[HN Gopher] The dying mall's new lease on life: apartments
___________________________________________________________________
The dying mall's new lease on life: apartments
Author : jseliger
Score : 85 points
Date : 2020-07-03 19:11 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Always wanted to live in a Cinnabon!
| klyrs wrote:
| My middle school was adjacent to a donut factory. Can confirm,
| it never gets old.
|
| (whereby "never" I mean "over the span of 3 years as a
| voracious teenager" ymmv)
| throw03172019 wrote:
| It's all fun until the metabolism slows down :)
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Worked at one. Ate Cinnabons for lunch when I forgot to bring
| one. I wouldn't want to make a regular thing of it, but they
| remained pretty good once every week or two.
|
| The one I worked at changed from baking the rolls from things
| that bore some resemblance to things you could buy at the
| supermarket to pre-made frozen stuff two years after I
| graduated high school. I sort of lost interest after that.
|
| I reckon if you don't see a mixer, a sheeter, or anybody
| rolling out rolls, it's probably a safe bet that their product
| comes in pre-made. Note that it's a strong possibility that
| nobody will be making rolls at a slow time like a weekday
| afternoon. Still, there should be signs of loose brown
| sugar/cinnamon mix somewhere in the cooking area if they aren't
| using pre-made.
|
| Disclaimer: I don't know how this works at e.g. airports, where
| the food service stuff is much tighter for frontage. Also, it's
| been almost 20 years now since I've been on that side of the
| counter.
| softfalcon wrote:
| Seems like a solid plan if they focus on opening restaurants,
| pharmacies, grocery stores, banks, registries, etc in the
| commercial lots.
|
| Every neighborhood strip mall seems to succeed by proximity to
| the people.
|
| If you put a good restaurant near a neighborhood with a school,
| it gets a steady traffic of regulars. Same goes for a little
| bank, pharmacy, gas station, etc.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| In New Haven CT there's a downtown mall that was converted to
| an apartment building, but none of the commercial space was
| left unconverted
|
| It felt like the most oddly gloomy place I've ever seen
| apartments:
| https://i2.wp.com/box5497.temp.domains/~betwefc1/wp-content/...
| TheRealSteel wrote:
| I know I'm commenting on the site and not the story -- maybe this
| is against the spirit of HN -- but hasn't Bloomberg lost
| credibility here ever since "The Big Hack"?
|
| Are we still okay with them? Are we just okay with them as long
| as it's not a tech story? If so, is this an example of Gell-Mann
| Amnesia? [1]
|
| [1]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speeches_by_Michael_Crichton...
| siculars wrote:
| Oh, so you mean like most of Europe and NYC? Ya, I guess that's a
| thing people are into.
|
| (Disclaimer: I'm from NYC where this is just so bloody obvious.)
| newsbinator wrote:
| Reminds me of a Canadian movie:
|
| > The world of interconnected office buildings, apartment
| complexes and food courts (shot in all its fluorescent glory on
| digital video) is the backdrop for "Waydowntown," where young
| office workers Tom, Sandra, Randy and Curt, have all staked a
| month's salary on a bet to see who can stay indoors the longest.
| It's lunch hour on day 24 of the wager and everyone's pretty much
| reached their breaking point.
|
| https://imdb.com/title/tt0219405/
| munificent wrote:
| Only 24 days? Amateurs.
| sradman wrote:
| Toronto's 30km PATH system [1] makes staying "indoors" less of
| a challenge if you can afford to live in one of the connected
| buildings. According to IMDB the movie takes place in Calgary.
|
| The abandoned mall conversions feels more like the trend of
| converting old inner city factory buildings into lofts, except
| applied to suburbia.
|
| [1] https://www.torontopath.com/
| dylan604 wrote:
| "Today, people prefer to live in smaller spaces and want walkable
| developments rather than relying on vehicular transit. This
| project caters to these needs."
|
| This is a broad statement, that clearly isn't true. If it was
| true, then the suburbs would not exist. Housing prices show that
| there is clearly a desire by people to not living in smaller
| spaces. After the pandemic, I tend to think a lot of people will
| be re-thinking their dense living conditions. This really smells
| like a put up job by a hopeful developer
| morninglight wrote:
| Sunshine City in Tokyo, Ikebukuro started out like this around
| 1978.
|
| https://sunshinecity.jp/en/information/about/
|
| The Sunshine City building is about 60 stories. The lower floors
| are mall. I considered renting there around 1988, but the
| apartments in my price range were shabby. Nearby conventional
| apartments were much less expensive. It appears to be very
| successful, but I haven't been there for 18 years. Has anyone
| else seen it recently?
| bob1029 wrote:
| Considering the footprint+location of your typical American
| shopping mall, office space is a really good 2nd life for this
| type of facility. One other possibility could be to retrofit the
| structures to serve as data centers. Every small town in America
| could have a JCPenny's worth of servers racked up for ultra-low-
| latency application & content delivery to the local residents.
|
| I think every American in the lower 48 is within 5 milliseconds
| of a Walmart at this point. I am surprised they (and other
| retailers) haven't attempted to leverage this geographic
| capability. 5ms is certainly fast enough to fool me into thinking
| that a remote workstation is sitting under my desk.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| There aren't a ton of good pictures that I can find, but
| Rackspace famously moved their headquarters into a derelict San
| Antonio mall in 2012:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/realestate/commercial/rac...
| el-salvador wrote:
| Actually that has happened in my country.
|
| The movie theater of an old mall was repurpused as a call
| center for a canadian company.
|
| It brought new life to the mall.
| [deleted]
| microtherion wrote:
| Obviously, conversion can be somewhat tricky, but purpose built
| mixed use has sometimes proven quite popular, e.g. at Santana
| Row.
|
| My experience of living there was limited to a few weeks in a
| hotel, but it certainly had its advantages.
| ohazi wrote:
| I'd like Santana Row more if the people there weren't so
| obnoxious. Their pecking order seems to be determined by:
|
| 1) How rare and expensive your car is
|
| 2) Having the exhaust modified to be as loud as possible
|
| 3) Demonstrating (1) and (2) every thirty seconds
| ghaff wrote:
| I'd observe that living in any small area whether it's a "fake
| town" like Santana Row or a real town like gentrified areas of
| many old small New England cities can get old. I worked in
| downtown Nashua NH--not the strip mall, the old downtown--for
| quite a few years. It was nice. But you maybe had a dozen
| square blocks of nice restaurants and interesting shops and
| that was it. Fine to commute to a few days a week. Less
| interesting IMO to live in.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Here's a detailed examination of one mall that converted to
| apartments - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmL2l-bcuUQ
|
| Interesting mostly for how they weighed the marketing and
| economic aspects of it: "commercial renters think in terms of
| $/sq foot and individuals think of monthly costs"
| maxsilver wrote:
| This is creative, and for "malls" built into tall midrises with
| strong materials like the one in the video shown, it makes
| sense.
|
| However, most malls look something more like this -
| https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/scenery-shopping-...
| or
| https://live.staticflickr.com/4500/23555440258_4bdf03a818_b....
|
| I wonder what the plan would be for adapting a "regular" mall
| to residential use.
| btmorex wrote:
| So, instead of ugly commercial monstrosities we're going to get
| rows of tiny, dark apartments in a weird building that doesn't
| really use space efficiently. And this is a best case
| conversion: historic building in an urban area. Imagine how
| awful a suburban mall would be.
| dathinab wrote:
| In Germany we have a _slow_ dying of mall and similar, now
| accelerated because of corona.
|
| I have considered this before when seeing some empty buildings
| (turned out they just moved...).
|
| One thing I see as a problem is sunlight. Any apartment must have
| reasonable sources of natural sun light and many mall's are build
| in ways which have much less entries for sunlight. Outer walls
| can be changed but the "inner space" which has no contact to an
| outer wall is stuck.
| x87678r wrote:
| Bulldoze and subdivide would be more sensible I'd think.
| ixtli wrote:
| I find this sort of funny in an "everything old is new again"
| sort of way. There are some up--and-coming areas around downton
| LA that we're partially covered high streets (somewhat mall-like)
| that are having their second and third floors turned into
| apartments the thing is, that's what they used to be.
|
| It strikes me that we should consider the mall as more of an
| aberration which is finally fading away.
| inamberclad wrote:
| The mall always struck me as a horrible place because unlike a
| town square, it's only a public space to those who are there to
| spend money.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Worked at Cinnabon when they still made the rolls from things
| that were identifiably ingredients. Mall-walkers are a real
| thing in the mornings. They came in and walked for as long as
| they'd like while the mall slowly got itself ready for the
| day, and then they left. Nobody's checking at the exits to
| make sure they've spent money.
| alexbanks wrote:
| Not really. I spent countless hours at a mall as a kid - it
| was just where my parents would drop us off to waste some
| time while they had to go run errands.
| noobermin wrote:
| Yes, but you know that wasn't the intended purpose of
| malls, it was to get kids and adults in there because the
| longer they're there the most likely you'll spend money.
| smelendez wrote:
| Yeah, I think a critical part of their success was that
| they were fun.
|
| Look at photos of malls from the 80s and 90s. People were
| there to hang out, even to see and be seen, and of course
| they shopped while they were there.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Malls were definitely only for peddling Shit You Don't
| Need by the time I was old enough to frequent them.
| Nothing interesting, just overpriced stores and people
| yelling at you from kiosks trying to get you to buy a
| watch.
| beamatronic wrote:
| I can think of one notable exception. Ala Moana in Honolulu.
| Seems like always a nice community event on the stage!
| Usually hula!
| pragmatic wrote:
| I was kicking around the idea of trying to turn empty retail
| spots into co-working locations.
|
| This work be a good halfway spot between the burbs and the
| congested downtowns where co-working spots typically exist. Plus
| you have access to amenities and you can take a walk, hangout in
| the main area in winter.
|
| Thoughts?
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| > _some developers are betting that empty malls can mix housing
| with stores and community space._
|
| it was developers and city councils who _caused this mess in the
| first place_.
|
| no one wanted to separate home and work / business / industry.
|
| no one except developers and auto manufacturers.
| dathinab wrote:
| > > some developers are betting that empty malls can mix
| housing with stores and community space.
|
| > it was developers and city councils who caused this mess in
| the first place.
|
| I never understood why the US and some other countries have
| such a strict separation between normal business/work areas and
| many EU cities do not have such a strict separation and it just
| works very well.
|
| Sure some industry which causes a lot of noise or other
| pollution is not allowed interleaved with housing and
| industries which need a lot of space tend to be outside of the
| city because of land cost.
|
| But everything else can nicely interleave.
|
| For example Berlin it's not uncommon to have small shops on the
| ground floor, some offices or doctors on the first floor and
| apartments above that. While many new buildings sadly don't
| have this anymore they still interleave shopping males, doctor
| houses and offices with apartment blocks.
| gbear605 wrote:
| That's common in many places in the US, especially in older
| areas like New England.
| dathinab wrote:
| Nice to hear.
| maxsilver wrote:
| Most of the US (including most US cities) _dont_ have strict
| separation. Every US city has multiple dozens of buildings of
| mixed live /work spaces. (These are inherently expensive to
| build and operate, and therefore expensive to rent, so there
| aren't lots more of them, only because there aren't enough
| wealthy residents to justify it)
|
| And even many affordable neighborhoods of 1960's-looking-
| suburbs and such, have lots of dental offices / daycare
| centers / insurance offices / chiropractors / photography
| studios / private tutors / etc in them. Most people never
| notice, because they look like any other random ranch house.
| But they exist, and are permitted by zoning.
|
| Historically, some places in the US have family-housing-only
| zoning laws, not to enforce a "strict separation", but to
| _protect housing affordability_ or _protect public
| transportation_. If you could put 'anything' on that land,
| it would cost more, preventing people from being able to
| afford to live there. And if you could put 'anything' there,
| you might build a superstore or a theme park or similar
| (which would block other residential residents from using the
| public transportation network)
|
| ---
|
| Berlin has strong renter protections, rent control (freeze +
| cap), more widespread alternative forms of public transit,
| and substantial public housing. So the threat of private
| equity breaking the whole town is a little bit less pressing.
| The vast majority of America has nothing even remotely close
| to that. Zoning protections like these are basically the only
| thing preventing housing prices and transportation
| availability from being even worse in the US.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Imagine you park on the street and don't pay for it. Now
| imagine I open a restaurant next door. Diners park on the
| street. All of a sudden you can't mooch off of public land to
| store your private property! Time to go shout at your
| planners about traffic and parking!
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| What strange invective. Residents of a city who own private
| property pay property taxes, sales taxes, and fuel taxes to
| build and maintain roads. The people they are "mooching
| off" are themselves.
|
| Likewise, if your city has set you up with some amenity
| like parking, and you plan your property purchase around
| it, and they take it away to give to someone else, it's
| quite reasonable to get mad -- even if the use of that
| amenity was not specifically deeded to you as private
| property. There may be other concerns in a city to which
| they must yield, but it is hardly as if they are entitled
| freeloaders.
| maxlybbert wrote:
| Americans learned that they can use zoning laws to put
| restrictions on their neighbors' properties, mainly to keep
| their own property values high.
|
| Unfortunately, American city planners have a lot of bad ideas
| of what a city should look like. For some reason, stadiums
| are unreasonably popular ( http://www.hatrack.com/cgi-
| bin/print_friendly.cgi?page=/osc/... ).
| scarface74 wrote:
| I've gone from a 750 square foot apartment (single), to a 3000
| square foot house (married with a step child and then
| divorced), back to a 2300 square foot apartment (Married two
| stepchildren), back to a 3100 square foot house (married one
| son had moved out by then). I will never live in an apartment
| or any other attached dwelling again.
|
| - my mortgage is $2200 a month - soon to be $2600 when I
| refinance to a 15 year.
|
| - we have a separate guest suite with a bathroom for when my
| parents visit or if they have to ever move in with us.
|
| - a separate room that is now a study/studio for my wife's
| online fitness classes
|
| - a bedroom converted to an office now that I work from home
| hopefully for the rest of my career.
|
| - a bedroom that we converted to a cardio room with a
| treadmill, elliptical, stationary bike and weights.
|
| - a bedroom for my son
|
| - a master suite for us.
|
| - a decent size family room and kitchen.
|
| Especially with Covid, this has been a lifesaver. I can't
| imagine being stuck in an apartment right now.
|
| Even before my recent job change to working remotely for
| $BigTech and was just making an average salary for a software
| architect locally (east coast). The house was only 2x household
| income. In other words, any run of the mill developer could
| have afforded it.
| crmrc114 wrote:
| Personally I like the suburbs and my cars.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Congratulations. It is well known that the plural of
| "anecdote" is "data".
| kiba wrote:
| Your car rides on public roads and the car you drive impose a
| cost on everyone else.
| twblalock wrote:
| Public transit also imposes a cost on everyone else -- most
| of it is subsidized by taxes and will never be profitable.
|
| Public roads and public transit are both funded by taxes,
| so I don't see why it would be right to use one but wrong
| to use the other.
| danbolt wrote:
| I think you could make an argument for the cost-
| effectiveness of transit and walkability compared to car
| culture. It lowers the base economic hurdle to be
| productive in society and is more environmentally
| friendly to boot.
|
| I think it's fine to enjoy public roads and driving a car
| as a personal activity, but I think it gets too much
| public funding as "the default" in North America. I'd
| rather my tax dollars go to a train line than a highway
| lane.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Most public transportation is partially subsidized in the
| US. Car owners are paying taxes to support public
| transportation via income tax, sales tax and/or a gas tax.
| eclipxe wrote:
| +1, me too.
| axaxs wrote:
| I do, if done right I guess. In my previous house, it
| definitely wasn't urban, but not what you'd think of as
| suburban, either. Lotsa smallish houses in neighborhoods with
| good yards on both sides of a central road, which had tons of
| small shops. You could walk to get basic groceries, vet, eye
| clinic, donuts, couple restaurants. It was very quaint and to
| me, perfect. However, I currently live in some monstrosity of
| a neighborhood that requires driving at least five minutes to
| get anywhere. This isn't the future, and I don't understand
| how people can stand it.
| twblalock wrote:
| Lots of people wanted suburbs where they could live in quiet
| neighborhoods in detached homes with yards. That's why they
| exist and continue to be built. People also wanted to drive
| cars rather than take public transit.
|
| That was not a conspiracy by the auto manufacturers, it was
| just what people wanted. Ask around most suburbs and you'll
| learn that it is still what most people want today, especially
| once they have kids.
|
| I think suburbs are going to rise in status after the pandemic,
| especially if working from home becomes more common. People
| will want space, and they won't care about being located far
| from downtown if they don't need to commute. Plus, nobody
| really wants to use public transit during a pandemic and it
| will be a long time before people trust it again.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| I prefer never going outside and getting everything
| delivered, but that also naturally privileges the suburbs
| because door delivery is so nice vs. dealing with mail rooms
| or meeting couriers downstairs. D:
| gmantg wrote:
| Some would call this a house arrest.
| dathinab wrote:
| > People also wanted to drive cars rather than take public
| transit.
|
| Do they? Or do they because of really shitty broken public
| transport. I know many people in Berlin who had or could have
| a car but dropped it because it is totally not worth it
| having one.
|
| (Through yes it's not a conspiracy, just very bad investments
| into public transport/infrastructure and a lot of lobbying
| often crippling approaches to improve public transit
| infrastructure.)
|
| > I think suburbs are going to rise in status after the
| pandemic [..]
|
| Even more a reason to interleave "non loud" industry with
| homes because then the people which can't work from home
| don't need to travel far.
|
| > Plus, nobody really wants to use public transit during a
| pandemic
|
| Even more a reason to interleave things as with that much
| shorter distances to work are possible and as such can reach
| it their work place by food or bicycle. Not a option in some
| climate areas but very well an option in others like in
| Berlin.
|
| > nobody really wants to use public transit during a pandemic
|
| Actually in many EU countries where public transit is normal
| it's still used. A bit less but still used frequently. People
| just wear mask and make sure to wash their hand when
| arriving. Furthermore I'm not aware of any Corona hot-spot
| caused by public transit, even through e.g. Berlin does much
| less for disinfecting trains then what I have heard what is
| done in some US cities.
|
| So my guess is that you might be right wrt. the US, but it's
| not a fundamental thing but more of a problem with cultural
| context, history and perspective.
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| > Do they? Or do they because of really shitty broken
| public transport.
|
| Yes, they do. The reason why people don't use private cars
| and opt for public transit is typically related to cost of
| ownership and / or inadequate infrastructure for moving
| cars into, out of, and around the cities efficiently given
| current usage. A car is better than public transit in
| basically every way except maybe safety (although public
| transit users have their own safety concerns).
|
| Cars are point to point as opposed to having to make
| connections; cars operate on demand as opposed to running
| on an arbitrary schedule; cars enable living in a greater
| variety of locations as opposed to proximal to a transit
| hub; cars enable privacy as opposed to having to deal with
| other people; cars are more comfortable than public
| transit; cars allow you to move cargo which is infeasible
| on public transit; cars are much more efficient for medium
| distance (intra-state) travel than public transit; cars
| keep you out of the elements which public transit
| frequently does not ....
|
| In reality public transit is required to allow cities to
| scale efficiently, but many use it because they have to,
| not because they actually want to.
| non-entity wrote:
| In the city I used to live, the state government bought up many
| such dead malls and turned them into office space for various
| agencies.
| seemslegit wrote:
| Lack of sunlight might be a problem
| smt88 wrote:
| This is not going to be common. I have a lot of large commercial
| real estate clients, and they all see malls becoming distribution
| centers.
|
| In the US, most malls are not in high-density, expensive areas.
| It's much more expensive to build 100 condos out of a mall than
| to just build condos. Where do you even get windows for most of
| the stores? A lot of space in a mall is away from anywhere that
| natural light can enter.
|
| As distribution centers though, you have giant spaces, large bays
| for trucks to enter, and last-mile access to suburban customers.
|
| Retailers expect to want the space, they just expect they'll want
| it for distribution of online sales instead of in-person sales.
| msla wrote:
| In my ideal world, the mall housing would be aimed at old people
| and anyone with handicaps such that they're taking a greater-
| than-normal risk navigating icy sidewalks or bad weather in
| general. Imagine being able to walk to and from shopping, gyms,
| and third spaces without worrying about falling and breaking a
| hip. _That_ is the idea which ought to sell this.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| On the contrary, I just met an 81-year old guy that still runs
| through Griffith Park, 2+ miles every day.
|
| In my ideal world, less old people would be decrepit. At least,
| I am hoping that I will be anywhere near that agile at 81.
| kiba wrote:
| "OK, on your form you said you're sixty, but you're forty".
|
| Seriously, I hate unnecessary bureaucracy. Ideally, we'll build
| enough housing for _everyone_ , regardless if they have a
| handicap or not, or old for that matter.
|
| Our society is very wealthy, we can do this. Done right, it
| won't be a burden for everyone, because we'll get lower cost of
| living and as a side effect, healthier humans.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| That's quite a jump. The OP said "aimed at" which in my mind
| just means the picture on the front cover of the brochure has
| a pair of smiling seniors.
| rdiddly wrote:
| _" Today, people prefer to live in smaller spaces and want
| walkable developments rather than relying on vehicular transit.
| This project caters to these needs."_
|
| Kind of interesting to watch the mall trend fold in on itself.
| They were trying to recreate "towns" all along. I mean that's
| what a walkable "development" with mixed residential & commercial
| activity is.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Because a mall is essentially a mockup of a town. Just without
| the clock tower so that you don't remember what time it is.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It's been like this from the beginning, just perverted:
|
| > Gruen had meant well. He wanted to import the pedestrian
| experience of modernist, European cities like Vienna and
| Paris into America, where the automobile was king. By
| creating places for community in the deserts of suburbia, he
| hoped to lure people from their cars and into contact with
| one another. The malls would be for shopping, yes, but also
| offer food, relaxation, and green space. In his original
| conception, malls would also connect to residential and
| commercial space, medical care, libraries, and other public
| spaces. Even though unrealized, this idea was not that
| different from today's New Urbanists, who advocate denser,
| more walkable mixed-use development in cities broken up by
| the dominance of the automobile.
|
| > Gruen would eventually disavow his creation, expressing
| disgust for how malls had exacerbated rather than ameliorated
| urban sprawl--not to mention exporting it globally, infecting
| the Old World with this land-use virus of the New.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/when-.
| ..
| underwater wrote:
| Interestingly, malls in Australia are alive and well, and
| do include libraries, supermarkets, medical care, and so
| on.
| wolco wrote:
| I remember supermarkets in malls back in the 80s. People
| smoked in malls back then and grocery stores, doctor
| offices.
| wolco wrote:
| Instead a mall became any store that can pay the highest
| rent. The never ending quest for the highest rent per
| square inch.
| irrational wrote:
| That is so interesting. I hate going to malls because there
| are so many people there. But that seems to have been part
| of Gruen's original intent - to bring people in close
| proximity to each other. No thank you.
| ghaff wrote:
| Shops and social places do tend to encourage people to
| visit. If that's not your thing, it's not going to be
| ideal.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Prestonwood Town Center mall (1979-2003, RIP) in Dallas,
| Texas actually had an indoor clock tower! Here's a picture:
|
| https://i.pinimg.com/originals/48/d2/08/48d2080a4f98b94f877f.
| ..
|
| As you can see, it wasn't just a clock, it was a kickass
| gigantic awesome mechanical clock. It was fun to just hang
| out and watch the mechanism do its thing. And it had chimes.
|
| One of the original (and longest?) tenants of the mall was a
| clock shop, located in a suite right by the big clock.
|
| Here's a (low-quality) video showing the clock at about
| 0m25s: https://vimeo.com/114438477
|
| Some background is available here:
| https://mb.nawcc.org/threads/howard-tower-clock.33680/
|
| According to that, the clock itself was originally made in
| 1915 and was installed in a clock tower in a Goodyear
| building in Los Angeles, but that tower had to be torn down
| for earthquake safety. So the clock was moved to Texas. After
| the mall was closed, the clock was put into storage, and some
| pieces may have been lost, but possibly not the important
| ones.
|
| There was a naming contest, and the clock was named "D Old
| Timer". ("D" is sort of a local shorthand for Dallas. There's
| a "D Magazine".)
| Covzire wrote:
| I've thought for awhile that Walmart/Target could build
| apartment complexes above their stores. Not sure who would want
| to live there, but I bet some people would.
| thefounder wrote:
| For the right price they would sell like hot cakes
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/jIk9w
| staycoolboy wrote:
| This is such a great idea. In Vietnam I stayed in a few AirBNB's
| that were 20 floor buildings: the bottom floor was grocery, gym,
| bank, restaurants, and the top floors were all residential, with
| pools on the very top floor of one swanky place. I'm seeing this
| in Seattle and Portland, too. Converting malls to residential has
| huge potential for all-in-one living.
| ghaff wrote:
| The malls that are going bankrupt in the US tend to be those in
| at least somewhat downscale suburbs/exurbs. The mall that's
| relatively close to me had a Sears, Macy's, and JC Penney as
| anchor tenants. All are now closed. There is a close by busy
| grocery store and Home Depot.
|
| But upscale shopping malls in elite cities were actually doing
| pretty well prior to the current situation.
| x87678r wrote:
| > Sears, Macy's, and JC Penney as anchor tenants. All are now
| closed.
|
| Hey coincidentally my local mall has the same! Except our
| Macy's is kinda open.
| ghaff wrote:
| Also a Toys R'Us in the immediate vicinity. The complex has
| traded hands a couple of times in the past few years at a
| significant devaluation each time. The next mall over isn't
| much better (K-Mart among other things). There are some
| reasonably affluent rural/exurban communities in the area
| but the three nearby small cities are fairly rundown old
| mill towns.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| The malls are going down because their key tenants are going
| under. Sears, JC Penny's, Macy's and plenty of small
| entities.
|
| Malls aren't exciting enough. They're not special enough.
| It's a 20th Century experience that hasn't been updated in
| too long. At this point there's no time or money for a
| makeover. They're too focused on staying alive.
| staycoolboy wrote:
| > But upscale shopping malls in elte cities were actually
| doing pretty well prior to the current situation.
|
| I believe that is called "Retail Therapy" but it only works
| if you have money to burn.
|
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-why-behind-
| the-b...
|
| As we've seen, most people don't have money to burn, as "most
| american's have no savings":
|
| https://www.axios.com/americans-emergency-savings-
| coronaviru...
|
| or...
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/21/41-percent-of-americans-
| woul...
|
| https://www.fool.com/retirement/2020/03/27/nearly-50-of-
| amer...
| [deleted]
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| True, though many Americans have access to credit. Though
| that can't be sustained, it can work for a while.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Some malls have adapted to the situation by adapting to
| changing demographics and tastes: here's an article about
| malls being adapted into Hispanic-centered malls:
| https://adage.com/article/the-big-tent/malls-pitched-
| hispani...
|
| The major issue that a traditional mall has is that the
| segment of the market served by Sears, Macy's, and JC Penny
| does not really compete well with online equivalents that
| involve less fuss. You need some type of differentiation,
| whether or not that is upscale exclusivity or niches like
| catering to specific ethnic needs.
| ghaff wrote:
| And those stores also did not compete well with Walmart
| which AFAIK has never taken the anchor store strategy
| approach, although of course it is in strip malls.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Yeah, upscale department stores were saved by the fact
| that a standalone Gucci store would not work in most
| places, unlike a standalone Gap or Old Navy or Home
| Depot.
|
| The big box format is also interesting, because the big
| boxes were not built to last and a good deal of what made
| the finances work was local governments of rural and new-
| growth suburban areas falling over themselves to provide
| tax breaks for jobs. This strategy didn't pan out too
| well when they tried expanding into urban areas using the
| exact same format (they are now changing it up), and now
| the big box stores are at the end of their useful lives
| and a lot are being abandoned as well.
| wolco wrote:
| Big box stores dominate us more than ever. Walmarts
| everywhere. I consider amazon to be an online big box
| store.
| paulcole wrote:
| Where are you seeing this in Portland in a way that's different
| than any other city? Mixed use ground floor with residential
| above isn't _that_ revolutionary.
| staycoolboy wrote:
| True: first-floor retail is as old as multi-story buildings.
|
| What is different about it now is the large number of stores
| that are accessible only from inside a single building.
|
| I was in Portland last fall and there were these buildings on
| the river and one had a restaurant, a coffee shop, a spin
| class, and a work space in the same building, with the
| entrances near the elevators where tenants get immediate
| access. I've never see in that in Boston, San Fran or NYC,
| where the first floor is a business, but faces the outside
| street. The portland thing was like its own mothership on a
| block, rather than a bunch of mixed used places on a mile-
| long street.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This type of land use would be illegal to build new, or
| saddled with so much parking requirement to be financially
| unviable, in most of the country.
|
| It is the historical form of the American city, but the
| midcentury turned its nose up at dirty noisy cities and
| promoted single-use Euclidean zoning to the extreme.
| benatkin wrote:
| I was thinking about these being good for freelancers and
| startups, then I realized they'll be expensive. There was a
| recent thread about housing for startup employees:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23655398
|
| Liability kind of ruins any opportunity of making cheap living
| spaces.
|
| Edit: did some more browsing, found this update on Zeus, a co-
| living startup https://therealdeal.com/2020/05/11/airbnb-backed-
| zeus-living...
| ghaff wrote:
| Zeus sounds like furnished corporate apartments -- i.e. a
| competitor to something like Marriott Residence Inn -- rather
| than "co-living." (These apartments have historically been used
| for relocation or for when an exec or someone else needs to
| spend a lot of time in a location away from their home base.)
| Keverw wrote:
| Maybe buy an old cruise ship and put it in international waters
| lol. That'd probably help get rid of some of the liability and
| zoning issues.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| If you have no liability / jurisdiction then contracts with
| you are unenforceable. And if a customer can't get a valid
| contract with you, that means no customers.
| Keverw wrote:
| Yeah, not sure how the cruise lines deal with this... I
| know some of them have offices in the US, some major ones
| pick Miami but the ships are owned and registered to off-
| shore nations. One of the reasons they didn't get a bailout
| due to COVID, they pay little taxes and then also can avoid
| more stricter US labor laws.
| Keverw wrote:
| Haha one of my uncles said cruise ships are like sleeping in the
| mall... but I like this idea... Have shops, restaurants,
| entertainment/activities office buildings and residential. I
| think I'd love to live somewhere where I could walk to grab a
| bite of eat, to the gym or some office space... A pool too. Co-
| working spaces be nice too if you work from home and want a
| separate spot to work. I kinda been interested in moving to
| downtown Austin since the most walkable city in Texas, but still
| not prefect from what I've read.
|
| As someone who's always been in the suburbs, always kinda been
| jealous that most apartments seem to have pools haha. but idk if
| i'd like apartment life, I'd be worried about hearing other
| people or being too loud if I wanted to listen to music or watch
| tv... I guess depends on if the walls are paper thin.
| nordsieck wrote:
| I've seen news that some big companies have bought/leased up
| malls and converted them into office space.
|
| Probably doesn't do much for suburban culture (although it's
| arguably better than having a failing mall in the neighborhood),
| but it's super good for employees since malls tend to be located
| very near to housing.
|
| https://la.curbed.com/2019/1/8/18173979/westside-pavilion-go...
| bluedino wrote:
| Works great if there's a pressing need for office space. Many
| places with dying malls have plenty of abandoned retail real
| estate and not much in the way of new or growing office real
| estate needs.
| voisin wrote:
| In most municipalities, zoning will restrict the ability of
| developers to make changes of use like this.
| twblalock wrote:
| Malls are generally just one or two stories tall and therefore a
| massive waste of space compared to other possible uses of the
| same land. Building them higher and putting housing on top is a
| great way to add more housing without using more land.
| throwlogon wrote:
| Most empty malls are in places where economic demand, including
| demand for land, is very low. Investing money to make efficient
| use of something that cheap is unlikely to be a profitable
| move.
| [deleted]
| CalRobert wrote:
| The real waste of space is generally the ocean of parking that
| dwarfs the mall itself.
| raverbashing wrote:
| I wonder if there was an analysis of demand of parking space
| or if it was always at significant undercapacity
| ghaff wrote:
| "Significant undercapacity" means that people don't leave
| when they can't immediately find a parking space (modulo
| maybe right before Christmas). Yes, I'm sure it's analyzed.
| Also adding space retroactively (especially in the form of
| parking garages that a lot of people don't really like) can
| be expensive.
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