Malls and department stores closing down at alarming rate

[Kabluey]

I figured people concerned about global warming would be happy about on line/Internet shopping.

It still gets freighted, and the faster the delivery, the more carbon emitted (comparing the fuel use of air freight and small vans versus large trucks and ships)

 

[vulgar_newcomer]

That mall doesn't look that exciting to me.
Open space with trees are nicer.

Not in Minnesota 8 months out of the year.

 

[belamyi]

It still gets freighted, and the faster the delivery, the more carbon emitted (comparing the fuel use of air freight and small vans versus large trucks and ships)

But you still have to consider all the pollution emitted in the process of construction of the mall, then by its maintenance, plus the delivery in the stores there... online shopping is not supposed to change anything in a system that is ultimately about serving a customer at great environmental costs, only reduce some more or less redundant intermediaries.

 

[Gentleheart]

Personally, I just don't like having to be around/deal with people whenever I don't have to. If I know exactly what I want...I will buy it online. I'm sure there are lots of people who feel similarly.

Also, there doesn't seem to be much variety anymore regarding the kinds of stores available. I'm not a big clothing person, so I won't bother going to a mall/outlet or whatever if all they have are a bunch of clothing stores. boring.

 

[Latimer]

However, in some markets they're flourishing:
Simon's Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto (Silicon Valley) is expanding.
The Australian powerhouse Westridge is expanding their premier property in Los Angeles in Century City (adjacent to Beverly Hills), and building a new mall at Topanga Place. They're also expanding in San Diego, San Jose (Silicon Valley, again) and Bethesda, Maryland (Washington D.C., always prosperous). And they're adding another mall outside of London, and a new one outside of Milan.
Macerich completely redid their Santa Monica property a few years ago and it's booming.
In the existing malls that are being renovated and/or expanded, the down-market tenants are kicked out, replaced by up-market ones.
I read in today's NYT that Tehran is experiencing a boom in the construction of luxury malls, where prosperous Iranians can shop in peace and feel a part of Western consumer culture.

 

[Kulindahr]

Indeed the future seems more about atomization of self-relying communities, than about punctual catalysts at big venues of families under a big corporated nation.

Did you just say it takes a village?

 

[Kulindahr]

Malls were great!

You could go there and buy stuff, and you got it the same day!

Not just that, you could spend a day at some. There was one that had three theaters, a bowling alley, a food court with two dozen outlets overlooking a skating rink, the skating rink itself, two coffee shops, a laundromat, among something on the order of two hundred businesses, all wrapped around a core that had miniature parks at intervals down the middle, including one restricted to toddlers. You could go put your laundry it to be washed, play some miniature golf or go bowling, come back and move your laundry to driers (or pay a small extra amount for the attendant to do it), get lunch, finish your laundry and take it to the car, see a movie, wander between mini-parks, sit and chat in a coffee shop, and even do some shopping, all under one roof.

 

[belamyi]

However, in some markets they're flourishing:
Simon's Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto (Silicon Valley) is expanding.
The Australian powerhouse Westridge is expanding their premier property in Los Angeles in Century City (adjacent to Beverly Hills), and building a new mall at Topanga Place. They're also expanding in San Diego, San Jose (Silicon Valley, again) and Bethesda, Maryland (Washington D.C., always prosperous). And they're adding another mall outside of London, and a new one outside of Milan.
Macerich completely redid their Santa Monica property a few years ago and it's booming.
In the existing malls that are being renovated and/or expanded, the down-market tenants are kicked out, replaced by up-market ones.
I read in today's NYT that Tehran is experiencing a boom in the construction of luxury malls, where prosperous Iranians can shop in peace and feel a part of Western consumer culture.

That's what has been said before, in and out of this thread, about the changes in malls everywhere: what is in crisis is the mall and big shopping centers in general as centers of consumerism for anybody and anywhere, mainly middle and lower classes, while upscale or very specific projects developed by powerful companies are booming, oriented to a very specific, more profitable part of the market.

In fact, that leads us to the general trend of the economy: in the post-war model, that of the old malls and shopping centers, the strategy was that of proselytism, to call for everybody to jump in the wagon and make profit by adding cent to cent, which in fact was the way of the first greater centers, from the French and British first department stores in the industrial, second half of the XIXth century, to the Woolworths and Wal Marts in America, while today projects are developed following optimization and targeting consumers who throw you directly in a bulkier and more profitable balance sheet.

That gives you one reason of why I always say that the XXth century is on its last legs, is also what can give you a better understanding of what is behind that catchphrase of the middle class being squeezed, and of the wealth gap widening, and what is giving you an idea of what the real XXIst century would be about.

In any case, apart from all that, when in considering those new and more or less ambitious developments, you do not need to believe they are meant to be thought as investments in the long term...

 

[borg69unimatrix]

http://www.returnofkings.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mall-Cop-Mall-of-America.jpg

Why is this picture link in this thread pinging my virus protector???

 

[Kulindahr]

However, in some markets they're flourishing:
Simon's Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto (Silicon Valley) is expanding.
The Australian powerhouse Westridge is expanding their premier property in Los Angeles in Century City (adjacent to Beverly Hills), and building a new mall at Topanga Place. They're also expanding in San Diego, San Jose (Silicon Valley, again) and Bethesda, Maryland (Washington D.C., always prosperous). And they're adding another mall outside of London, and a new one outside of Milan.
Macerich completely redid their Santa Monica property a few years ago and it's booming.
In the existing malls that are being renovated and/or expanded, the down-market tenants are kicked out, replaced by up-market ones.
I read in today's NYT that Tehran is experiencing a boom in the construction of luxury malls, where prosperous Iranians can shop in peace and feel a part of Western consumer culture.

Yep.

I don't recall where it was, but I read an article last year about a mall that was expanding both out and up: they took a little neighboring cul-de-sac shopping center under their roof (literally) plus sticking out a new wing opposite it, and added several third-floor extensions for offices such as legal services, and others holding apartments (where people with jobs at the mall got first dibs).

I read about another that is close enough to a light rail station that they're considering running a walkway from the mall's second floor over to the station, about a parking lot and a street, with maybe small stores along the sides of the walkway, basically making covered parking below an extension.

 

[belamyi]

http://www.returnofkings.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mall-Cop-Mall-of-America.jpg

Why is this picture link in this thread pinging my virus protector???

Because your virus protector is a hippy/communist/anti-American/whatever hates the big symbols of the capital?

 

[belamyi]

That's what has been said before, in and out of this thread, about the changes in malls everywhere: what is in crisis is the mall and big shopping centers in general as centers of consumerism for anybody and anywhere, mainly middle and lower classes, while upscale or very specific projects developed by powerful companies are booming, oriented to a very specific, more profitable part of the market.

In fact, that leads us to the general trend of the economy: in the post-war model, that of the old malls and shopping centers, the strategy was that of proselytism, to call for everybody to jump in the wagon and make profit by adding cent to cent, which in fact was the way of the first greater centers, from the French and British first department stores in the industrial, second half of the XIXth century, to the Woolworths and Wal Marts in America, while today projects are developed following optimization and targeting consumers who throw you directly in a bulkier and more profitable balance sheet.

That gives you one reason of why I always say that the XXth century is on its last legs, is also what can give you a better understanding of what is behind that catchphrase of the middle class being squeezed, and of the wealth gap widening, and what is giving you an idea of what the real XXIst century would be about.

In any case, apart from all that, when in considering those new and more or less ambitious developments, you do not need to believe they are meant to be thought as investments in the long term...

LAST ADDITION, DAMN STUPID TEN-MINUTE RULE:... but always, as pointed out before, ventures following big and quick profit, ignoring what corpses and what debt may be left on the beach for others to deal with it.

 

[The Fly]

The MOA isn't hurting for business. People fly here just to shop there. It has movie theatres, dozens of restaurants (not counting several food courts) A comedy Club, Giant Aquarium, there's alot to do and see................I just don't want to be around jillions of people.

 

[JPGhost]

There's always plenty of people there....that's why I avoid it. Supposedly on any given weekend it becomes the 3rd largest city in the state. They have a indoor amusement park, Camp Snoopy, and their own police dept.......and they need it, the place is full of criminals, mostly kids.

We're kids in America Woo.. 2x Woo!!

I bet that mall is TOO STRONG to be bulldozed
as a part of American culture

- - - Updated - - -

Good.

They were the cultural Black Holes of America anyway.

Not that one..

 

[JPGhost]

The West Edmonton Mall is very impressive too. I haven't been in 10 years and I'm sure it changed a lot since then, but it was very impressive back then. The water park was awesome, and the variety of high quality stores was amazing! The HMV in the mall is fantastic too. I easily found a variety of CDs I could never find in any local music store (without ordering them in).

Here's some photos of the mall.

That's sooo crazy! Water Park inside the mall!!

B..b..b..but - you don't get to ride the roller coaster, then!

Yes, when Im a kid. I never forget the first mall in Indonesia with indoor roller coaster..bring back good memory

 

[JPGhost]

I forgot to mention they build a shopping center here with Target,Kohl's,and a few other small stores so I'm sure that took a good chunk away from the mall business.

That's what I and most people experience too right now.We going out because we have to buy something from our list!! If it's not grocery, then something for our home furnishing..to exact. Why dont we going out just because we trying to get new atmosphere/ getaway from our daily life just like what we got from the mall?..Like the olden days?
Isn't life becoming too fixed these days? People programmed like machine? Isn't not fun?

 

[JPGhost]

That looks like shopping hell to me!

lol..isn't like Dante Inferno's 7 levels of hell?
You just need to up and down the escalator ^^

 

[JPGhost]

Right now, it is a losing battle. Online shopping continues to show growth, and popularity. Are there advantages to shopping at a store than online? In my opinion, yes. I like to physically pick up, look at, and compare merchandise before I buy it. However, there is a wealth of product information to be found online, these days, and a well-educated consumer can effectively make good decisions about products they are purchasing online, too. I think that there will be a "brick and mortar" market continuing in the future, but it will be much more limited in size and selection. Online stores are now providing a depth and selection that continues to grow.

I read that brick and mortar market would be a safe haven for older generation...to hang out and some malls still open because of them while kids and teenagers moved to other spot to hang out. My 15 yo sister even not hanging out in the mall, somehow I noticed that even for teenagers; mall is branded as uncool

 

[JPGhost]

That mall doesn't look that exciting to me.
Open space with trees are nicer.

You can put huge trees inside a mall

 

[JPGhost]

In one way, making a mall survive is pretty much turning it into an arcology, a contained community where everything is right at hand. Some people still think that arcologies are the future -- maybe malls can lead the way... though they'd have to be big ones; I think small ones are doomed.

I have feeling..if not because we're having colony in Mars then concept of Mall won't flourish anytime soon. The thing is..people become disconnected with a concept of mall shopping (including its lifestyle) because of the online shopping. However, when we're in tight/compact environment..concept of mall is definitely gonna get going.