people going to the mall, outnumbering the scary teens. I must also question how much of your fear is projection of your preconceptions onto any random group of teenagers, who are almost certainly more interested in each other and whatever activity they're pursuing than in you.
If the malls weren't enclosed, I wouldn't have a problem shopping there. However, the combination of crowds and enclosed space triggers claustrophobia and panic attacks. I visited an Atlantic City casino only once and had the same reaction. (Strangely, I don't have that reaction in a theatre, or the Port Authority, both of which are also crowded enclosed spaces. I have no idea why not.)
If the malls weren't enclosed, I wouldn't have a problem shopping there. However, the combination of crowds and enclosed space triggers claustrophobia and panic attacks. I visited an Atlantic City casino only once and had the same reaction. (Strangely, I don't have that reaction in a theatre, or the Port Authority, both of which are also crowded enclosed spaces. I have no idea why not.)
1
A person does not have to have a Ph.D. in economics to figure out that the lack of good middle class and working class jobs for the many will lead in a straight line to this consistent downturn in consumer spending. Send the jobs overseas and create a class of unproductive people with extreme wealth existing side by side with those working longer hours and working many jobs to make ends meet. Of course, more consumer spending for mall goods is not exactly productive for the natural environment.
38
I live near 3 malls. One is thriving. It's the Cherry Hill Mall, it's upscale, and its developers have been very smart about re-inventing it over and over again. It has a somewhat more downscale cousin located in Moorestown which is also in the process of reinventing itself. It continues to offer some moderately priced anchor stores, but has recently added upscale restaurants after finally getting the town to pass a law allowing liquor licenses. I think it will do okay for a while. Then we have the Burlington Mall, which is practically at the zombie state right now. They claim to be planning to make it a combination enclosed mall/open air type environment which will include community services, but there has been little activity along that line so far. Maybe that's because we never really needed 3 malls within 20 minutes of each other, or maybe it's because young people, in this area at least, have moved back to the city (Philadelphia). Head into the city on any given weekend and check out the restaurants, small shops and exhibits and you'll find them bustling. Somehow I feel that things have come full circle in a good way.
24
We had two malls practically next door to one another. One died and was reincarnated as the combination enclosed mall/open air shopping center you mention here. It's cleaner now, has a number of newly built spaces, and it's a less expensive alternative to the glitter mall next door. But that's with two malls - not three. I hope you folks don't end up with a gloomy hulk on your hands.
1
Liquor sales in a low-end mall. What could possibly go wrong?
1
David, it's not a low-end mall, just slightly less fancy than the one nearby. The town it's located in is very upscale, and the mall isn't selling liquor, it just opened two very high-priced restaurants which can now sell alcoholic beverages to attract a higher-spending crowd. This is a good development, not a bad one.
The first enclosed indoor shopping mall in the world was the Southdale mall in Edina, Minnesota. It was built by the Dayton family - owners of the eponymous department store in downtown Minneapolis - and they were no fools. Minnesotans wanted a warm place to get out and stretch their legs during the long winter months, and it wasn't going to be downtown, going from mom and pop to mom and pop. So the mall was built, and it boomed. So, in that sense, if you don't like malls, well, blame the Minnesota winters. To this day, I'd rather go to Southdale (or any other mall), than flit around downtown Minneapolis in the bitter cold (and pay to park, on top of it). So would most Minnesotans, too - malls continue to do well in the Twin Cities.
And they also happen to do well in SE Asia, where I now live. Yes, SE Asia has charming neighborhoods and downtowns, too. But who on Earth wants to spent their Sunday walking around in tropical heat? So the shopping mall is booming in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and - soon - Vietnam. In fact, arguably, with less land available than in the US, the mall makes even more sense in SE Asia than it did in places with an excess of land, like Akron, Ohio.
And they also happen to do well in SE Asia, where I now live. Yes, SE Asia has charming neighborhoods and downtowns, too. But who on Earth wants to spent their Sunday walking around in tropical heat? So the shopping mall is booming in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and - soon - Vietnam. In fact, arguably, with less land available than in the US, the mall makes even more sense in SE Asia than it did in places with an excess of land, like Akron, Ohio.
102
The Dayton family moved on. As what? Target.
3
Malls in SE Asia are, for the most part, multi-story buildings in central city locations. They sprawl upward, not laterally. And with transit they don't need huge parking garages. They also cater to small booths for independent merchants as well as large stores.
1
So, it's all about the weather?
The disintermediation by the Internet has changed retail - it's now Amazon and UPS.
I wanted a book, several actually, on short notice and visited Barnes and Noble (we still have one). All I got was coffee, and the books, arrived in two days from Amazon.
Service industries, where you need a person, are fine so are restaurants, but places selling clothes or books or other nick-nacks, no real hope for the long term.
Like how the NYTimes is struggling trying to find its' place, so is much of retail - the disintermediation fostered by the Internet continues.
I wanted a book, several actually, on short notice and visited Barnes and Noble (we still have one). All I got was coffee, and the books, arrived in two days from Amazon.
Service industries, where you need a person, are fine so are restaurants, but places selling clothes or books or other nick-nacks, no real hope for the long term.
Like how the NYTimes is struggling trying to find its' place, so is much of retail - the disintermediation fostered by the Internet continues.
5
When someone is nostalgic for B&N, we know that all is lost! It was, after all, with Borders the megastore that put real bookstores out of business in the first place. Now they are relegated to retiree browsers and bad coffee.
3
Just have to put in a good word for local independent bookstores. Sure, I have bought some books from Amazon, but love the local bookstores--yes, plural! For holiday shopping, in particular, it was fun and sociable to buy local, chat with the staff, who were terrifically helpful, and leave with books in hand and a smile on my face.
Maybe we should be open to having more than one kind of shopping experience in the country. I will not mourn the malls. At first they were interesting and convenient but became tawdry and not where I wanted to shop. Mostly junk for teenagers, etc. or cheap stores with cheap products, once they succeeded in putting quality stores out of business.
Amusing to see developers now talking about combination mall and standalone stores. That's the way they began decades ago! What goes around....
Maybe we should be open to having more than one kind of shopping experience in the country. I will not mourn the malls. At first they were interesting and convenient but became tawdry and not where I wanted to shop. Mostly junk for teenagers, etc. or cheap stores with cheap products, once they succeeded in putting quality stores out of business.
Amusing to see developers now talking about combination mall and standalone stores. That's the way they began decades ago! What goes around....
1
Midwest mom, 'real bookstores' had such limited stock, and such arrogant staff, that I don't miss them at all. It was my idea, y'see, that real bookstores ought to stock lots of books. And not make elaborate faces of distaste when you asked them to order something (which, half the time they couldn't do, because their supplier didn't handle that publisher or whatever). We have a B&N nearby, which I use even more frequently than Amazon, and I wouldn't trade either of 'em for a little indie bookstore.
3
Malls can be a great thing but stores like J.C.Penny and Sears should have been booted out of them a long time ago. These once large, powerful retailers have been mismanaged for decades and are headed for the dustbin.
28
If Sears closes, where am I going to park?
2
By the 1980's the mall was only a place for juvenile delinquents to hang out. I went only because my hairdresser had a salon there and each month I was bombarded with mentally ill teens who had been patients at the psych ward where I worked, begging for a new prescription or even an ear. They apparently hung out all day in the common areas of the mall. In the 1990's, it was a place for teens to hang with their gangs. By 2000, no one went there to buy because of roving teens. Businesses like Sears and Penneys should have given up the ghost decades ago - their stock is sold cheaper and more conveniently somewhere else. I no longer shop anywhere physically - what a waste of time. I have greater selection, better prices, and delivery by purchasing online. Why would anyone leave home, use gas, fight traffic, locate parking, fight the riffraff and rude employees to go into a store with higher priced, lower quality junk from China, when you can buy online?
26
Couldn't agree more. That was our experience a few days ago at the Local Teen Hangout/Mall tomb. The wife wanted to buy some Jeans at Sears for Grandson's birthday. She spent a LONG time waiting in a Line to buy them ,along with a number of other middle aged women still believing in a Vanished America. All who couldn't believe how SLOW the workers were & were very Vocal about it. (as I told my wife "Do you really think everyone's comments were going to speed them up?").
Visiting Sears is a especially depressing time. The Empty Store & all the Listless Employees waiting & hoping for the Throngs that won't be there again.
Visiting Sears is a especially depressing time. The Empty Store & all the Listless Employees waiting & hoping for the Throngs that won't be there again.
1
Everyone pretends that a shopping district like M Street in Georgetown is more vibrant, charming, and "mom and pop" than these supposedly outdated malls. Yet nearly every store on M Street is another soulless branch of something like The Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, Coach, American Apparel, etc. Plus you probably have to pay through the nose for parking. It's not like there's any more fun being had on M Street than at Owings Mills mall, unless you're stopping at every other ice cream store.
34
Exactly. North Michigan Avenue is another prime example - filled with tourists visiting the same Forever 21, Gap, Banana Republic and of course, Macy's. Downtown shopping districts tend to be just as generic as their mall counterparts - only with more square footage and expensive parking.
1
I cant get too upset about this. Substitute for society at best. Not a public sphere in any sense. However I guess it wont get any better if everyone shops online! Facebook is even worse. Now what you say is censored
2
JC Penney "dragging" malls down? Well, just get hedge fund managers to make a more spectacular bet that they will fail, and that should do it. Dagger inserted, and twisted....
9
One can't help but wonder to what degree easy credit from Wall Street led to the over-building of retail in America. It seemed like prior to the big bond crash of 2008 malls were still popping up everywhere, or else being renovated to excess lavishness. Well-financed national retail chains were paying top dollar for rent. This encouraged malls to shun local ma-and-pop stores, pushing them out, or flat-out denying them retail space, preferring the national chains with the big credit lines and the ability to pay staggering rents.
But were those national retail chains actually profitable? So many of them are financially floundering these days. Coldwater Creek, Talbots. Were they ever that profitable or did they just have large credit lines that created the illusion of profitability? I remember walking through a mall about ten years ago, looking around at all the glistening stores packed with pricey merchandise, and remarking to my spouse "Who the heck buys all this stuff? Are there even enough people to buy all this stuff? These stores can't possibly be making money." The mall was nearly empty even then.
One further point about the economics of malls. Stores like Sear's and Macy's are typically paid millions of dollars each year by a mall to serve as its anchor store and hopefully draw shoppers to the mall. In the case of some stores like Sear's this is how they make their money in the mall, not from selling merchandise.
But were those national retail chains actually profitable? So many of them are financially floundering these days. Coldwater Creek, Talbots. Were they ever that profitable or did they just have large credit lines that created the illusion of profitability? I remember walking through a mall about ten years ago, looking around at all the glistening stores packed with pricey merchandise, and remarking to my spouse "Who the heck buys all this stuff? Are there even enough people to buy all this stuff? These stores can't possibly be making money." The mall was nearly empty even then.
One further point about the economics of malls. Stores like Sear's and Macy's are typically paid millions of dollars each year by a mall to serve as its anchor store and hopefully draw shoppers to the mall. In the case of some stores like Sear's this is how they make their money in the mall, not from selling merchandise.
18
My friends who invest heavily in real estate tell me that they need to follow the American dollar and are focused on investing in land and buildings to be used by the health care profession. In the 1980s, the heyday of the great malls, we used to shop like mad. Now, what we don't spend on various taxes (property taxes where I live still go up 5-8% a year, considerably faster than my income) we spend on insurance premiums, co-pays, co-insurance, and other out-of-pocket expenses.
Who, in what's left of the middle class, has a dime left for a trip to the mall?
Who, in what's left of the middle class, has a dime left for a trip to the mall?
45
Let's hope you tell your fiends (The young ones anyway) - that Money I see being plowed into Med Centers & Hospitals around the Country ? Who & What is paying for that boom ?
I have wondered the very same thing as the previous commenter did about Malls. Who in the Heck is going to pay for all this ? And what about your friends Money when the Republicans get in charge? And what in the world will you do with all this Medical space when the Boomers are Dead ?
An endless line of younger people are shuffling through the Medical - Assistant "Colleges" to assume Low Paying Jobs taking care of all these Sick People who Can't Pay ?
I have wondered the very same thing as the previous commenter did about Malls. Who in the Heck is going to pay for all this ? And what about your friends Money when the Republicans get in charge? And what in the world will you do with all this Medical space when the Boomers are Dead ?
An endless line of younger people are shuffling through the Medical - Assistant "Colleges" to assume Low Paying Jobs taking care of all these Sick People who Can't Pay ?
2
I'm perfectly happy to seem these air-conditioned repetitive behemoths go out of business as well. I'm just sorry they took away so much of our fertile land which should be in food production. This country has no food policy. Living, breathing cities which are destinations for recreation and essentials keep development focused and leave room for agriculture and wildlife. Also, people esp. kids wouldn't spend their lives walking the malls. Maybe they would start reading again. And going into the city might become an adventure once more.
Oh dear, I can hear some of you now. Oh, what an old fogey. Well, if I'm an old fogey then you all must be real happy with the status quo.
Oh dear, I can hear some of you now. Oh, what an old fogey. Well, if I'm an old fogey then you all must be real happy with the status quo.
205
We do not need more land in food production, as we have an overabundance of food sitting on supermarket shelves. A better use of such land would be reforestation. We need more forests to absorb carbon and stabilize climate. Agriculture is, and always has been, the enemy of the environment. You cannot be pro-agriculture and pro-wildlife-- these are contradictory positions.
6
Is this post satire? Saying that malls are preventing food policy? Malls are largely in places where there wasn't going to be much agriculture. The US is awash in food. There is no shortage of farmland here.
2
If you’re an old fogey, then I’m an old fogey because I agree with you one hundred percent!
Funny .. they used to call Sears and Penny's "anchor stores" ... you could anchor your mall to these guys. Getting pulled under by the anchors?
11
I grew up with malls. My first job was in a shopping mall. They were an interesting idea at the time. However, now they are simply boring, repetitive, and a poor use of resources. It would be better for retail, for consumers, and for the towns and cities of this country to develop more clever uses of land. Malls (as in small collections of stores sharing an open space in the middle) can still exist but they should be smaller, nimbler, and each catered to a particular shopping focus. The high-end vs low-end dichotomy sort of misses the point.
7
Even the young people of today dream about the downtown shopping they never experienced but that their elders tell them about nostalgically. We need to revive this lost treasure with department stores moving back downtown and with small shops with unique merchandise and personal service. Downtown Athens is now all bars and breweries. Part of the reason for this trend is that building owners have been driving out shopping businesses out of downtown areas with their high rent demands. Also, since we live in a society centered on cars instead of public transportation (except NYC), retailers need more parking space downtowns cannot provide for lack of space. This is the reason why stores moved to malls. When downtown areas were alive, families only had one car per household, and many lived within walking distance of local shops. Now we are obese in every way.
12
Even the young people of today dream about the downtown shopping they never experienced but that their elders tell them about nostalgically. We need to revive this lost treasure with department stores moving back downtown and with small shops with unique merchandise and personal service."
Yes ,and I hear Big Bands are coming back. This time -For Sure !
Yes ,and I hear Big Bands are coming back. This time -For Sure !
1
Shopping just seems out of date, mall or otherwise.
11
Malls are like suburbs. They all look alike, they are all dull. I basically stopped going to malls and moved back to the city. The diversity of a city, shopping on corner stores and truly helping the local economy was my drive. The first indoor mall in the country was built in Minnesota as a way to shop indoors during the long and cold winters. However, people don't realize that walking indoors in heated places for hours on end with a heavy coat is very uncomfortable. I'm surprised it took so long for malls to start disappearing.
19
City planners have made moving back to the cities unaffordable for all but the well to do.
1
Americans have gone through a traumatic experience these past eight years. Many are not so eager to part with their money. The malls thrived on the popularity of shopping as recreation; spending a few hours just walking around looking for items to buy. Today's shopper knows what he/she needs, and no longer makes those additional impulse purchases.
28
Don't be so sure. There is a Mall near us that is packed almost Daily. Year round. It is no Upscale Mall by any means.
North there is a "Outlet Mall" (No Bargains and totally filled with Useless "Name Brands). This place is filled all the time with Cars from Canada - a Terrible 100 mile , traffic filled Drive and LONG Border wait. This Mall melts into a New Cabelas (Packed) ,which Melts into Walmart (Packed). In the Center is a Glitzy but Boring Indian Casino Complex (Usually Packed).
Avoid the Entire Area at all Costs.
North there is a "Outlet Mall" (No Bargains and totally filled with Useless "Name Brands). This place is filled all the time with Cars from Canada - a Terrible 100 mile , traffic filled Drive and LONG Border wait. This Mall melts into a New Cabelas (Packed) ,which Melts into Walmart (Packed). In the Center is a Glitzy but Boring Indian Casino Complex (Usually Packed).
Avoid the Entire Area at all Costs.
I can't remember the last time I went to a mall. Who the heck wants to fight the traffic, the parking, the crowds and the lines. I much prefer to shop for anything I need in the comfort of my own home using the internet. Even those upscale malls will eventually fail. It's only a matter of time.
Good riddance. Malls are monuments to greed, pinnacles of materialism, and sprawling bastions of the country's destructive consumerism and absurd brand consciousness.
Thirty-plus years of pro-corporate reading of the antitrust laws has rendered our commercial landscape bland, boring, and homogenous. The losers have been our communities, our culture, and our economy. More than one hundred years ago the progressive movement pushed for an end to consolidation in business, so that monopolies would dominate neither the market nor the government. For three quarters of a century we stuck to that noble vision, more or less, but since the late 1970s we have been on the track to a return to the bad old days of the Gilded Age. Maybe more dying malls will inspire us to fix course and again move toward the necessary pro-competitive, pro-worker, pro-community, and pro-sustainability economy we really need.
Thirty-plus years of pro-corporate reading of the antitrust laws has rendered our commercial landscape bland, boring, and homogenous. The losers have been our communities, our culture, and our economy. More than one hundred years ago the progressive movement pushed for an end to consolidation in business, so that monopolies would dominate neither the market nor the government. For three quarters of a century we stuck to that noble vision, more or less, but since the late 1970s we have been on the track to a return to the bad old days of the Gilded Age. Maybe more dying malls will inspire us to fix course and again move toward the necessary pro-competitive, pro-worker, pro-community, and pro-sustainability economy we really need.
32
I agree with your comment and would add, under the guise of we need to have large companies to compete globally. Too bad, since it also has changed the landscape of America - and not for the better.
1
Malls always stuck me as kind of dumb idea that got out of hand. They took open public spaces, what used to be called streets, and flipped them inside to make every inch private property so that the mall owners and the store renters to control everything and kick out anyone or anything they didn't like. They represented a closing in of what had been America, the main street shopping zone. They represent a giant plan to sheer people of their money and make them happy to be giving it up. Millions of people loved them, and still do, but it is completely clear that the time of malls has come and gone.
Walmart, Cosco and Sam's Club have lured away the lower end, bargain hunting customers (the malls didn't really want most of them there anyway) and the high end malls appeal to those who only want to be bathed in lux, wherever they go.
As we prepare to say last rites over the malls of America, let's pause, folks, and consider whether shopping should actually be a goal in life, one of its purposes. Buying things does not make people happy. The new of something wears off in a few days. Our relationships with others and the belief that we are making a strong, positive contribution to our times are far more rewarding pursuits. Then again, to loosely paraphrase the poet e.e.cummings, if shopping is what you want to do, then do it and undo it until you drop.
Doug Terry
Walmart, Cosco and Sam's Club have lured away the lower end, bargain hunting customers (the malls didn't really want most of them there anyway) and the high end malls appeal to those who only want to be bathed in lux, wherever they go.
As we prepare to say last rites over the malls of America, let's pause, folks, and consider whether shopping should actually be a goal in life, one of its purposes. Buying things does not make people happy. The new of something wears off in a few days. Our relationships with others and the belief that we are making a strong, positive contribution to our times are far more rewarding pursuits. Then again, to loosely paraphrase the poet e.e.cummings, if shopping is what you want to do, then do it and undo it until you drop.
Doug Terry
19
Another poet: "Getting and spending we lay waste our powers." Wordsworth (!)
1
I am reminded of Jane Jacobs' "The Death and Life of the American City." She was in favor of mixed use cities, where you could shop, live, work, and play, and have a personal relationship with shop-keepers and neighbors alike. The malls were a place you had to get in your car and drive to, so it was a benefit for the oil companies, once again. I imagine her saying, "I told you so."
35
I'm rooting for enterprising Mom & Pop specialty stores to repopulate Main Street. Am I a dreamer?
28
why the sad face? look at stores in malls as holes you toss your money into in exchange for an item created for much less than what you paid. do this year after year for every holiday that can be dreamed up. Swallow the story retail tells every year that their economic life depends on xmas sales and that we need to "help" solve this problem. look at your bank account and wonder what
happened
happened
13
Malls no longer offer or have the communities they serve interest at heart. When I was young, my local mall, had both name brand and independent retailers. We would shop at an anchor store (e.i. Alexander's) for new school clothes; and ballet flats and a leotard for dance lessons, from a local vendor.
If malls want to reinvent themselves, they should look into becoming community centers; offering space and services for: ice-skating rinks, swimming pools, live community theaters and family-owned restaurants; along side big name retailers.
If malls want to reinvent themselves, they should look into becoming community centers; offering space and services for: ice-skating rinks, swimming pools, live community theaters and family-owned restaurants; along side big name retailers.
25
I so agree that malls should be community centers. I visited the mall recently and hated it. All the stores seemed geared to teenagers; there was nowhere to sit to relax or chat with a friend except the horrible, noisy food court where all you could get was fast food. All the bookstores and placed you'd like to browse were gone and none of the stores seemed to have anything exciting or interesting or well-made (excpet for Macy's). I was very disheartened, as I had good memories of going to the mall. I would think that they could be resurrected if the owners didn't charge such exorbitant rents - I'd like to see bookstores, toy stores, specialty stores, skating rinks, meeting places, kids' activities, rides, indoor parks - things that would be so welcome in the winter.
1
i love the concept "over-retailed"! who's idea was it to destroy main street?
i find in my old age i am quite bitter about the over-consumption and destruction of nature. everything, and i do mean EVERYTHING is made in china.
i find in my old age i am quite bitter about the over-consumption and destruction of nature. everything, and i do mean EVERYTHING is made in china.
35
I wasn't made in China.
(Could I have the royalties on the bumper sticker?)
(Could I have the royalties on the bumper sticker?)
3
I think that when we are younger, we are in an acquisition phase. We want to make our homes comfortable and pleasant.
However, as I age, I look around my house and all the "stuff" I have and want to toss everything (donate, recycle, etc.).
However, as I age, I look around my house and all the "stuff" I have and want to toss everything (donate, recycle, etc.).
2
In Europe and Scandinavia they're closing down churches and selling them. In the U.S. we're closing down malls. Now if we can just get it to go the other way.
14
Close down both and replace them with long-term development that pays taxes.
1
I've lived within walking distance of two malls, both of which still exist. However, one is just surviving while the other one thrives. How? The successful mall really integrated itself into the community. Sure, it has some usual chains such as Pier 1 Imports and Dress Barn but the mall management also saved some space for specialty local retailers as well as community-oriented activities -- including a within-mall library branch, mini city hall/ police dept, post office, DMV, and community room that local groups can rent. Add a Saturday Game Night sponsored by a local game store and stage for live free music several times a week and this adds up to a mall that is often packed. All these activities draws shoppers and dollars. And this is a middle-class mall, not upscale.
Certainly, there are entities that need space or are located in crumbling buildings -- e.g. schools and homeless shelters. Are there any way these malls could be renovated or cleaned up for these purposes?
Certainly, there are entities that need space or are located in crumbling buildings -- e.g. schools and homeless shelters. Are there any way these malls could be renovated or cleaned up for these purposes?
280
A number of these malls have been turned into colleges. Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, CT once was a mall
4
Walking distance to not one but two malls! I have never heard of anyone walking to any mall and therein lies part of the problem. Younger Americans are less enamored with car culture. Imersive, walkable, active environments are what is attractive. Many of the dead and soon to be dead malls will not be saved. These catastrophically failed land uses will become the salvage yards of the future. Some however will be retrofitted and with any lucid thought have imposed upon them a street and block system including residential, commercial, and light industrial uses and returning to the building lot as the normal form of development. And if we are lucky the result will be revivified town centers and neighborhoods.
3
I live in an area that has had malls since the 1950s. Two venerable enclosed mall spaces opened within a few months of each other, in 1958. One, still enclosed, is now your classic "dead mall," (and has had reduced occupancy for over a decade or more, just lingering on), while the second one converted into an open-air shopping center in the early 1990s and, after a few moribund years, is still thriving. The only real difference between the two, aside from the conversion, is that the second mall was built on a tract of land already surrounded by homes, a four-lane boulevard, a bluff and a creek. In other words, it cannot expand its footprint any further and overbuild, which is usually the kiss of death for malls - although it seems like "prosperity" at the time of expansion.
1
At one time Owings Mills had some high end anchor stores and the car parks were packed. Then other new Malls and big box stores opened in the area that were more convenient. The anchors left and so did the customers. There are three factors at work behind the decline of malls. Competition from other malls or big box outlets in the area because a given region has a relatively fixed amount of consumption capacity. Competition from online shopping which offers a vast array of choices at your fingertips. Boredom with the homogeneity of much of the merchandize offered by the large retail chains.
7
I have this irresistible fantasy of me and several friends taking wheeled utility carts into a huge empty dead mall, and riding up and down the halls as fast as we can go. That would be like my whole bucket list wrapped up in one.
7
"The American middle class has absorbed a steep increase in the cost of health care and other necessities as incomes have stagnated over the past half decade, a squeeze that has forced families to cut back spending on everything from clothing to restaurants.
That hit has been accompanied by increases in spending on other necessities, including food eaten at home, rent and education, as well as the soaring cost of staying connected digitally via cellphones and home Internet service.
With income growth sluggish, discretionary spending on things like clothing and movies, live shows and amusement parks has given way.
...Labor Department data on 2013 out-of-pocket spending for the middle 60% of the population by income—households earning between about $18,000 and $95,000 a year, before taxes.
The data show they are losing ground. Overall spending for the group rose by about 2.3% over the six-year period from 2007, even as inflation totaled about 12%. At the same time, income for the group stagnated, rising less than half a percent.
With health care and other costs rising, these consumers spent less on furniture, entertainment, clothing and even child care ..."
http://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-reallocate-their-dollars-1417476499
That hit has been accompanied by increases in spending on other necessities, including food eaten at home, rent and education, as well as the soaring cost of staying connected digitally via cellphones and home Internet service.
With income growth sluggish, discretionary spending on things like clothing and movies, live shows and amusement parks has given way.
...Labor Department data on 2013 out-of-pocket spending for the middle 60% of the population by income—households earning between about $18,000 and $95,000 a year, before taxes.
The data show they are losing ground. Overall spending for the group rose by about 2.3% over the six-year period from 2007, even as inflation totaled about 12%. At the same time, income for the group stagnated, rising less than half a percent.
With health care and other costs rising, these consumers spent less on furniture, entertainment, clothing and even child care ..."
http://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-reallocate-their-dollars-1417476499
11
I don't have any sympathy or sadness in seeing the malls decline. They sucked the life out of vibrant downtowns and helped destroy perfectly good streetcar systems and turned the United States into a completely auto-centric society. What does concern me greatly is the rapid decline of the American middle class which alone made the United States great. Washington seems blind to this very disturbing trend.
45
Horror shows... Better as parkland .
7
Have you noticed how they're designed so you can't get out? If I see a mall I make sure I drive the long way around it. They're only for suckers that enjoy paying full retail prices. I have a soft spot for good ol' Sears and Penney's, but not enough to get me into a mall.
4
kinda like casinos!
1
There are many things I enjoy doing but shopping is not one of them. I'd rather walk on hot coals than go shopping.
4
Me too. I look at my mom who is 82. She was the post world war II consumer. She (and my dad) spent most of my dad's income shopping. She has a house full of old useless stuff, lots unused. I remember visiting while in the navy in the early '80s. Her idea of a great day was to go to the mall in Cheyenne WY. She can't help it, she was trained to be a shopper by her society and place in time.
In my younger days in northern Illinois, I mourned the loss of many fine oak-hickory woodlands, quality wetlands, and remnant prairies as developers built one sprawl-mall after another throughout suburban Chicago. At the same time, unfortunately, the same thing was going on everywhere else in the USA.
Recently, I've watched many of those sprawl-malls deteriorate into forlorn memorials to greed and reckless over-development.
How fine it would be if the same towns that once encouraged sprawl would tear down the rotting buildings, pull up the crumbling concrete and buckling asphalt, and "re-purpose" those lands as parks, laying in trails and planting as many native trees and plants as possible. Humans and wildlife would return in droves, and the residential and commercial communities surrounding those parks would become more vibrant.
Recently, I've watched many of those sprawl-malls deteriorate into forlorn memorials to greed and reckless over-development.
How fine it would be if the same towns that once encouraged sprawl would tear down the rotting buildings, pull up the crumbling concrete and buckling asphalt, and "re-purpose" those lands as parks, laying in trails and planting as many native trees and plants as possible. Humans and wildlife would return in droves, and the residential and commercial communities surrounding those parks would become more vibrant.
604
Great idea. Rather like the Rails to Trail movement which turns abandon railways into recreational paths for joggers, hikers, and bikers.
3
Wonderful ideas, but there is little, if any, money available to accomplish.
1
Good and accurate Post Martha. The Jurisdictions should be made along with the developers of these travesties, to return the Land to its original state. In fact along the Potomac River we have miles of Land that Politicians and Developers, often in reality the same, should be required to put back as it was before they came.
3
The trouble is, we built way too many. Now, they are bleeding out because we don't need them all. I say, turn them back into grassy fields or create parks.
26
How sad. I used to have a lot of fun at malls!
2
As someone who infrequently shops at malls, but still loves the outing and the hunt for a sale item that fits, I am more and more disappointed going into the mall's "anchor stores" and finding no one to help with selections, sizing, and recommendation. One person stands at the pay station a block and a half away, but otherwise you're on your own. First, dead bookstores, now dead malls. American bricks'nmortar retailing is aging almost as fast as I am.
13
You can't even get help at Target anymore. I noticed the trend many years ago but now it is blatant. Shopping used to be fun, now it is a chore and I hate chores.
1
I remember a time before malls. There were downtown communities where people know each other, and there was farmland growing food. The farmland was paved over by developers, replacing a source of something we needed ( food) with a sterile enclosed location full of things we don't really need. The developers made their profits, the farms are gone.
If only we could reverse time and get the farmland back, uncontaminated by asphalt and gasoline.
If only we could reverse time and get the farmland back, uncontaminated by asphalt and gasoline.
136
Dpn't forget the deadly effect of Walmart on our town centers--and taxpayers. They fight to get into a town, even when the people don't want them, and they're worse than malls. Low pay means taxpayers subsidize by providing for food stamps and other assistance. Walmarts abandon their old buildings, too.
1
Yep, that's the ticket, more food - we sure all look hungry, don't we? If all that farmland had been valuable as farmland, farm families who reaped millions on those sales would not have sold it. Farmers are not stupid.
2
Speak for yourself. While I rarely shop at malls (less than 1 time per year), I would not be so condescending to state that every shopper is buying items they don't need.
Farms are doing fine as well. I'll add that the same folk who call for a return to farming have little understanding of farming. It's not the pastoral experience of "Green Acres" and cute piglets. Farms are big business, industrial operations, that are not nice to live next to.
Farms are doing fine as well. I'll add that the same folk who call for a return to farming have little understanding of farming. It's not the pastoral experience of "Green Acres" and cute piglets. Farms are big business, industrial operations, that are not nice to live next to.
4
Obviously, this is Obama's fault. A coincidence that malls were thriving before he was elected? I think not.
Now that people have Obamacare, they're spending more time at the Doctor's office so they don't have time to go to a mall. And since they're getting everything they need via handouts from -- you guessed it -- Obama, they don't need to go to the mall.
Obama forced Socialism on us, and Socialists only wear T-shirts with strange logos, which you can't buy at a mall. Obama gave all our money away as corporate welfare, so there's no capital left to make mall improvements.
Did you ever see Obama or his family at a mall? I thought so. There you have it, it's all Obama's fault.
Now that people have Obamacare, they're spending more time at the Doctor's office so they don't have time to go to a mall. And since they're getting everything they need via handouts from -- you guessed it -- Obama, they don't need to go to the mall.
Obama forced Socialism on us, and Socialists only wear T-shirts with strange logos, which you can't buy at a mall. Obama gave all our money away as corporate welfare, so there's no capital left to make mall improvements.
Did you ever see Obama or his family at a mall? I thought so. There you have it, it's all Obama's fault.
90
Obama forced socialism on us? I wish we did have the socialism of the Scandinavian countries- it results in the highest level of life satisfaction-- just read the surveys. You are confusing socialism under Stalin or Mao with modern socialism, which people do like. Too bad Obama has been blocked in some of his public welfare measures.
Everything bad that ever happened is Obama' fault. From the Plague to WW2.
Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.
Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.
2
Ricky, U R RIght.
2015 will be a good year as it is Obama's last year as president!
2015 will be a good year as it is Obama's last year as president!
Regarding White Flint Mall (in my neighborhood): The story didn't include a key detail to the problem there. One of the last remaining tenants, Lord & Taylor, has a lease inked in the 1970s when the mall opened, and has been forcing the owners to honor those terms. If it weren't for this lease, the mall would have been razed some time ago, and the planned redevelopment would be well underway. A few blocks up Rockville Pike, there is new development happening, which includes upscale retail.
7
@Karl
This sounds like a Robin Hood tale. "The owners are being forced...".
This sounds like a Robin Hood tale. "The owners are being forced...".
2
There are several things going on here.
The first is the lesser formality of American business. In 1975, almost everyone in business wore coats and ties, dresses or some other semi-formal attire that required going to department stores or the other specialty mall clothing stores. Even church on Sundays required your "Sunday Best", now dress shirts and ties are a rarity.
The second element has been the rise of the Big Box store and people's willingness to shop at discounters. Forty years ago there were large segments of the population that would not be caught dead in a Walmart. But starting with the rise of Sam's and a different view of money, now everyone shops where they feel they get a good deal.
Both factors moved people away from the expensive specialty stores (and malls) to larger, cheaper spots. It also explains why upscale malls, where people have the money to buy what they want rather than what they need, have continued to do well.
The first is the lesser formality of American business. In 1975, almost everyone in business wore coats and ties, dresses or some other semi-formal attire that required going to department stores or the other specialty mall clothing stores. Even church on Sundays required your "Sunday Best", now dress shirts and ties are a rarity.
The second element has been the rise of the Big Box store and people's willingness to shop at discounters. Forty years ago there were large segments of the population that would not be caught dead in a Walmart. But starting with the rise of Sam's and a different view of money, now everyone shops where they feel they get a good deal.
Both factors moved people away from the expensive specialty stores (and malls) to larger, cheaper spots. It also explains why upscale malls, where people have the money to buy what they want rather than what they need, have continued to do well.
27
The "different view of money" is that the working class- the mall shoppers- don't have enough. Income disparity at it's finest.
1
There are two shopping malls on the Harrisburg side of the Susquehanna (aka "the east shore"), Harrisburg Mall and Colonial Park Mall, not even five miles apart. I live closer to Colonial Park and so I go there several times a year, and I can usually find bargain prices on good merchandise when I do. It is a diverse mall, single story, two big chains and a second run movie theater along with several dozen smaller stores.
The weekend before Christmas I found myself in the neighborhood of Harrisburg Mall, which I once visited fairly regularly. I decided to stop in and do some last minute Christmas shopping. It is a massive, two story complex with room for 3 anchors, and with a first run theater with 12 screens. As I walked through the mall, I could not help but notice the high vacancy rate as well as the lack of shoppers. If the place isn't "dying" it is close.
I think there are several lessons here. The smaller mall is doing very well; the larger mall is not. They are in the same geographic vicinity and cater to the same working/middle class purchasers. Harrisburg Mall is by far the "nicer" mall, and it boasts the best movie theater for miles in any direction, and yet it is struggling to survive while Colonial Park Mall bustles along, doing well year after year.
Malls were once destinations, America's indoor downtown, iconic in a way. The mall from "Valley Girl" has long since been torn down. Let that be a lesson.
Nothing is sacred, and massive malls are expensive to run.
The weekend before Christmas I found myself in the neighborhood of Harrisburg Mall, which I once visited fairly regularly. I decided to stop in and do some last minute Christmas shopping. It is a massive, two story complex with room for 3 anchors, and with a first run theater with 12 screens. As I walked through the mall, I could not help but notice the high vacancy rate as well as the lack of shoppers. If the place isn't "dying" it is close.
I think there are several lessons here. The smaller mall is doing very well; the larger mall is not. They are in the same geographic vicinity and cater to the same working/middle class purchasers. Harrisburg Mall is by far the "nicer" mall, and it boasts the best movie theater for miles in any direction, and yet it is struggling to survive while Colonial Park Mall bustles along, doing well year after year.
Malls were once destinations, America's indoor downtown, iconic in a way. The mall from "Valley Girl" has long since been torn down. Let that be a lesson.
Nothing is sacred, and massive malls are expensive to run.
26
I don't have any alternatives to restructuring society, but it seems to me that an economy built on people buying things they don't need, cannot be the ideal approach to how people could live.
317
Tundra, thats a explaination too deep.
As Buffett said about the Internet at its dawn : "I would not invest in commercial property"
As Buffett said about the Internet at its dawn : "I would not invest in commercial property"
I suppose if no one needs a job as a salesman, eventually there will be none. Bring on that "ideal" lifestyle, where none of us have to work!
2
As we know people buying things they don't need is the basis of capitalism. It's long since time to go onto something else that would truly benefit the 99% as opposed to the 1.
3
I suspect like many folks over the years, I most often went to malls to gawk or window shop. Prices were most always absurdly higher than could be found at stand-alone stores or, over the past 15 years, online. The malls were simply a place grab a bite, touch and feel a product, and then buy it for less somewhere else.
8
Right- malls were "social" locations. This function has been largely taken over by the internet.
Surely they could be used for something: toxic waste storage comes to mind. We produce a lot of that. Wall space for bad art. We produce even more of that. Shooting ranges to keep the second amendment fresh in folks minds or the very least, bingo parlors, which are where americans have really arrived.
32
Here in New York City we have outdoor malls called "streets", with the doors from the stores opening onto the "outside air". Most malls which have opened in the densest neighborhood, such as Herald Square, have done poorly. Also, stores in these dense urban areas don't have parking lots, and in fact you don't even need a car to shop here. Weird but true.
I've also found that nearly everywhere you go now, you see the same chain stores selling the same things. The individuality of destinations is being destroyed by retailers eager to flood the market. My own neighborhood is awash in chain drugstores, cellphone stores and nail salons. The individualistic stores are under threat from drastically rising rents. I think retail rent control, however hated by real estate interests, might be an answer.
I've also found that nearly everywhere you go now, you see the same chain stores selling the same things. The individuality of destinations is being destroyed by retailers eager to flood the market. My own neighborhood is awash in chain drugstores, cellphone stores and nail salons. The individualistic stores are under threat from drastically rising rents. I think retail rent control, however hated by real estate interests, might be an answer.
96
But the nail salons are locally-owned small businesses, are they not?
1
They've come full circle, attempting to turn these properties into the open air town centers they so thoroughly devastated for the last half of the 20th century. The problem is, aside from the acres of asphalt that surround them, malls have never been the center of anything. Attempts to perpetuate their existence as fake "centers" should be seen as nothing more than the continued fleecing of the communities they inhabit. Developers have ransacked this country and will continue to do so until we hold them responsible for their crimes.
76
Development as a crime - now, there's a concept for a free people to contemplate. Mr. Demand, let me introduce you to Mr. Supply, as the two of you might have something in common, until, that is, the Communists come to imprison you for co-operating in crimes against society.
1
Too many malls are now in high crime areas.This is the cause of their demise changing demographics.
13
Not one of the dying malls or near-dying malls that I'm familiar with is in a high-crime area.
1
It is important to look at who actually owns the malls of America. A great many are owned by private equity (in its various guises) using lots of bank and debt leverage. This ownership structure insures, when times are good, that a substantial proportion of the returns flow to the financial elites who control the private equity investment pools (while also escaping fair taxation by being treated as carrier interest). But the actual investors in these doomed projects are, more often than not, institutions such a university endowments and public pension funds.
Look at the malls anyway you like (I, personally, won't set foot in any one of them unless there is a dire emergency) but don't forget that the spreading failure of the malls is more than just another stark example of the death of the middle classes in 21st century America; it is also part of the process that will further accelerate the elimination of the middle classes sooner than most people realize by weakening the very institutions (universities and pensions) which provide, respectively, a chance for upward mobility and safety net against the downward slide.
Look at the malls anyway you like (I, personally, won't set foot in any one of them unless there is a dire emergency) but don't forget that the spreading failure of the malls is more than just another stark example of the death of the middle classes in 21st century America; it is also part of the process that will further accelerate the elimination of the middle classes sooner than most people realize by weakening the very institutions (universities and pensions) which provide, respectively, a chance for upward mobility and safety net against the downward slide.
1
From the first day the first mall opened it had potential and it had risks and an unknown life expectancy. Same as any other business in the country. The Malls are privately owned corporations that sometimes make money and sometimes lose money. This is neither surprising nor a reason for dismay. Its simply how business has always been done. Remember the elephant size office buildings that emptied out during the downturn in the economy or how entire developments and even cities were 'underwater' financially. This is capitalism. Nothing new, its how yesterday is weeded out from tomorrow. It doesnt matter whether "Malls" exist at all. It matters that the service exists - and the service always will because people need clothes and others need the profit from selling clothing. Where its done, how its done, thats the next best thing that someone will figure and and make money. I would put my money into "virtual malls" of the future. And dont let anybody sell you a future thats more than about six years going forward before the next "future" gets here.
11
Isn't capitalism wonderful! Just imagine how much more wonderful it could be if there were no pesky government regulations or ignorant societal pressures against the all mighty invisible hand.
All hail the job creators.
All hail the job creators.
1
I'm happy to recommend your thoughtful comment while so many others are whining about their past.
1
Actually government regulations and all of the useless, self-serving, parasitic bureaucrats that enforce them are the job creators. If the liberal / progressives had their way everybody would work for the government just like they did in the old Soviet Union.
1
With easy money to invest, malls and mall store chains proliferated beyond what the market would support. If the malls close, then less affluent people will do their general shopping at Wal-Mart or Target, and visits to malls frequented by the affluent will be seldom. Malls for the affluent, meanwhile, are doing fine.
If stores have clerks with nothing to do for most of their shift, as will happen with dying malls, then what we have is a privately-funded jobs program. Given the unemployment situation, this is a good thing.
If stores have clerks with nothing to do for most of their shift, as will happen with dying malls, then what we have is a privately-funded jobs program. Given the unemployment situation, this is a good thing.
4
The mall is a sterile invention, surrounded by acres of empty asphalt over dead and buried native ecosystems. It's time to resuscitate downtown! Look at adaptive re-use projects like The Pearl in San Antonio. http://atpearl.com/
It is a renovated turn of the century brewery on the new extension of the San Antonio Riverwalk. The planning includes shops, restaurants, hotel, office, AND residential. It's buzzing with activity and an absolutely charming place to spend an afternoon. Every city has unique architecture that just needs an observant and creative developer to breathe new life into it. Just look at what happened at the renovation of The Highline in Manhattan. It has re-charged an entire neighborhood. Vision trumps formula every time.
It is a renovated turn of the century brewery on the new extension of the San Antonio Riverwalk. The planning includes shops, restaurants, hotel, office, AND residential. It's buzzing with activity and an absolutely charming place to spend an afternoon. Every city has unique architecture that just needs an observant and creative developer to breathe new life into it. Just look at what happened at the renovation of The Highline in Manhattan. It has re-charged an entire neighborhood. Vision trumps formula every time.
125
Also, malls are always populated by chain retailers, whereas unique mom-and-pop stores tend to be in city shopping districts.
Comparing a mall to the Highline is absurd given that perform very different functions.
3
Yes, the Highline appears to be a success--but it's not a mall but a linear park. I'm not familiar with The Pearl in San Antonio, but I am familiar with quite a few other "adaptive re-use projects" elsewhere, mostly in the east and midwest. There were a lot of them developed in the late 70s and into the 80s. Almost all of them are gone now, a few still exist but in severely reduced form. I enjoyed them, but they just couldn't seem to survive. Most of them depended on small, local stores, and at a guess, those weren't sufficient to keep the stores occupied after the novelty wore off. Perhaps the one in San Antonio will be more successful.
4
With middle-class wages flat for the last 30 years in real purchasing power, its not a surprise that shopping malls, once the epitome of a middle-class suburban retail environment, are struggling. People working hard, and stretching, to keep their lifestyle near what they remember don't have the money to pay 'mall prices', and after working two part-time jobs, or one full and another part-time job they don't have the energy to go to a mall and wander around. Middle-class restaurants are facing the same problem. The investor class would be wise to consider that eventually, if prices continue to increase but wages don't, their investments in retail, restaurants, and eventually manufacturing will fall as people just can't buy things anymore.
220
The best mall....is a dead mall.
This is wonderful news - it can only make America a better place.
This is wonderful news - it can only make America a better place.
213
Studies indicate that patterns of socioeconomic segregation and ample public transport facilitate otherwise non-existent cross-class shopping interactions in malls. This results in visitors bringing their diverse practices from other public settings, resulting in rare mutual exposure to extensive indicia of cross-class culture.
The serpent lives. Instead of this garbage piled up in one place on the outskirts of town where all you have to do is turn your head to miss it, now Dick's Sporting Goods, Walmart, K Mart, Home Depot, Lowes etc. build behemoths along main roads they pick sprinkled by other freestanding smaller buildings that house garbage they say you can eat. I really do not think anything positive is happening here nor do I believe this is some kind of metaphor of our social landscape. It simply changed from a heap of junk to junk thrown all over the lawn.
3
Consumerism is part of progress. It is a measure of freedom and economic progress. Malls closing down is NOT wonderful news.
4
I haven't set foot in a mall in approximately 10 years. (Had to think long and hard about when was the the last time I was in a mall before I could write that.) For me, a couple things killed any desire to go to the mall: (1) the ability to buy nearly everything online; (2) roaming packs of teenagers creating random chaos and sometimes violence in the malls. Who needs the traffic and the aggravation? Malls just aren't that interesting.
74
It just might be that crime and drugs have been pervasive in New Jersey. I moved as far away as I could get.
Until I pretty much gave up on retail, old school, I heard many times..."oh, go to our website, its' probably on line".
Glad I drove there. Now I buy pretty much everything "on line". I try not to "showroom", except for Best Buy or Walmart....they deserve it.
Glad I drove there. Now I buy pretty much everything "on line". I try not to "showroom", except for Best Buy or Walmart....they deserve it.
18
This isn't hard.
If you are over the age of 30, shopping in a mall is TERRIBLE! So you don't go. If you're a 20-something you go to the mall to flirt with people and maybe pick up that $50 A&F t with mommy & daddy's money.
The upscale malls remain because the rich want to feel young and shopping with a bunch of 20-somethings makes them feel like they aren't on 3 different medications and their joints hurt. And they can pick up that $50 A&F t as well. Because it makes you look young. Right?
If you are over the age of 30, shopping in a mall is TERRIBLE! So you don't go. If you're a 20-something you go to the mall to flirt with people and maybe pick up that $50 A&F t with mommy & daddy's money.
The upscale malls remain because the rich want to feel young and shopping with a bunch of 20-somethings makes them feel like they aren't on 3 different medications and their joints hurt. And they can pick up that $50 A&F t as well. Because it makes you look young. Right?
29
This comment would have been accurate in 2005 when people wore Abercrombie. Similar to malls, that company is dying. Not to mention that teenagers don't hang out at malls anymore.
4
Dude, back away from the ageism smack. I'm as old as dirt and once upon a time there was something called a town square. Even in NYC, there are neighborhoods still. In some places a mall makes sense, in other places, not so much. What is so hard about that?
2
Imagine, going to the mall and seeing real people. You don't get that on your gadget. If you wait long enough you may bump into Jeff B, after all he does not like to shop on line, I am told.
1
I've got one suggestion for dying (or dead) malls: Filming locations. From zombie apocalypses to retro 70's, 80's and 90's comedies to the next "Fast and Furious: Indoor Slide" epic, whatever, they are a natural.
And talk about parking for all those film equipment vehicles!
Hey, reality show: American Dying Mall Pickers.
Think about it. Get back to me.
And talk about parking for all those film equipment vehicles!
Hey, reality show: American Dying Mall Pickers.
Think about it. Get back to me.
32
Right on, Roger.
As I've watched a similar situation develop in Australia, I figured any mall would do well as a converted entertainment center. Just a few years back, an older mall was bulldozed flat south of me, at the Gold Coast.
As automation and robotics spread this century, the life of malls will just continue to decline - even the 'high class' stuff.
As I've watched a similar situation develop in Australia, I figured any mall would do well as a converted entertainment center. Just a few years back, an older mall was bulldozed flat south of me, at the Gold Coast.
As automation and robotics spread this century, the life of malls will just continue to decline - even the 'high class' stuff.
2
The Blues Brothers mall scene was filmed at a dead mall and the UK version of Top Gear has raced the halls of a (active, not dead) mall.
1
Having built many copy-cat properties - how many had anything distinctive? - why is it surprising that malls aren't doing so well? I can afford to shop, but if at all possible I buy what I need somewhere other than a mall - it's a high price, low service experience for the most part. When money is still tight for so many, mall shopping doesn't make sense.
And as noted by someone else, the food is truly awful at most food courts.
Perhaps if a developer made an effort to innovate and do something different, they might see improved customer "engagement" - isn't that what businesses are often after at the moment?
And as noted by someone else, the food is truly awful at most food courts.
Perhaps if a developer made an effort to innovate and do something different, they might see improved customer "engagement" - isn't that what businesses are often after at the moment?
5
Build it and they will come? Dream on.
1
This is an excellent article about the decline and closing of out-of-date malls in waning locations. The inclusion of White Flint Mall in this category, however, is somewhat inaccurate.
White Flint has remained a reasonably successful mall, even as it has been eclipsed by newer properties. The area is densely populated, heavily trafficked and is well-served by metropolitan Washington's Metro system.
White Flint is being redeveloped as a mixed use neighborhood, largely anchored by multi-family housing and will contain significant ground-floor retail space. The redevelopment takes full advantage of White Flint's proximity to downtown Washington and its advantageous location on a major mass-transit line. The result will be a substantial win for Lerner Enterprises and the Tower Companies, both significant DC area developers.
In sum, a mall property is being replaced by a more significant mixed use development that will include substantial retail space. This is not a story of decline, it is one of growth.
White Flint has remained a reasonably successful mall, even as it has been eclipsed by newer properties. The area is densely populated, heavily trafficked and is well-served by metropolitan Washington's Metro system.
White Flint is being redeveloped as a mixed use neighborhood, largely anchored by multi-family housing and will contain significant ground-floor retail space. The redevelopment takes full advantage of White Flint's proximity to downtown Washington and its advantageous location on a major mass-transit line. The result will be a substantial win for Lerner Enterprises and the Tower Companies, both significant DC area developers.
In sum, a mall property is being replaced by a more significant mixed use development that will include substantial retail space. This is not a story of decline, it is one of growth.
14
Retasking the property to be mixed use with an eye toward retaining portions of the Mall is a good idea. The anchors might have to go, but creating a residential node of about 3000 would help sustain the other retail space.
Malls were always a poor attempt to create a "regional" Main St. People are drawn to them as novelties, but that wears off and they return to their neighborhood centers.
The past 60 years have seen many such neighborhood centers decline into suburban squalor as a result of big box and regional retail. Look for this to correct over the next several years.
The automobile experiment as it relates to the human habitat is on the down hill side.
Malls were always a poor attempt to create a "regional" Main St. People are drawn to them as novelties, but that wears off and they return to their neighborhood centers.
The past 60 years have seen many such neighborhood centers decline into suburban squalor as a result of big box and regional retail. Look for this to correct over the next several years.
The automobile experiment as it relates to the human habitat is on the down hill side.
1
Seems like a bigger issue than income bifurcation is people getting married later and having fewer kids. A single person age 28 is not going to shop at a JCPenney/Sears mall when there is a high end one around, no matter how middle class they are. Get married and have kids and the situation changes.
11
It seems a new apartment building opens weekly in our Uptown. They cater to the influx of young single professionals being hired by the two big banks as well as the companies that exist to service them. Every other space is a high end grocery or a bicycle shop or a gym and the rest of the storefronts are bars. The singles have their priorities and that is to party on. I wonder how many of them are those complaining about the high school debts they are carrying.
1
When a shopping mall closes, do the taxpayers get stuck with any costs? Do the mall owners continue to pay their property taxes and if so, at what rate? Were mall owners given any tax breaks or special deals on public services (sewer, etc) when they built and if so, are they obligated to reimburse the local governments when they close shop? Can local governments expropriate abandoned shopping centers that fail to generate tax revenues?
It seems that details on these money issues would provide some further insights to what this article described.
It seems that details on these money issues would provide some further insights to what this article described.
147
Our mall is currently undergoing renovation. It has had multiple owners in a short amount of time. The city council has agreed to give the owners of the mall $53 million dollars of taxpayer money for the renovation. This new mall will most likely fail too. People are wising up. Why pay double at the mall for things that can be found for half the price online even while one adds the shipping fee. Another shopping center in town has an impact fee added into the purchase of if I recall correctly .815%, to pay the developers. That fee is also taxable.
1
I am old enough to remember a time before malls. To me they are an innovation. Aside from high-end malls,-- the Westfield ones mentioned are excellent in Australia and in the U.S,. -- even low-to-medium end malls in city-centres seem to be surviving. and even to all appearances doing well.
2
That great stalwart of many malls, groups of teenagers, don't seem to be as interested in spending their time scoping each while sort of shopping. Contact and keeping up is much easier online with mobile devices. Actual physical meetings are planned and might revolve around something other then commercialism. This could be a very positive trend.
22
But, as you note, those scoping teens were not buying much. So their disappearance can explain the dying of the malls.
3
Google Vanderbilt Medical Center 100 Oaks. Interesting use of a dead mall.
8
Thanks - I did and it is a nobrainer. Great rehab of a mall into something worthwhile and needed. Why is this not more prevalent?
2
"With income inequality continuing to widen, high-end malls are thriving, even as stolid retail chains like Sears, Kmart and J. C. Penney falter, taking the middle- and working-class malls they anchored with them."
There is no such thing as "income inequality". Income inequality is a pathetic political expression to explain away why there are "haves and have nots". What really exists in the market place and the economy is a dearth of jobs. Only in that example are there true "haves and have not".
The malls are in decline for many reasons including over building, sameness and a new generation that wants a different shopping experience. But the overarching reason for mall failure is no shoppers. Simply put when you have no job, then no matter how low the price offerings, consumers, especially the former middle class, cannot buy anything.
Income inequality should not be pawned off as cover for no jobs, no manufacturing and no research and development in the United States. People without jobs do not shop. They do not buy houses, food, clothing, health care services, lawn mowers, cars, furniture or shoes and sneakers. They don't even buy cheap imports. The economics of the dead malls is simply the economics of an exported economy. We cannot manufacture everything overseas and expect the unemployed or those so called people plagued with income inequality to be shoppers.
The NYT should stop making political points and start asking where the jobs are. All of them.
There is no such thing as "income inequality". Income inequality is a pathetic political expression to explain away why there are "haves and have nots". What really exists in the market place and the economy is a dearth of jobs. Only in that example are there true "haves and have not".
The malls are in decline for many reasons including over building, sameness and a new generation that wants a different shopping experience. But the overarching reason for mall failure is no shoppers. Simply put when you have no job, then no matter how low the price offerings, consumers, especially the former middle class, cannot buy anything.
Income inequality should not be pawned off as cover for no jobs, no manufacturing and no research and development in the United States. People without jobs do not shop. They do not buy houses, food, clothing, health care services, lawn mowers, cars, furniture or shoes and sneakers. They don't even buy cheap imports. The economics of the dead malls is simply the economics of an exported economy. We cannot manufacture everything overseas and expect the unemployed or those so called people plagued with income inequality to be shoppers.
The NYT should stop making political points and start asking where the jobs are. All of them.
180
Real wages have been falling for three and a half decades, for millions very dramatically, while the richest 1% have gotten vastly, obscenely richer.
Everything else follows in train.
Everything else follows in train.
5
I think you missed the point. The low-end retailers are doing OK.
There is a hollowing out at the middle, leaving high-end and bargain outlets with little in between. And that mirrors the skewed income distribution -- or wealth inequality if you prefer.
There is a hollowing out at the middle, leaving high-end and bargain outlets with little in between. And that mirrors the skewed income distribution -- or wealth inequality if you prefer.
3
Jay: While "income inequality" is admittedly a clumsy phrase, the phenomenon it describes is very real. There are millions of people WITH jobs--often two or three jobs--who can barely afford the necessities, much less a trip to the mall. In America, simply having a job or two or three is no guarantee of security. An increased minimum wage would be a good first step to remedy that.
To answer your question "Where are the jobs?": Right where the "job creators" want them, in low-wage countries, or in oblivion, done in by automation; or foisted on an employee who is now working twice as much for the same pay (known politely as "increased productivity"). Ask the big corporations and manufacturers if they plan to help out by bringing their t-shirt operations back stateside anytime soon.
To answer your question "Where are the jobs?": Right where the "job creators" want them, in low-wage countries, or in oblivion, done in by automation; or foisted on an employee who is now working twice as much for the same pay (known politely as "increased productivity"). Ask the big corporations and manufacturers if they plan to help out by bringing their t-shirt operations back stateside anytime soon.
11
There are too many shopping outlets. If you keep on building new retail sites and you add online, what do you expect? Some of the stores have to close.
I don't think the real story is the high end vs. vanishing middle class, although this is a popular meme. There are simply not enough 1% ers to make that story stick. Indeed, there are only, ahem, 1% of them. If you want numbers, do a chart of total retail and mall spending and also total available square feet. I will bet that the available shopping square feet in this country over 20, 10, 5 years has not gone down.
So that said the story of which malls open and which ones close has to do with internal industry dynamics - management, better mouse traps, the cooperation, competence and ambitions of local voters and local government authorities which play a very strong role behind the scenes in this industry, etc.
For example in an area of NJ I know near turnpike exit 4, such local dynamics are oligopolistically taking place amongst the various players. The townships of Cherry Hill, Mount Laurel and even Cinnamanson, have greatly expanded their healthy mall square footage, in the process capturing sales tax dollars from neighboring towns, whereas Moorestown ( an earlier innovator, and actually the abode of the 1% ers in the area) has it's mall business on the ropes as it's uppity voters made several major missteps in dealing with mall developers by sticking to prohibition era policies in the 2000s for example.
I don't think the real story is the high end vs. vanishing middle class, although this is a popular meme. There are simply not enough 1% ers to make that story stick. Indeed, there are only, ahem, 1% of them. If you want numbers, do a chart of total retail and mall spending and also total available square feet. I will bet that the available shopping square feet in this country over 20, 10, 5 years has not gone down.
So that said the story of which malls open and which ones close has to do with internal industry dynamics - management, better mouse traps, the cooperation, competence and ambitions of local voters and local government authorities which play a very strong role behind the scenes in this industry, etc.
For example in an area of NJ I know near turnpike exit 4, such local dynamics are oligopolistically taking place amongst the various players. The townships of Cherry Hill, Mount Laurel and even Cinnamanson, have greatly expanded their healthy mall square footage, in the process capturing sales tax dollars from neighboring towns, whereas Moorestown ( an earlier innovator, and actually the abode of the 1% ers in the area) has it's mall business on the ropes as it's uppity voters made several major missteps in dealing with mall developers by sticking to prohibition era policies in the 2000s for example.
8
Walmart is definitely not mall type America and for that matter not any cheaper then a even a grocery store then Kroger or Safeway. Then on top of it all Walmart like box stores like target sells more junk including food and other stuff , mostly all self service. Owens Mill is part of the run down poor side of Baltimore like many other such cities.
As far all so called holiday shopping and the commercial boondoggle of the economy tied to Christmas shopping commercialism , people are fast waking up and not willing to buy things that they cannot afford or need.. The days of mega stores like Sears, Penny's,Target, and others are over. For what matters even Walmart is loosing money just as is places like Home Dept , where hordes are staying away. There is no such thing as even upscale Malls and people just do not have money spend . Media stats are misleading and hyped up. The US has lost it's number one economic status except for the 1 to 2 % of the filthy rich, who pay either minimum or zero taxes.
As far all so called holiday shopping and the commercial boondoggle of the economy tied to Christmas shopping commercialism , people are fast waking up and not willing to buy things that they cannot afford or need.. The days of mega stores like Sears, Penny's,Target, and others are over. For what matters even Walmart is loosing money just as is places like Home Dept , where hordes are staying away. There is no such thing as even upscale Malls and people just do not have money spend . Media stats are misleading and hyped up. The US has lost it's number one economic status except for the 1 to 2 % of the filthy rich, who pay either minimum or zero taxes.
It's a little bit deceptive to concentrate on the fact that the 1% are, ahem, only 1% of the population--when that 1% possesses almost, ahem, 50% of the wealth.
In any case, the top 1% of wealth-holders aren't the only ones who've increased their overall wealth, even if that group has increased theirs the most. I think it's safe to say that the top 10-15% have become richer as well.
In any case, the top 1% of wealth-holders aren't the only ones who've increased their overall wealth, even if that group has increased theirs the most. I think it's safe to say that the top 10-15% have become richer as well.
6
The decline of malls are a consequence of the growth of e-commerce as well as the decline of the middle class in the US (who used to primarily shop in department stores like J.C. Penny and Sears).
Even until a couple of decades ago, the largest malls were in North America- today, most of them are in Asia, where the middle class continues to grow the fastest.
Even until a couple of decades ago, the largest malls were in North America- today, most of them are in Asia, where the middle class continues to grow the fastest.
12
I would love to see one of the malls close down in suburban Albany so that the downtown could come back. I love downtowns and find it hard to believe that the majority of people prefer malls over them.
48
Downtowns have more charm, but in the winter, who wants to shop outdoors?
1
The malls are decaying, failing and slowly shrinking into the past, a remnant of a by-gone era of retailing and commerce. Gee, isn't that what also happened to downtowns across America? Didn't the malls with their wide expanses of free parking and plethora of stores and services sound the death knell for downtown America? Remember how many mom and pop stores once flourished along side a few larger stores, like JC Penny, Bon Ton, Pomeroy's, Bowman's and other small and medium size family department stores? The Malls attracted retailers from the downtowns primarily because of the parking situation and also because middle class America fled to the suburbs. After the migration of local businesses the once prosperous downtowns were abandoned in every town and city. The second phase of the malls was the cloning of the same stores and the same offerings. Every mall looked alike. And of course the "Big Box" retailers, the anchors dominated everything and fought for traffic with giant discounts. The transformation was complete when the search for ever cheaper goods to bring traffic ended with American industry being exported along with jobs and factories. Now that too has failed. Fewer jobs in industry, less consumers and malls that can no longer be supported. Yes, the shoppers are missing. So are their jobs. That's the problem. No mall can survive if the customers have no jobs. Perhaps if they hadn't driven prices to the bottom and outsourced everything there'd be customers.
70
Lest not forget that they also drove the quality of products way below they used to be.
9
Yes malls killed mom and pop stores even before Walmarts did. Then Walmart finished the survivors. Now The Dollar Stores and online shopping are killing Walmart. What goes around comes around.
1
The local merchants that used to have small stores downtown that expanded into the malls have survived. Belks is one good example. They had small stores in nearly every town in NC and SC and still do. But they invested in the kind stores that populated the malls. They also did smaller expansions in the small town centers. Ivies and Rich's allowed themselves to be bought out by the national chains and have disappeared along with the national chain store presence.
1
There were are are luxury malls, but a great many malls were built primarily to serve blue- and pink-collar workers who had money to spend. There's a shortage of those these days, if you haven't noticed.
48
Even luxury malls like Lenox Square in Atlanta are not what they used to be back in the '80s and before--no more book stores to browse, or record stores, even no toy stores. Plus here is what locals call the "MARTA Effect" that has dramatically altered the demographics of the mall. No one dresses up to go there anymore--symptomatic of a potential downward spiral.
1
A dead mall in Kansas City has a "Save the Mall" parody web site made by a local jokester. Some language on the site may be inappropriate for those with delicate sensibilities.
https://www.facebook.com/savemetronorth
https://www.facebook.com/savemetronorth
4
This is a story about the end of the middle class
229
I disagree. It's the story of the end of the suburbs. The younger generation doesn't want to have a two hour commute, a lawn to mow and a neighbor they never see. Urban centers are reviving, malls, the product of the car centric sprawl of tract houses in the 1950s and 60s, are dying. The suburbs are becoming our new ghettos, eh.
5
No, Eric D is correct. Living in NYC where between rent and basic daily cost of living it's harder to keep up, I can't see any safe haven for the middle class. Local mom and pops are disappearing in the city as well due to the real estate greed seeking to gentrify one neighborhood after the other There is no commercial rent control and so NYC itself is becoming "big boxed" as only the big national chain retailers can afford the outrageous leases. The only respite here is not having to own a car, but the consumer is still getting the same short shrift as his suburban counter parts.
When the middle class begin to care for the middle class, then maybe i'll care too.
Good riddance.
With luck, people will return to shopping at local mom-and-pop stores in their communities.
With more luck, people will give up on shopping as a hobby, purchasing crap they don't need and often cannot afford in an ever futile pursuit of temporary happiness.
Tear up those parking lots, plant some trees, make spaces where families can enjoy green and not spend it.
With luck, people will return to shopping at local mom-and-pop stores in their communities.
With more luck, people will give up on shopping as a hobby, purchasing crap they don't need and often cannot afford in an ever futile pursuit of temporary happiness.
Tear up those parking lots, plant some trees, make spaces where families can enjoy green and not spend it.
118
Local mom-n-pop stores are charming and quaint. Yes, they provide jobs.
Unfortunately, in my experience their prices are dramatically higher for the same item than at a big box store or from an online retailer. Recently, a local mom-n-pop wanted a $200 premium for a hardware item with a 6-to-8 week delay for ordering that an online retailer delivered in less than a week.
Charm and altruism only go so far.
Unfortunately, in my experience their prices are dramatically higher for the same item than at a big box store or from an online retailer. Recently, a local mom-n-pop wanted a $200 premium for a hardware item with a 6-to-8 week delay for ordering that an online retailer delivered in less than a week.
Charm and altruism only go so far.
11
This sounds good, but it's unrealistic. It's nice to say that, with luck, people will return to shopping at local mom-and-pop stores, but it's going to take a lot more than luck since those stores don't really exist any more in much of the country. I live in a place that does have some, but, even so, there is no way that my needs/desires for food, clothing, household goods, hardware, pet supplies, books and DVDs, stationery and office supplies, yard supplies, computer items, furnishings, etc. can be met by locally owned mom-and-pop stores in my community. And no, I am not a hobby shopper or a big spender.
5
The people who shopped at malls will drive to big box stores like Walmart. "Mom and pop" stores are few and far between in most communities. I'm not defending the malls and I truly hope we can raze them for green spaces, but I'd bet money that those mom and pop stores aren't coming back.
2
May Milwaukee's Southridge Mall, which renovated itself a few years ago but will not allow city buses to come near it, leaving older and disabled shoopers to trudge across a vast parking lot, turn back into a dead mall one day. If they don't want bus riders' money, they don't need my money, either.
66
I've seen the same thing at the Trumbull mall in CT. The bus stops are about as far away from the mall entrance as they can get. Never understood the idea behind the design
1
They don't want the sort that rides busses.
4
In the Princeton, NJ area, local police found that most cars are stolen from malls by those who arrive on buses. I had my car stolen years ago and the policeman who handled the theft complaint mentioned that little fact to me. He referred to it as people who "shop" on the outside of the mall. Unfortunately, not all who ride buses steal cars, but all riders are inconvenienced to keep car thefts at local malls at a minimum. I was told that stolen cars are no longer grand theft larceny and a nuisance to the police and insurance companies. I suspect cameras in your malls are focused on the bus stop to alert security who's on foot.
I haven't been in a mall in perhaps 25 years, except to buy a lone odd item at a particular store on average once per year or less. They are a miserable experience. The lengths one has to walk are shorter than walking to the individual stores in my neighborhood, but the experience is far worse and deadly dull. The possibility of something interesting happening is zero. I wonder if one of the things killing them is the move toward a more town like shopping area which is open to the elements. There are still the gargantuan parking lots but at least the pedestrian experience is more pleasant.
24
On behalf of all 1977 -80's college graduates (and those with graduate degrees) who were displaced from their humble teaching careers in New Orleans, Louisiana we have less funds for discretionary spending. Teach for America accepts lower salaries due to their lack in real teaching skills. So Republicans who celebrate the corporate run charter schools celebrate the closing of your middle class patronized shopping malls." Celebrate" a lower paying property tax base as well. "Celebrate" the demise of the middle class population in major cities. The rich bemoan taxes of all kind. Well as long as the middle-class are being sucked dry get ready you ain't seen nothing yet!
44
Your blaming the Republicans for this litany of woes seems a bit mis-directed--s straw man argument,
Way to many Malls with more or less the same stores, the same merchandise. I don't know how the big stores survive, inventories are ridiculous, way to much garbage that nobody will ever buy. Today we went to recently remodeled Springfield Mall and my wife couldn't find a simple white bra on her size (34B, nothing weird), none in Macy's, none in JC Penneys. Thousands of bras, not kidding, all weird sizes and colors. Most of that stock will never sell and will be sent to outlets or discount stores.
26
I have the same "problem" as your wife. The reason your wife couldn't find a 34B bra is that the average American woman is overweight. Average women's dress size is now 14! The retailers in the shopping center are stocking their stores with merchandise that fits the average.
1
These suburban nightmares should never have happened. They will all die eventually. Going to "the mall" is pathetic.
26
A few years ago, I drove from Texas to New York in one very long day and a half. As I drove along, I marveled that every town had the same stores in the same malls. Stock analysts hype the fact that there is "growth" in retail outlets as they analyze retailers. There's the problem: opening more of these monuments to consumption does no good. One of the commenters below is from an area of Long Island where there are no malls within 20 miles. He's exceptional today. People are fighting these emporia including the WalMarts. The local downtown is dying. Enough is enough.
13
First there were strips... along the highway in Florida and New Jersey.
Followed by clustered strips, aligned and crossing, quite dull.
Then came the covered mall, the vertical mall, and the complex mall, all devoted to upscale shoppers... and clustering.
In all this the community near was sucked dry, with the center of town destroyed, and the people there with it... as the town's best moved on...
Malls maul the culture - but shoppers will not discriminate.
Thorstein Veblen said it was conspicuous consumption.
Chicago's David Riesman said it was other directed, on his way to Harvard.
But it's tribal, and the Kwakiutl indians would get it.
See Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead...
Coming of age in the mall... where the infantile hang.
Followed by clustered strips, aligned and crossing, quite dull.
Then came the covered mall, the vertical mall, and the complex mall, all devoted to upscale shoppers... and clustering.
In all this the community near was sucked dry, with the center of town destroyed, and the people there with it... as the town's best moved on...
Malls maul the culture - but shoppers will not discriminate.
Thorstein Veblen said it was conspicuous consumption.
Chicago's David Riesman said it was other directed, on his way to Harvard.
But it's tribal, and the Kwakiutl indians would get it.
See Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead...
Coming of age in the mall... where the infantile hang.
14
This also parallels the life of the suburbs where the malls are located. As a former Baltimore resident, Owings Mills was touted as the burb to be in when we moved for my husband's JHH employment. The Towson mall has become more upscale, and opened a high-end wing a few years ago. White Marsh also became the spot for middle-of-the-road shoppers, but it also wasn't doing particularly well as we were moving out of the mid-Atlantic.
2
I admit to using Amazon often, a prime reason being that with some health issues it is harder to get around. But it is hard to deny the devastating effects of that company and WalMart, which sell things so cheaply that it is no wonder that other businesses struggle to survive.
It speaks too, to the cocooning of Americans, where movies are not seen as often at the mall or the multiplex but from the convenience of one's home on big screen televisions. At the mall and movie theaters, there was a mixing of people, being part of an audience or a throng of shoppers, and before that days even better for the community, of lots of little shops and stores where all kinds of unique items could be found and bought, an occasional smile exchanged. Neighbors knew neighbors better and actually wanted to spend time with their neighbors.
Perhaps it was not quite It’s a Wonderful Life but for those of us with several decades of life lived, there is a nostalgic tugging at what used to be, and frankly, in many ways it really was better.
It speaks too, to the cocooning of Americans, where movies are not seen as often at the mall or the multiplex but from the convenience of one's home on big screen televisions. At the mall and movie theaters, there was a mixing of people, being part of an audience or a throng of shoppers, and before that days even better for the community, of lots of little shops and stores where all kinds of unique items could be found and bought, an occasional smile exchanged. Neighbors knew neighbors better and actually wanted to spend time with their neighbors.
Perhaps it was not quite It’s a Wonderful Life but for those of us with several decades of life lived, there is a nostalgic tugging at what used to be, and frankly, in many ways it really was better.
231
ummm... Amazon actually doesn't position itself on having the best price but rather the best service - you should feel proud to shop there.
My wife and I no longer go to movie theaters and use Netflix instead. The last time we were at a theater we had to sit next to someone who was constantly coughing and sneezing with the result that my wife was sick for two weeks.
2
I suspect the fate of many shopping malls is tied up with the fate of Sears. If and when that retailer--one of the iconic names that defined and built 20th century America, but which is now an afterthought to any adult born in the 1990s--goes under, the effect on shopping malls will be devastating. Sears was the anchor of so many shopping malls when they were thriving and at their peak back in the 1980s. Walk through any Sears today--even on a Saturday afternoon--and it's likely to feel like a ghost town.
77
If my experiences at Sears are representative, it's no wonder they are like ghost towns. Once when I needed a new dryer, I first went to Sears. I found two appliance salespeople chatting amongst themselves who acted as if I was disturbing them by asking for help. I even told them I needed to buy a dryer that day. After receiving no help, I left and bought a dryer at Best Buy. Another time, I had several items in my arms that I wanted to buy and walked the entire floor trying to find someone to ring me up. Not a soul. I dropped my load and left.
14
That is true. The anchors have to be more appealing. Sears carries frumpy clothing and you can get cheaper, yet far more stylish clothing at the smaller retailers. Why go to Sears, which feels like a more expensive Wal-Mart? Sears is now known as the place you buy a mattress or a fridge.
2
@Juztravlr: I see this type of criticism from your comment a lot:
"I found two appliance salespeople chatting amongst themselves who acted as if I was disturbing them by asking for help."
I worked in retail for many years. Now, I have no doubt this happens sometimes but 99.9999% of the time the customer is grouchy because the salespeople didn't snap to attention and salute as soon as you got within 20 feet of our station. Or else we genuinely weren't able to help you because you were asking for something we simply couldn't provide and no amount of placating would help.
If you needed a dryer that day what possible reason could the salespeople have to not sell you one except that they didn't have the one you wanted in stock? You make it sound like the dryer was right there but the salespeople just refused - for reasons unknown - to fill out the paperwork and take your money. It makes no sense.
Customers can have legitimate complaints. Most of the time a complaint is simply the result of an unacknowledged sense of entitlement on the part of the customer.
"I found two appliance salespeople chatting amongst themselves who acted as if I was disturbing them by asking for help."
I worked in retail for many years. Now, I have no doubt this happens sometimes but 99.9999% of the time the customer is grouchy because the salespeople didn't snap to attention and salute as soon as you got within 20 feet of our station. Or else we genuinely weren't able to help you because you were asking for something we simply couldn't provide and no amount of placating would help.
If you needed a dryer that day what possible reason could the salespeople have to not sell you one except that they didn't have the one you wanted in stock? You make it sound like the dryer was right there but the salespeople just refused - for reasons unknown - to fill out the paperwork and take your money. It makes no sense.
Customers can have legitimate complaints. Most of the time a complaint is simply the result of an unacknowledged sense of entitlement on the part of the customer.
5
Retail has been evolving, moving on line or to large stand alone or strip mall stores with one venue is scavenging from another. The mall owners seem unable to change or renew themselves with the market replacing failed stores with low end or temporary stores every year. I cannot recall the last time I needed anything at the mall other than tools at Sears or watch batteries at one of those jewelry repair booths. Consumers are always looking for the next shiny object with increasingly sort lifecycles. The malls are not providing that. How about some decent sit down restaurants instead of the loud and miserable food court. How about stores with things we need besides trendy clothing. There is plenty of retail construction all over, It is the failure of the mall owners adapt to fit the up and coming restaurant chains and stores into their properties. Real estate investors seem to be more focused on building new space and moving on than doing the hard work required to keep a property producing. Sustainability requires continuous investment and ties up money for too long for the investment communities short attention span.
102
Actually retail has been devolving for years. Consumerism is a pathology not a pastime
6
True that. Shiny new spaces are part of the marketing which draws us in. The problem is (and counter to the many pleas here in the comments to return the abandoned malls to their natural state)that once you remove and sell off the topsoil, it becomes a dead space forever. We squander the subtle beauty in what little open space we have left in pursuit of the latest glitter or trinket in order to create some sort of meaning to our identities.
3
You forgot to say "and you rotten kids stay off my lawn!"
I've been watching the malls for many years - since the first ones popped up in the 1950s, in fact - and there's a great parallel here with the fate of America's middle class. They've both become like 'The Old Grey Mare' in that old song - they ain't what they used to be. The 'bifurcation' mentioned in the article - the drift of the affluent customers to upscale boutique-style outfits, while the rest end up in WalMarts and 'outlet malls' (what used to be called 'seconds' or 'remnants' stores) - is an accurate reflection of what's happening to this country's society as well. And it's not exactly a happy one.
742
Precisely! As the article mentions, here in the Baltimore area Towson Town Center mall is doing just fine, thank you very much. The area the Sun refers to is far from blue-collar, btw.
From the Baltimore Sun July 09, 2009:
"Welcome to the new Louis Vuitton store at Towson Town Center mall.
The luxury goods store quietly opened Wednesday with no celebration or ribbon-cutting.
But what the low-key affair lacked in pomp, it made up for in the larger symbolic meaning of its opening.
After years of historically blue-collar Baltimore being bypassed by high-end retailers, even as its demographics became wealthier, the area is finally getting a larger concentration of upscale stores.
Towson Town Center opened a Nordstrom in 1992 and there are some upscale independent boutiques throughout the area, though little else had opened since. Saks Fifth Avenue closed its store at Owings Mills Mall in 1995."
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-07-09/business/0907080102_1_vuitto...
From the Baltimore Sun July 09, 2009:
"Welcome to the new Louis Vuitton store at Towson Town Center mall.
The luxury goods store quietly opened Wednesday with no celebration or ribbon-cutting.
But what the low-key affair lacked in pomp, it made up for in the larger symbolic meaning of its opening.
After years of historically blue-collar Baltimore being bypassed by high-end retailers, even as its demographics became wealthier, the area is finally getting a larger concentration of upscale stores.
Towson Town Center opened a Nordstrom in 1992 and there are some upscale independent boutiques throughout the area, though little else had opened since. Saks Fifth Avenue closed its store at Owings Mills Mall in 1995."
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-07-09/business/0907080102_1_vuitto...
4
The Walmarts and Dollar Stores succeeded Woolworth's and Kresge's 5&10.
But--as the Times recent piece on NYC's Woolworth building shows--Woolworth built public monuments--adding touches of elegance to the shopping ambiance--even for 5 and 10 cent items. Just as movie theaters really were picture palaces.
Stores mimicked churches. Shopping replaced praying. But that's probably a good thing--actually merely an extension of the old one. As Plato said, praying is really bartering (bribing or paying) for supernatural intervention. (In sports or school it would be cheating.)
And as low class shopping has been degraded and "uglified" so to has public architecture and civic pride. This is the implication of Trickle Down Economics.
On the other hand--much high-class shopping is really pitiful Conspicuous Consumption and Waste--all for its envy value. Just as Vatican and Cathedral luxury was offered as concrete proof of abstract mythology.
But--as the Times recent piece on NYC's Woolworth building shows--Woolworth built public monuments--adding touches of elegance to the shopping ambiance--even for 5 and 10 cent items. Just as movie theaters really were picture palaces.
Stores mimicked churches. Shopping replaced praying. But that's probably a good thing--actually merely an extension of the old one. As Plato said, praying is really bartering (bribing or paying) for supernatural intervention. (In sports or school it would be cheating.)
And as low class shopping has been degraded and "uglified" so to has public architecture and civic pride. This is the implication of Trickle Down Economics.
On the other hand--much high-class shopping is really pitiful Conspicuous Consumption and Waste--all for its envy value. Just as Vatican and Cathedral luxury was offered as concrete proof of abstract mythology.
9
It is ironic you referred to "The Old Grey Mare. Coincidentally, dead and expired malls are defined in urban planning lexicon as greyfields.
3
Raze the malls (but recycle all possible building material) and build urban (more like suburban) solar farms.
141
won't happen for a while if ever….oil is now too cheap…what a paradox or irony…trying to reduce carbon output and now glut of oil. BiG oil and gas are pushing their liquid gold in all sorts of creative and propagandized ways…
would be nice if solar farm or wind farms were more prevalent and employment would pick up in those manufacturing sectors….
would be nice if solar farm or wind farms were more prevalent and employment would pick up in those manufacturing sectors….
2
Turn (sections of) them into condos or apts, maybe with some retail to cater to the tenants. Restaurant are already nearby the 'malls'.
The parking is already there. It least, there would be less paving over paradise to...you know.
The parking is already there. It least, there would be less paving over paradise to...you know.
2
The failed Chapel Square Mall in New Haven, CT was turned into apartments a number of years ago.
As the US says good bye to its middle class it must say good bye to its vestiges.
479
From my perspective, malls were "dead" even when they were alive. I haven't been in one of these horror shows in decades. Watching zombies with glazed looks in their eyes hard charging into the next "emporium" is not my idea of living.
201
What I notice when I visit malls is that they're full of teenagers hanging out. I wonder where else they would go if the malls weren't there.
8
I quit going when they started closing them in and turned one end into a junk food emporium--to say nothing of the blaring “music” blasting everywhere (is there anything more revolting than Jingle Bell Rock?). The loss of multiple checkouts was the last straw. Macy’s (which ate up all the regional classics) now looks more like WalMart. When I occasionally go to a mall, I put in my earphones, and get in and out as quickly as possible. There’s one newer mall here that is mostly open, like a village, that seems to be trending the opposite way, but the music blasts all along the sidewalk, alas.
5
I like Jingle Bell Rock. There;s lots of reasons to dislike malls but I'm not sure Jingle Bell Rock is one of them.
7
"We are extremely over-retailed..."
Ain't that the truth.
Ain't that the truth.
439
Indeed! I read somewhere that the US has more square feet of retail space per capita than any other country on earth. Let's just say "no" to further "development."
3
Good to see the "mauls" going. Let them die. Fitting payback for their killing off the once vibrant downtowns of most villages, towns and small cities across the country, now populated by boarded-up storefronts. Those same downtowns were the glue of a cohesive society. We reap what we sow.
558
The malls didn't kill off once vibrant downtowns any more than one senator killed Julius Caesar. The people living in those towns used their car keys drive to the malls like the Roman senators brought their knives to the Theater of Pompey. They named the mall their shopping center in perpetuity, and are now killing the monster they created.
And for those of us who grew up on Long Island without enough money for air-conditioning in the summer or a steady supply of heating oil in the winter, the mall was the place where you could go to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. You didn't have to actually buy anything at all. And we usually didn't.
And for those of us who grew up on Long Island without enough money for air-conditioning in the summer or a steady supply of heating oil in the winter, the mall was the place where you could go to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. You didn't have to actually buy anything at all. And we usually didn't.
15
Unfortunately the "downtown killers" will still remain even with the death of the malls. They are called WalMart.
51
Amen !!!
1
[[With income inequality continuing to widen, high-end malls are thriving, even as stolid retail chains like Sears, Kmart and J. C. Penney falter, taking the middle- and working-class malls they anchored with them.]]
If you've ever been in a Sears, you know that the level of service is very, very low. The employees are more interested in clustering at the register and gossiping than they are in making sales. They don't know much about the merchandise they have and if you ask where a product might be found they'll just point and say "over there." All of this is attributable to poor training by management and pre-dates "income inequality." And obviously "high-end" malls will have stores with better service. It isn't rocket science.
As for what to do with the malls, in the short term, I'd like to see the parking lots torn up and native plants and grasses re-introduced...sort of a pop-up forest preserve. As you can see in the photos, nature is already fighting back against the blacktop...let's give nature a helping hand.
If you've ever been in a Sears, you know that the level of service is very, very low. The employees are more interested in clustering at the register and gossiping than they are in making sales. They don't know much about the merchandise they have and if you ask where a product might be found they'll just point and say "over there." All of this is attributable to poor training by management and pre-dates "income inequality." And obviously "high-end" malls will have stores with better service. It isn't rocket science.
As for what to do with the malls, in the short term, I'd like to see the parking lots torn up and native plants and grasses re-introduced...sort of a pop-up forest preserve. As you can see in the photos, nature is already fighting back against the blacktop...let's give nature a helping hand.
270
Amen to the healthy return of nature
22
Actually, I was very pleasantly surprised last week when I went to Sears, a place I hadn't been inside in years, to buy a vacuum cleaner that had earned high marks from Consumer Reports. The staff was great. The man who helped me was knowledgeable and accommodating, the system in place for sending my order to the pickup people was computerized and efficient, and the parking lot attendant was cheerful. Really, I was shocked.
29
"As for what to do with the malls, in the short term, I'd like to see the parking lots torn up and native plants and grasses re-introduced...sort of a pop-up forest preserve."
In the late 1970's or early 1980's, the Cleveland Cavaliers' (NBA) owner built a large basketball arena in a then-peaceful and beautiful town (Peninsula, Ohio) midway between Cleveland and Akron, reasoning that the team could draw fans from both cities. The locals were much dismayed with the crowds and litter on game nights.
Fortunately for them, the arena never caught on, and the Cavaliers have since moved to a new arena in downtown Cleveland (not far from where they'd been before). The old arena was torn down, and the site quickly was covered in "native plants and grasses." I grew up near there, and still visit occasionally. Driving by the site today -- or even 20 years ago, for that matter -- one would never guess it once was the home arena of an NBA basketball team.
Can't say that bothers me at all. I'll take the "native plants and grasses."
In the late 1970's or early 1980's, the Cleveland Cavaliers' (NBA) owner built a large basketball arena in a then-peaceful and beautiful town (Peninsula, Ohio) midway between Cleveland and Akron, reasoning that the team could draw fans from both cities. The locals were much dismayed with the crowds and litter on game nights.
Fortunately for them, the arena never caught on, and the Cavaliers have since moved to a new arena in downtown Cleveland (not far from where they'd been before). The old arena was torn down, and the site quickly was covered in "native plants and grasses." I grew up near there, and still visit occasionally. Driving by the site today -- or even 20 years ago, for that matter -- one would never guess it once was the home arena of an NBA basketball team.
Can't say that bothers me at all. I'll take the "native plants and grasses."
23
So basically, the market for shopping malls is a microcosm of the American economy at large- people can either afford to shop at Wal-mart, or they can splurge at "upscale" malls of Tiffany's and Louis Vuitton-type shops, but nothing in between. What does this say about the state of inequality in our country?
442
For those of us who grew up with Salvation Army, Good Will, yard sale, and other pre-owned possessions, whose "upscale" was the flea market and low-end retailers like Wal-Mart, well, we're feeling more comfortable with the company. As long as you stay out of the areas where the urban hipsters find their "vintage" clothing for their boutiques, there's plenty for everyone.
Honestly, even many of the "poor" Americans have houses full of excess possessions. And the middle class? It's the middle class that is powering the thriving storage industry, not the wealthy. If it's not literally consumable (i.e., food), there's a good chance you already have the consumer goods you need.
Honestly, even many of the "poor" Americans have houses full of excess possessions. And the middle class? It's the middle class that is powering the thriving storage industry, not the wealthy. If it's not literally consumable (i.e., food), there's a good chance you already have the consumer goods you need.
28
Republican middle class voters still don't believe in income inequality as they go to WalMart and Goodwill to shop.
10
El Con, a long-standing mall in Tucson's city center, was recently replaced by open air. The first city-center Walmart took the place of the torn-down Macy's (after a long battle with the surrounding neighborhood). Though there are fewer stores, the effect is good: the place feels livelier. There's somewhere to do a lot of shopping without driving to malls toward the edge of town. And -- as in years past -- El Con was crowded at the holidays.
8
We have managed to keep Wal-Mart out of New York City. I do not miss them.
31
I guess that it is better to have lots of inefficient, high priced little stores than one evil Wal-Mart.
3
Yes Charles, exactly. First of all, I've almost never found my neighborhood stores to be inefficient. I'm not even sure how that concept applies to them. Inefficient in what? Keeping their shelves stocked? Never seen a problem with that. Not having "everything?" Even Wal-Mart doesn't have everything. Big ticket items? I don't go to my little neighborhood stores for those. What exactly do you mean?
As to price, the convenience of exiting my building and walking one or two, maybe three, blocks to get what I need outweighs anything extra I might - emphasis on "might" - be paying.
As to price, the convenience of exiting my building and walking one or two, maybe three, blocks to get what I need outweighs anything extra I might - emphasis on "might" - be paying.
4
When Eddie Lamphert took control of Sears, Wall Street assumed that he merely did that for the value that he saw in the real estate portfolio. Oh, and I doubt that K-Mart adds much to the shopping experience either. Sears and K-Mart make-up the resurrected company, Sears Holdings. Penney's, although perhaps in a touch better shape, is also a store that has seen its prime.
When P{ever Lynch was the top-gun among Investment Managers, at Fidelity's Magellan Fund, he used to go to the Mall on Saturdays' with his three teenage Daughters. He noticed that they walked through the big "anchor stores", near where they had parked, and would go to the specialty shops. He realized that that was where the Next Generation of Shoppers were going.
The problem with retail has-beens is that they do not have the shopping traffic to negotiate better prices from the suppliers. The retail clerks are underpaid, don't seem to have an idea as to what their job actually is, and they seem to be in a dead-end situation. Meanwhile the more successfully stores--whether bricks and mortar or on-line--continue to eat the lunch (and dinner, too) of these dinosaurs.
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