My current job is in an office/call center that used to be a Famous Barr at a mall. It's funny, I worked in that mall as a teen/early 20's. Now I'm back working at the fucking mall XD (tho now I'm provisioning telephone service and processing telecom orders, not sweeping up in a movie theater or trying to upsell people at a shop)
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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As other people have mentioned, this can be a hard problem.
However, malls are typically surrounded by massive amounts of space used for parking. There is a plan for the largest mall in my region to convert all of that land into residential spaces, 2000 apartments. The parking will be moving underground.
Seems like a decent idea to me.
Would be even better if instead of 2000 apartments, it was something like 1100 condos, then the rest split between offices, shops (including groceries), parks, and some sort of community recreation center. Do the same with the surrounding area, changing up the specialties of the locations a bit so that it's worth it to leave your mall-sized area and visit others.
Then set up a mass transit system that goes between them, including consideration for people wanting to move large purchases like furniture and appliances, like one of the cars on the train has large doors, collapsible seats, and hardware for securing things too big for one person to safely hold. Or set up a parallel delivery system for things while the people ride the delivery system for people.
Then you don't need the underground to go to parking and can increase the density of the area or put more space towards parks and recreation.
Welcome to many parts of Europe, you are invited to come visit any time :)
Yeah the malls themselves are hard to convert. Ditto for those unused office buildings downtown. Takes a lot of work to change commercial space into residential.
Easier to start from scratch, honestly. Those empty parking lots make it simple to put up medium density housing, and then put commercial spaces back into the mall. Aka the Reston Town Center model.
Maybe 10 or so years ago, was a real push to convert old malls into apartments or low income housing. Turns out it's not that easy. Those buildings were built with minimal plumbing, just a few public restrooms and limited water service for the food court. There's just not enough water/sewer to supply more than a small handful of apartments. You'd have to tear up significant portions of the building to run all new plumbing for all the kitchens & bathrooms. And that assumes the underlying city infrastructure that runs to the mall could even support the new water & sewage demands in the first place.
I'll grant you, it is a cool idea. It's just not nearly as simple as it sounds.
As a millenial, all I want is the LAN party old folks home.
Good riddance
If my retirement home has Dance Dance Revolution, I may just have to get myself a new hip.
Gotta stay active!
I absolutely hate malls in Russia. I'd prefer them all demolished and replaced with grass, but this seems a valid option too.
There's a mall in my city that's currently under construction, but I have a feeling it'll be forgotten the week after it opens.
And this is the FIRST mall in my city.
I'm surprised they're building more after watching so many die and rot.
In some places they still make sense. In a place where one can be built relatively close to a number of well off suburbs, while being closer than more urban area commercial districts, malls are still doing alright. The hey day of malls being in every suburb is dead though.
My country doesn't have many malls to begin with. The only one I've been to is in Casablanca.
I do not live in Casablanca.
A working exemplar of the original vision is still functioning beautifully: "The Grove Arcade" in Asheville, NC.
I've seen some concepts for mall-like communities based around retirement homes and elementary schools. Add a library, some shops, and other services, and you're off to a great start.
The old-but-still-able folks can serve as crossing guards, read books to kids, play games with them, perhaps help with coaching or other tasks, etc.. The young kids benefit from the wisdom and time spent with good role models, the retirees get much-needed social interaction, structure, and purpose.
A man can dream.
Add a library
In the US? Lol. Certainly not a public library.
Would probably end up with like, "Sbarro™ Presents: The ~~Public~~ Library - an interactive replica of what a late 20th century library is thought to have looked like. Sponsored by *Nestlé Global™. Nestlé: The Good Food, Good Life Company" [yes apparently that's their actual slogan. ew]
"On your left, you will see the Children's section. Notice the abundance of sexually explicit "homoporn". These materials were created with the specific intent of homosexualizing straight young men. This section was a hotbed for degenerates of all types. As you can see, libraries would have drag queens and trans evangelists at each corner to harass normal hardworking folks and turning their kids queer (it's on their agenda). Similarly, Satanists would lurk in the shadows beckoning toward libtard parents who would willingly give their children to them in order to be sacrificed to Moloch to be drained of their ~~precious bodily fluids~~ adrenochrome, and their flesh ritualistically consumed in the massive labyrinthine tunnels connecting the basements of every non-chain pizza restaurant across this nation. Luckily, this is just a replica, so no need to be scared folks. Well of this. You should still be scared of the Jews"
Sorry I had to stop myself or I would have gone on forever lol. Got a little carried away there... For some reason your comment elicited some imagery of what a Snow Crash type world would look like if it were this current reality/timeline. Corporate owned, walled-off enclaves/exclaves, private roads, carrying a katana while delivering pizzas... Man what a book, might be time to re-read.
Edit: If i would have continued after the part about all locally owned pizza shop basements being connected by tunnels...
"Believe it or not, the evil doesn't stop there. I will give y'all a moment to sit down for this one... are you ready? OK. These dens of sin and debauchery were free of charge. I know, it's absolutely disgusting. To steal the money I made by myself without the aid of anyone else and to spend it on a place like this? Unthinkable. Different times, folks. Before the purges, of course.
Luckily for us, the evils of state-run libraries are a thing of the past! Only materials pre-approved by the Yum! Brands Ministry of Offensive Literature will appear on our shelves (until their contract runs out, at which time the free market will guide us to a new sponsor).
Now for today's interactive demonstration: As a parting gift, we're given you copies of the recent KFC™/Taco Bell™ Magazine bestseller, "The Fountainhead For Kidz: Ayn Rand is Ayn Rad!" everyone look under your seats! Oh, what's that? There are only 3 copies total, but there are 18 of you on this tour? What would John Galt do?"
"Please remember to visit one of our numerous high-fee ATMs on the way out to be sure you have enough cash before leaving, because if you can't afford the toll on the Nestlé 405 [yes, they own pretty much everything in this fictional scenario], , otherwise you will not be able to physically reach your home until you can pay. If you choose to use the road without paying, and you use the road anyway, it'll be only hours before the Nestlé/Yum Brands joint task force on toll enforcement come and break down your door (which you'll have to reimburse your landlord for) and shoot your endangered pet red panda to count as payment for the transgression of driving for free on a road...
Stupid brain... Stop.
Ridiculous.
That makes way too much sense.
I kind of like having windows where i live although it could be cool to live in a gamestop
Live under one of the skylights
In other countries, malls are still alive and well. In Philippines, that is where people literally chill in a hot tropical climate because of 24/7 air conditioning!
Malls are also seen as a sign of progress and modernity for many developing countries, so there is some cultural expectations to building and maintaining malls.
In US, we way overbuilt malls. There’s just too many. While I’m not a fan (shopping is not a destination, and I want to get it done as quickly as possible), I’m not entirely convinced they’re dying here either. Some people do like shopping and some people like the community experience. 3/4 of malls need to die, but we’ll see if it settles on a more sustainable number, or if online shopping ate their face
In the US we’re having a bit of a crisis of “third places”. Where do people hang out as a community? Where do you go? So many newly built suburbs don’t have any approximation of town center or community places. Malls served that need for a few decades, but many are going away. Now we’re trying to replace malls with “shopping districts”, basically rebuilding town centers that too many suburbs never had…. Plus they seem to be just a mall with less roof
There's a mall near where I live that's still pretty rad. I go there sometimes
It's funny you think millenials can afford to retire at 60
We have to get it ready for the Xers first, then we can start to move in once we hit 86 or so.
But keep the appearance of a mall.
That way when we all have Alzheimer's from micro plastics, we can wander around it and feel young
If I could buy a large abandoned mall, I would absolutely love to turn it into an affordable community housing complex where shops can be set up alongside the housing units. There's definitely more than enough space in any mall I've ever been to in America where you could easily renovate and turn stores into either single unit housing or maybe 2-3 units (big stores like JCPenney or Sears not included in this count because you could turn those into tens upon tens of units, assuming they're as big as the ones at the mall near where I live).
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