Retail experts have long sounded the alarm on malls in the US.
But malls are not going extinct, they are merely adapting to a new environment. In fact, many have reported robust occupancy levels and bigger crowds than before the pandemic, according to a recent market analysis from Coresight Research.
Someone once told me that malls are appealing because they match what we want out of a walkable city, and I haven’t been able to get that out of my mind.
The mall here is doing really well because they let a bunch of local businesses in. There’s a local toy store, an antique mall and, best of all, a pinball arcade. And we’re a small city in Indiana.
Nice to get back to the roots. I remember malls with arcades and local businesses, instead of just indistinguishable women’s clothing chains, where every mall had some unique character instead of all being the same
just indistinguishable women’s clothing chains
Ugh, while I do enjoy clothes shopping, I always felt there’s waaaaay too many of these. I can’t tell the difference between most of them. Some selection is great, but the larger malls I’ve been to have so many seemingly identical clothing stores that you can’t possibly even look at them all. I’ve always wondered how it’s feasible to have so many. It feels like having 5 gas stations on the same block. I wonder if the stores closers to entrances or the food court have an advantage over those in the middle?
Yeah, it’s really nice. They even have a couple of local restaurants in the food court and the playground for kids is really cool- it’s done like giant breakfast food you can climb all over. Found a photo:
Malls in my area are mostly doing great.
I think there were just a lot of middling malls, and malls in areas without the population to support them. What the article calls “top tier” malls in large cities are doing fine.
And there was several metro areas that have faced economic decline in the last 30 years that have contributed to some malls going out of business as well. This happened because people did not have the money to spend nor an increasing population to cater to a large mall.
Indoor malls are gonna have a resurgence as temperatures get higher and higher and it’s no longer feasible to spend time outdoors for prolonged periods.
I’ve been to the middle east (Oman). So many malls there for basically that exact reason. And a friend of mine grew up in Bahrain and said the same.
Same thing in Thailand as well. Malls will never go extinct because they’re air conditioned areas that anyone can enter.
If they can afford the power bill for all of that A/C maybe.
That’s definitely gonna be a locational thing. In my area (near Toronto, Canada), I’d say malls are more popular in the winter because they offer an escape from the cold and there isn’t that much to do in the winter, anyway. Summers in my area aren’t going to get hot enough to change that any time soon.
But for something like Arizona, it’s really easy to picture how that would be the case, cause summers there are murderously hot.
I wonder how such large buildings have such amazing AC, anyway? Most malls and big box stores have god tier AC.
The traditional mall is dying. Mixed use developments are thriving.
I like going to the mall for pretzels
I live in Utah and all of the malls have a shitty knock-off Auntie Anne’s called Pretzelmaker that never fails to disappoint.
That’s not good.
I just went to one of the big nearby malls. It is just off a major highway across the state line, where there is no sales tax. It used to have a guaranteed customer base from my city, just based on tax savings. Admittedly I haven’t been there in 15 years, as driving a pan hour for shopping is something we no longer did with kids. However this weekend I went up there and found boarded up stores and weeds growing in the parking lot.
However the interesting thing was there was tons of surrounding retail built up, so the area is still doing well for shopping, but not the mall. Before anyone asks, no, there were no sidewalks or paths connecting shopping centers.
Anyhow, I think it’s all much simpler than headlines seem to make it: we built out too many malls. Now we have other options from plazas to online, so don’t need so many. I expect the number of malls to stabilize at a point where everyone can still get to one, but that’s not the only place
If there’s retail growth around the mall but not inside it, then it means the mall is overcharging for rent. I’ve seen similar things, and the malls tend to have plenty of empty spaces.
My nearest mall has only survived because it pivoted away from retail and is now almost entirely restaurants.
That sounds kinda cool actually. When you’re hungry and don’t know what you want, just walk around until something sounds good!
I hadn’t been to a mall in a really long time until a friend of mine dragged me to one to kill some time before a thing we had going on later that night. I was surprised how busy it was, and how much it had expanded in terms of content. There were a couple of art galleries and even a little tabletop gaming store with a few people playing Catan. The only area that was kind of deserted was surprisingly the food court, which only had a bubble tea place and a sandwich place open.
I know the one mall in my hometown isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Sure it’s a far cry from what it probably was a long time ago, but it’s still a great place to go.
I hope it doesn’t close because it’s the most convenient place for me to go to get both bubble tea and copies of older manga.
Shout out to your username! The voice in my head sang it as I read it
Most of my bigger local malls have been pretty great, too. Whenever I go, they’re bustling with activity and I love it. It’s fun to make an outing out of it. Hit up the food court for so many guilty pleasure options, look around some cool stores, and be able to try on clothes before buying them (the lack of being the biggest reason not to buy clothes online – some companies have really inconvenient return policies, too).
But that’s definitely not the case for every mall. There’s a small one near me that is just sad. Despite being in a fairly busy area outside, it contain a bunch of empty storefronts that went out of business during COVID and still haven’t found new tenants. I’m not sure why it’s been that way for so long. Are there that few people looking to start businesses in that area? Or could the landlords just be massively overcharging? It sucks, though, cause I like being able to visit interesting shops in person.
The large ‘malls’ here are all seeing to do very well, and those that were previously struggling have seemed to have seen success pivoting away from being just a place to go and ‘buy’ things and into places to ‘do’ and ‘experience’ things.
We millennials have a fascination with mixing alcohol and activities we did growing up, with bowling, mini-golf and ticket arcades doing well by feeding off our nostalgia.
I watched some American Gladiators today. No alcohol was involved, just pure nostalgia
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This bot is annoying.
The current title is still “The US mall is not dying”
