I dunno, man, she wouldn't have much of a crowd to perform to since malls these days are pretty much dead. I'm at a local mall right now (getting a kiosk phone case), but there doesn't seem to be anyone around.

do rezonings not happen?

Just right click on the area and rezone it!

We got time to make it work.

Can't. The goth kids burned it down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OvUDHpPgb4

Dibs on Spencers!

They will come back as the US shifts away from car centered culture, malls thrive in Europe

Yeah, they're trying that around here and failing spectacularly. The recent fascination for new construction in my area seems to be try this "Main Street, USA" shit where they build brutalist flat-roof apartment blocks but with the ground level being retail stores. The rationale seems to be to attempt to build some kind of enclave where people can live, work, and shop without ever having to leave. The only glaring caveats are that the only retail businesses that ever appear here are all shitty franchised fast-casual restaurants where nobody wants to go, with the gaps filled in by the usual parade of payday loan places, cash for gold, crossfit joints that attract no members, and a revolving door of nail salons and wannabe hipster barber shops opening and going out of business.

Notably, none of the retail joints at street level pay enough for anyone working there to afford the astronomical rent for one of the apartments in the same fucking building. These motherfuckers can't even set up a company town correctly...

Yesss, give us community spaces that are not designed around maximizing profits.

I know it's hard to imagine since you've pretty much got to pay to exist anywhere today, but malls were a place to just exist. I spent hours and hours wandering around the mall in the eighties without any money.

Expanding on the thought, it was perfectly ok to be, get this, a TEENAGER existing without any money in a mall!

Elsewhere, someone suggested that it would be necessary to take the rebuild down to the dirt to handle plumbing and the like for individual units, but I'm not sure I agree.

Generally there is significant excess ceiling height in these commercial spaces, no reason the floor couldn't be raised throughout the space to accommodate plumbing and the like in a way that's easily accessible for future maintenance. You still end up with 8' ceilings (or probably rather more) throughout.

Over the years, I've watched a number of retail chains and malls die, sometimes suddenly and sometimes slowly. It's continuously seemed like a huge waste to me, when conversion to residential space would be relatively easy, relatively affordable, could be funded by local gov or nonprofit, and would make a significant difference in net housing costs in a given area.

When 'traditional' residential developers are competing with that, and with the ability to slap down standard-sized (AKA easy) risers/walls/etc. within commercial spaces of defined sizes, a further reduction in local housing costs is likely.

In a city in my country there was an old mall that was slowly taken over by bands who used the spaces as rehearsal rooms. It gained a huge following including some local big bands and concerts. They all paid rent too. Unfortunately, early this year, they were evicted by the owner and City Hall, out of nowhere and are on its way to become airbnb's for tourists...

Nothing new...