a perfect storm of bad decisions dating back to the 1980s and changes in how we shop. Malls need to be repurposed before they simply waste away becoming both eyesores and dangers to the areas in which they are located.

Truly a waste of what could be a useful space for the community.

In August 2018, the Quincy Mall was in crisis. A few years earlier, JCPenney, one of the mall’s three large department store anchors, had closed. That month, the two remaining stores, Sears and Bergner’s, closed within weeks of each other.

“It left us with just this huge big-box vacancy,” said Mike Jenkins, the property manager at the 500,000-square-foot mall in Quincy, Illinois.

The loss of such major tenants has been a death sentence for many malls. But the shopping center had a stroke of luck. The same time the department stores closed, one of the small city’s two large medical providers was looking for a space to house a planned outpatient surgery clinic.

The Quincy Medical Group soon after leased the building to house its cancer institute and outpatient surgery center. When the clinic opens later this year, patients will be able to go to the mall to receive colonoscopies, chemotherapy and ambulatory surgery procedures such as tonsillectomies or hand surgeries.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/quincy-mall-suffers-retail-losses-surgical-center-offers-cure?