Reviving America's Dead Malls

Posted August 17, 2010 Reviving America's Dead Malls
By Seth Fiegerman

The Galleria Mall used to be one of Cleveland’s main shopping hot spots, with dozens of bustling shops spread throughout the two-story building, but that all started to change around 2002 as the economy suffered through a brief recession.

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Last year, Poole began working on a more ambitious project to transform the Galleria Mall from a dying retail space into a greenhouse that would not only help educate the city about healthy food, but provide it. Earlier this year, the project, dubbed Gardens Under Glass, received a $30,000 grant from Cleveland’s Civic Innovation Lab.

Now, rather than gorge on salty pretzels, fountain sodas and fast food, shoppers can take advantage of a weekly market full of fresh produce and greens. And that’s just the beginning. “We have a salad bar that will open next month and we have some green cleaning products that are coming in soon,” Poole says. “We hope that this will attract more business.”

Poole’s project is just one of many that is transforming the function and feel of malls as we know it. In cities throughout the country, dead and dying malls are being redesigned to serve community functions as medical centers, arts centers and much more. In Tennessee, the Tri-County Mall shut down and re-opened as a large church. Similarly in Colorado, a dead mall was repurposed to serve as a housing development. Several malls across the country with vacant space have even installed small indoor water parks to liven things up. In other cases, old malls are simply being swapped with other retail businesses like car dealerships, big box stores and flea markets.

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For much of the past decade, publications have speculated the era of malls may be nearing an end in this country, and indeed there seemed to be lots of evidence to back up this theory. Between 2007 and 2009, more than a fifth of the nation’s 2,000 biggest malls closed up shop. To make matters worse, only one new enclosed mall had opened up in that time.

“A tremendous amount of overbuilding took place in this country. If you go down any highway in America, there are stores everywhere,” says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a New York-based consulting company for the retail industry. “America is tremendously overstored.”

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According to Davidowitz, just because the shopping center’s business crumbles doesn’t mean the owner is suddenly out of options. “The real value is in the raw land,” he said. “What you’re losing money on is the operation of the mall, so it may make sense to try and monetize the land, either through a hospital, condo development or anything else that you believe the community needs.” But it wasn’t until a few years ago that mall owners actually took advantage of this option, and it wasn’t entirely by their own volition

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http://www.mainstreet.com/article/small-business/franchises/what-do-dead-mall?cm_ven=msnetzero

Deadmalls.com

In addition to the bad economy, I suspect internet shopping has had a lot to do with the demise of local retail stores including malls. I haven't bought a xmas present at an actual store in years and we buy most of our clothes, hardware, electronics, and even some groceries online.

I would, however, visit a green market or a flea market in person.

with a modern bent. Many big cities grew up with housing and business mixed together. The bottom floors of buildings were routinely operated by tenants living above as shops etc. Making a mall into a modern living area with apartments, condos, shops, gardens and cultural centers etc. is just a return to a previous model. It could be a good model that would reverse the trend of acquiring our daily needs from a shipping container sent from some distant land where workers are being abused as a routine matter.

Good post!
Cheers!

Several articles over the years pointed out that the malls were merely the modern equivalent of the town center. They were just out of proportion to their communities, and sucked in customers from too far away. The implication from these changes is that communities have begun to respond to this reality. They need a big box "far away", they need a town center "around the corner" and with all the community focused goods and services they won't get from a big box.

Going green and becoming community centers...I love it.

These dead malls could become so much more....the ideas are really endless.

:thumbsup:

Dana ; )
http://web.me.com/gardensunderglass/gardensunderglass/Welcome.html

It's been 20 years since I've stepped inside a mall to shop. Despite the fact that I worked for 10 of those years within walking distance of the local mall.

I just always disliked the idea that shopping was supposed to be a form of recreation. "Let's go to the mall and buy stuff." Wandering around looking at stuff I didn't need and couldn't afford, just because it was supposed to somehow be fun to "shop."

When I go shopping, I have something specific I want, and I just want to take it to the counter, pay for it, and leave. I don't want to have to hike through the mall to find the one store and/or item I want to purchase.

Shopping is something you do to get something you need and cannot get any other way. LOL

Window shopping?....not me, thank you.



:hi::hug:

I'd probably do it online to avoid the parking and crowds, lol. Not that I need more stuff. I need to unload most of the stuff I've got. My biggest shopping events this fall will be for hay and firewood to get through the winter.

:hi:

This is one of many things driving me crazy daily: passing by empty retail space (yet they build more???), when there are more and more people without shelter.

There's a better way to make use of the space we have without clearing land. This is an excellent example. I see a lot of progressive initiatives coming out of Cleveland. :thumbsup:

Thanks for sharing! :hi:

:bounce:

Killers of urban shopping districts and a blight on the landscape. Anything that removes them from our environment is a positive.

Bless their stores with the Big and the Tall.

;-)

I'm not sure why, but that just gave me the biggest chuckle.

I love DUers.

:rofl:

Thanks! :hi:

empty buildings? The gardens would be awesome in high density areas where clear land with sun can be very rare.

We also must do a lot more to just get grocery stores in these underserved and impoverished areas. These empty buildings can do a lot to serve the areas they are in.

You thought that scene at the housing authority near Atlanta the other day was bad? Their list had only been closed for two years. Ours has been closed for six years -- with no reopening in sight. :scared:

Although what really killed it was an idiot owner who kept wanting to squeeze blood from a stone, and the expansion of another mall near Lambeau Field that had one thing Port Plaza did not. Free Parking. (Port Plaza was a downtown mall. parking was in City-owned lots and ramps.)