Archinect - News

Alexandra Lange on the (ever)green potential of American dead malls

2022-06-08T20:20:00-04:00

Malls represent heavy investments in infrastructure, construction materials and place making that should not be discarded. The popularity of dead malls as sites for Covid testing and eventually vaccinations underlines these essential qualities: Easy road access, unencumbered indoor space, instant name recognition. Contemplating the mall’s roots in the garden is an opportunity not for picturesque nostalgia but for new solutions.

The author of the forthcoming title Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall, out next week from Bloomsbury, Lange crafts a nice rundown of dead mall spaces’ possible reuses as public gardens, apartment complexes, and even health care centers in a country where more than 250 such shopping centers are expected to shutter in the next three to five years.

“Some should be demolished and returned to nature, but more should be rethought from an ecological point of view. While malls are a wasteful use of land, replacement with new stand-alone buildings with space-hogging parking lots only compounds that wastefulness […]”

Shopping malls are being reimagined as health care centers across the country

2022-04-14T15:11:00-04:00

The hulking Hickory Hollow Mall — a full 1.1 million square feet of retail space in southeast Nashville — was once the largest shopping center in Tennessee. But like dozens of malls, it’s been in a downward death spiral for more than a decade — despite a scrappy revival effort. Now, the mammoth complex surrounded by acres of parking is on track to join the ranks of malls making a transition into medicine.

According to a national database kept by Georgia Tech urban design professor Ellen Dunham-Jones, a total of 32 enclosed malls have shifted to housing health care services, with nearly a third established at the start of the pandemic. Covid lockdowns had a tremendous impact on brick-and-mortar retailers who were already struggling to stay afloat. As noted by Marketplace.org, the rise of telemedicine and push to outpatient procedures will make malls increasingly attractive sites for healthcare services.

In addition, some disused malls are located in diverse neighborhoods that are in need of increased access to healthcare. Malls can also offer more convenient access compared to traditional hospitals as they’re equipped with large amounts of parking spots and are near major highways and interstates.

Amazon is buying up dead malls–adaptive reuse, or just eating its prey?

2021-04-12T14:30:00-04:00

Amazon continues to makes headlines with its labor issues, workers' rights, and headquarters expansion. However, that hasn't stopped the multi-billion-dollar company from growing, for better or for worse. A recent news report from NBC News shared Amazon's moves towards purchasing empty shopping malls into new fulfillment centers. According to Leticia Miranda, "Malls that buckled due to e-commerce or suffered during the pandemic are being given new life by the very entity that precipitated their decline — Amazon."

Macy’s, 2018. Image © Jesse Rieser

From 2016 thru 2019, Amazon's abandoned mall transformations have resulted in 25 converted shopping malls to fulfillment centers. As malls and big box stores continue to experience the ongoing "retail apocalypse," mall owners needed to pivot and adapt. In July 2020, Archinect briefly dove into mall typology and the "the post-mall future of American commercial architecture." COVID-19 may have been the final nail in the coffin for most strugg...

Conversions of existing buildings could upend America's built environment

2020-09-01T16:09:00-04:00

The pandemic is expected to drastically reshape commercial real estate, leaving thousands of vacant and underused spaces nationwide. But some developers and investors are keen to seize the chance to convert those properties into other uses.

Tom Acitelli of The New York Times investigates some of the ways in which office and commercial spaces may be rethought in coming years as conversions from previous uses facilitate a massive transformation within the American built environment on a scale that is largely without precedent.

In this shift, sagging retail spaces are being converted to e-commerce fulfillment centers while offices are being converted to housing. Because the transformation necessarily involves buildings that are already built, the shift is prompting a reconsideration of price per square foot metrics currently used to guide real estate transactions.

The shopping mall typology is being transformed

2020-07-29T13:51:00-04:00

The slow and steady death of the shopping mall has been sped up since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now several months into the public health and economic crisis the pandemic has set off, mall owners and operators are developing specific visions for the post-mall future of American commercial architecture.

A recent report from the National Retail Federation highlights that the steady erosion of anchor tenants, foot traffic, and consumer interest in malls has been supercharged by the economic shutdown put into effect to stem the spread of the virus. Malls, of course, depend on foot traffic and crowds to thrive, and so have been fundamentally challenged by social distancing and shut down measures.

As a result, the NRF report explains, mall operators are pivoting away from shopping and toward a variety of adaptive reuse approaches that include converting old department stores into co-working spaces, adding hybrid fulfillment center uses offering "digital concierges, mobile a...

California considers converting abandoned malls to residential uses

2020-05-22T15:00:00-04:00

As the far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 crisis continue to reverberate nationwide, California lawmakers are attempting to reorient the state's housing policies in an effort to continue making progress in addressing the housing crisis gripping the region.

Previously on Archinect: "California's stealthy approach to abolishing single-family zoning pays off." Image courtesy of Flickr user Kent Kanouse.

Lawmakers have introduced a slew of bills in recent weeks aimed at furthering housing production goals, Cal Matters reports. Until now, the state has focused on a two-pronged approach of reducing zoning and regulatory hurdles for new housing developments while also infusing nonprofit housing developers and state agencies with vigorous financing to build new units. With the increasingly dire financial situation being left in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, however, plans have had to change in order to keep up and state authorities will now likely lean on private businesses to produce a...

Don't believe the hype: Brick-and-mortar retail is here to stay

2019-09-24T19:30:00-04:00

The hypothetical Retail Apocalypse should be supported by a decline in the total retail establishments, but that's not the case. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported 1,044,509 establishments for 2018, for a net gain of 2,413 establishments over 2017 (1,042,096). The 2018 figure also represents a net gain of more than 20,800 establishments since a retail trough in 2011, a low point resulting from the Great Recession.

Sharon Woods, CEO of real estate consultant group LandUseUSA, writes in Public Square, a journal produced by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) presents an opposing, data-driven view of the future of America's retail landscape.

Woods writes, "The future for brick-and-mortar retail is far less bleak than the scene painted by mainstream media. Although e-commerce is taking a larger share of the pie, brick-n-mortar and physical store sales are also continuing to grow. Most of the chain store closures are limited to certain segments of retail—particularly department stores anchors and apparel tenants of sprawling regional malls and strip centers."

As the chart above notes, much of the retail growth is taking place in chain restaurants, CVS HealthHUB stores, and dollar stores like Dollar Tree and Dollar General.

How the death of suburban malls aided the filming of the third season of Stranger Things

2019-07-12T13:29:00-04:00

Fans of Netflix's science fiction horror series Stranger Things were recently treated to season 3, which almost entirely takes place within a suburban mall. Filled with neon, fake marble and geometric water features, the postmodern mall design became the ideal setting for the show set in 1985.

Interior of Gwinnett Place Mall. Photographer unknown.

What is first assumed to be an elaborate stage set or impressive CGI is actually a mall in Duluth, Georgia. Originally built in 1984, the Gwinnett Place Mall is one of many malls throughout America that faced declining visitorship during the early 2000s which led to the closure of many of its stores several years ago (only a few remain in operation, including Foot Locker, Finish Line, Victoria’s Secret and Macy’s).

This became a perfect opportunity for the producers of Stranger things to rent a large portion of the space for a fraction of the price it might have been even a decade ago, allowing them to invest more into making the mall app...

A democratic presidential candidate is pitching to save "dead malls"

2019-07-09T13:31:00-04:00

Entrepreneur and presidential hopeful Andrew Yang has a new policy proposal that promises to set him apart in the crowded Democratic field. He hopes to address an issue affecting the economic vitality of communities all across the country. Yang wants to save the malls. According to his campaign, some 300 malls will fold over the next 4 years, a number in line with an estimate by Credit Suisse that one-quarter of all malls will close by 2022.

In the U.S., the presidential race has already begun with potential candidates showcasing their intended policies and platforms to the American people. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has created a growing following due to his stance on universal base income and approaching politics with "human-centered capitalism." In learning this, it is no wonder Yang has turned his efforts towards saving dying malls as a means to revive the economy of local communities.

Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang. Image © Chris Zoeller/Globe-Gazette/AP

Yang's goal is to implement the American Mall Act. According to a recent CityLab piece by Kriston Capps, the plan is to "devote $6 billion to find new purposes for these dying retail complexes." Yang made this announcement on July 4th weekend in a video as a response to Palmetto State voters and their experience of the retail apocalypse. In his video, Yang expresses the reality of mall upkeep and points out, "it's a massive challenge to try t...

This video game tests your ability to handle the retail madness of an American mall

2018-02-19T15:17:00-05:00

With the rise of online shopping, we have all been watching the dead mall epidemic for many years now. Addressing those left hanging on in today's world, Bloomberg now brings us the The American Mall Game: A 2018 Retail Challenge. Try your odds at managing a failing mall in this retro 90's computer game.

First you must choose a player—I chose Colton, who made his fortune selling his beanie babies collection at the height of its craze and wants to prove to his parents he's an adult. Next you will choose a strategy of either modernizing, creating an alternative mall, or cutting costs.

The American Mall Game: A 2018 Retail Challenge with an irritated shopper.

Your broker, wearing flashy 90's shades, gives you advice on how to save your dying mall. Navigate through stores like "Victoria's Conspiracy" and "Marcy's" while you get rid of rats, trash, and cyberpunk delinquents.

I was too busy clicking on shoppers to read their irritated comments and failed quickly. See how you fare in thi...

Mallification: The shopping mall isn't so dead after all

2018-01-23T14:13:00-05:00

[...] the ever increasing mallification of our environment threatens to undermine the public common ground on which our societies were founded: public places should address an abstract, inclusive notion of the public, instead of a defined, limited, and exclusive (in the literal sense of the word) audience. Conversely, we should not confuse or conflate trite stores (even if they place trees inside and call themselves town squares) to be an ersatz public domain.

Janno Martens' essay for Failed Architecture explores the many deaths and resurrections of the shopping mall and highlights three phenomena of mallification — the creeping privatization of public spaces and replacement of the organically grown city with an imagineered 'experience' of what only resembles an urban, collective space.

As shopping malls are dying in urban areas, land becomes available again for housing

2017-10-04T13:47:00-04:00

Acres of prime real estate are opening for redevelopment as America’s malls struggle to compete with Amazon and other online giants, offering developers a rare shot to remake swaths of land in the country’s built-out metropolises. In particular, real estate experts say, the demise of retail centers provides one of the best chances to add needed housing [...].

In his article, LA Times reporter Andrew Khouri also points out the drawbacks of these new development opportunities, writing "residents voiced concern that the development will make the area more attractive to those of higher incomes and put upward pressure on rents in the surrounding area, even as the housing supply expands."

"An exuberant bygone optimism:" dead malls become poignant architectural relics

2017-09-12T15:39:00-04:00

“I’m looking for subtle signifiers of an exuberant bygone optimism,” [Photographer Tag Christof] said. “Whether people realize it or not, the things I photograph are the direct result of a system that defines progress only in economic terms.” Christof...has spent the last five years crisscrossing the country in an effort to document architectural sites vanishing from the landscape.

Whether you spent your teenage years moodily occupying the food court or have experienced malls primarily as ruin porn, the architectural significance of these former bustling commercial centers can't be overstated. A kind of high water mark of capitalism, the shuttered and demolished malls profiled in this piece for The Outline represent a country whose narrative was mainly shaped by a robust middle class and a belief in national infallibility, two things that are noticeably weakened in the present era. While nostalgia is usually always the end result of oversimplification, it's hard to argue with the fact that in the last few decades the commercial infrastructure of the United States has undergone a dramatic shift, both physically and symbolically.

Amazon's new and enormous fulfillment center to be built where America's biggest mall once stood

2017-08-31T13:48:00-04:00

Amazon says the new fulfillment center will create some 2,000 jobs “with benefits and opportunities to engage with Amazon Robotics in a highly technological workplace. The company will spend $177 million to build the new fulfillment center, and job listings will start appearing six to 10 weeks before the facility opens.

Amazon says workers at their new 855,000 square feet warehouse in North Randall, Ohio, “will pick, pack and ship smaller customer items such as electronics, toys and books.” In other words, the new employees will be filling Amazon-branded boxes with the exact same sorts of goods that were once sold at the Randall Park Mall, once the biggest mall in the US, which, ironically, was closed in 2009 due to retail sales moving online.

Death is in the details: photographic survey of a mall about to be torn down

2017-01-12T20:23:00-05:00

Its architecture is painfully lost in its own time and its updates only confuse by neither integrating well into the original structure or standing out as truly contemporary. The pink kiosks, orange tiles, teal chairs and green paneled rooms, the purple plush seating in the JC Penny dressing room, and the bright blue tiered entryways are, along with other decor flourishes, seemingly random, with no coherent pattern.

Declaring that "the dying mall narrative" already peaked a few years ago, Tag Hartman-Simkins decides to photographically zero in on the details of an old mall in Galesburg, Illinois that is about to be torn down and replaced with an updated, outdoor mixed-use space. His careful observations of everything from the floor tile to the overhead music to the way mirrors are arranged in dressing rooms create a nuanced and affecting portrait of long gone times.

Indoor malls are out as LA's brick-and-mortar shopping centers get renovated

2016-12-13T20:25:00-05:00

Sometime in the not too distant future we will look back at traditional malls as an anachronism – something that started with the post World War II move to the suburbs, peaked in 1990, and faded away, according to the billionaire Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso, whose properties include the Grove and the Americana at Brand.

Millions of dollars are being spent on refurbishing and renovating malls in Los Angeles in an attempt to offer online shoppers an incentive to go outdoors. According to this report by KPCC, the big-league mall masterminds, including Grove guru Rick Caruso, are purposefully trying to redesign malls to center around activities like eating and socializing, experiences which are arguably better in person (and which indoor malls frequently sequester to dimly lit food courts). Although many are predicting the outright death of indoor malls, others are simply repurposing them into religious centers, hospitals, and occasionally dwellings in housing-crisis plagued cities.

For more on malls:

A supermall grows in fracking country

2015-06-08T14:13:00-04:00

Today Williston—which sits atop the oil-rich Bakken shale formation—is enjoying a second life as a key player in the state's booming economy. Following several years of record population growth and real estate development, the town will soon boast one more draw: a $500 million retail mecca complete with shopping, a hotel and indoor water park. Not bad for a town of just 32,000 people. [...] "The U.S. isn't overretailed, it's under-idea-ed"

We discuss the decline and (perhaps inevitable) death of the American shopping mall on episode #32 of Archinect Sessions, "For in that death of malls, what dreams may come?"

More info and recent news on dead malls:

Dead Malls and Shopping Dinosaurs

2015-01-27T00:38:00-05:00

“Our business is more regional and high-end focused,” he said. “There are gradients of dead or dying or flat, but anything that’s caught in the middle of the market is problematic."

Nelson D. Schwartz explores 'The Economics (and Nostalgia) of Dead Malls'. One response is articulated by Professor Ellen Dunham-Jones who has proposed Retrofitting Suburbia - whereby dying malls are rehabilitated, dead "big box" stores re-inhabited and parking lots our transformed into thriving wetlands.

Previously 1, 2, 3

China's 'ghost mall'

2013-05-14T20:15:00-04:00

The New South China Mall was once promoted as the world's biggest mall, but it's now pretty much deserted.

Dead-malls and the return of Main Street

2013-03-10T00:07:00-05:00

The link between this New Urbanist development and a mall REIT is significant. It points to a danger raised by city planner Ann Satterthwaite: that post-mall neighborhoods will simply become outdoor malls, as controlled and sterile – and state subsidized – as indoor shopping centers.

Robbie Moore reviews the current state of thought, among urban planners, academics and real estate analysts, studying the future structure of regional towns and suburbs – and the future of public space, after "the mall" has gone. Concepts/terminology include; "Dead Malls, Grayfields and Ghostboxes".

H/T Bruce Sterling

China's ghost towns and phantom malls

2012-08-14T16:56:00-04:00

As growth slows, China's huge investment in infrastructure is looking ever harder to sustain, leaving a string of ambitious projects - towns, shopping malls and even a theme park - empty and forlorn.

The Shopping Mall Turns 60 (and Prepares to Retire)

2012-07-17T12:18:00-04:00

Gruen’s idea transformed American consumption patterns and much of the environment around us. At age 60, however, the enclosed regional shopping mall also appears to be an idea that has run its course

Debating the Root Causes of Zombie Infrastructure

2012-06-14T17:59:00-04:00

For generations, government policies have been geared toward creating endless landscapes of strip malls... In the process we have gutted our traditional downtowns. We have eaten up farmland and forest. We have, as Nate Berg reported this week, endangered the lives of our senior citizens. We have engineered a world where children cannot walk or bike to school without risking their lives. We have created countless places devoid of any real social value.

Come See The Emptiest Mall In The World

2012-04-03T19:43:00-04:00

The giant mall you see in the photos here didn’t die. It has never lived, having been nothing but empty since it opened seven years ago. According to its Wikipedia entry, it has an astounding 2,350 available retail spaces, only 47 of which are occupied. Meet the world’s largest shopping mall, the New South China Mall in Dongguan, China. It is twice as big as the huge Mall of America outside Minneapolis.

Making Over the Mall With Parks and Sermons

2012-02-06T14:17:00-05:00

Designers in Buffalo have proposed stripping down a mall to its foundation and reinventing it as housing, while an aspiring architect in Detroit has proposed turning a mall’s parking lot there into a community farm. Columbus, Ohio, arguing that it was too expensive to maintain an empty mall on prime real estate, dismantled its City Center mall and replaced it with a park.