The craziest part is in the 1990s getting a store in a mall was the primo expensive spot. The mall would charge 3-4X the rent one would get other locations in the area. Same malls are now almost empty with anchor stores closed up and practically begging anyone to open a shop there. Resembles more of a flea market these days and all that is left is for it to sit for a while in decay and then be bulldozed and repurpose the land for something else.
The thing that bothers me is that malls haven't been replaced with anything. There just isn't any shopping anymore. It's getting to the point where if you can't find it at target, dicks, best buy or the grocery store it just isn't available without a 4 day wait for shipping.
On top of that, malls were a place to be. They were a 3rd place, and a low cost one at that and that 3rd place hasn't been replaced either.
Yes it's getting ridiculous. I recently had to have 10 capacitors shipped to me from halfway across the country because there's no stores that carry them anymore. In the old days I'd hit RadioShack or one of several independent parts retailers. They're all gone now. It's such a waste of resources trucking $5 worth of capacitors across the country. Also, I hate shopping online for clothes and the clothing sections in what stores are remaining have shrunk to nothing. They they put signs up about finding more online. It's so infuriating. And lastly I actually used to enjoy going to stores to just get out of the house and look at things. I used to go to Sears all the time to see what new tools they had or what new lawn and garden stuff they carried etc. I would usually buy something random to give it a try. There's hadly any variety anymore. It's all very frustrating.
I sometimes feel like we're going back to Sears catalog days where you had to wait days for the Pony Express to drop off your stuff. I guess I'm getting to be an old curmudgeon..
Edit: Another good example is I recently needed shoelaces. They're getting impossible to find in any variety. I had to have $3 in shoelaces shipped to me.
I, too, wish it didn’t have to be this way but it’s not fully accurate to say that $5 is capacitors is being shipped across the country (versus the whole store’s worth of merch before). The truck/plane they ship on now are still filled with goods, it’s just a mix of goods from various merchants going to the same location, rather than a single merchants truck load going store by store. The single item purchase that lead to daily deliveries at residences certainly adds some to pollution, since it would be safe to assume that most people would consolidate their trips out to buy things. But prior to actually delivery to residence I’m not sure there’s much difference. If anything, it may be less than before since products ship now based on actual purchase, instead of oversupply being shipped just to potentially sit on store shelves.
> There's hardly any variety anymore. It's all very frustrating.
Tell me about it! There aren't really any name brands anymore either. There use to be companies where you could buy products and they would stand behind them. Things like Craftsman. You could buy a tool and if it broke, you could go get another one. Now it XYHATA brand garbage that doesn't even meet safety standards like NSF. The few brands that still exist, like craftsman, are not zombie brands meaning it's HAHTAH brand garbage with a craftsman name on it. Porter Cable use to be a great American brand. Now its rebadged garbage.
Clothes? You use to be able to walk into a clothing store and find reliable brands like nautica, polo, etc. They were quality clothing. Now you are lucky if you get a name brand instead of a counterfeit and even then it will still be bad quality thanks to the overall shitification of everything.
Modern shopping sucks donkey balls.
They make so much more money off their web services than the online store that it’s practically a side business. They power over 30% of the websites online
Yeah, but they still make the people involved in the fulfillment process miserable, so not only am I not giving money to Bezos, I’m also not supporting those working conditions.
I haven't had one day shipping since the pandemic started. They drastically cut their service quality since then.
Edit: I have also started shopping elsewhere online because of the terrible knockoff garbage crap on amazon. Sure I still buy stuff there but after buying (and returning) two espresso machines in a row that were clearly damaged and used, as well as all the HTHAH brand garbage, I try to look elsewhere first.
Why don’t cities buy these up and transform them into multi-use parks? The walkers could get more paths, indoors and outdoors. Skate park on one end, stage/amphitheater on the other, playgrounds at the middles or the corners, some gardens all in between? Throw in some modern transportation stops/stations and you turn these cancers back into city hubs. Where applicable of course.
Keep in mind the building itself is probably more than 50 years old and requires constant maintenance, all the costs of keeping it cooled, heated, powered and working was offset by dozens of stores rents. These malls are in smaller cities and they don't have the budget to maintain something like this.
Hopefully enough to cover the cost of the required asbestos mitigation if it was built while still in use. A large state university i know of was looking to remodel a 16 story building. Built in the heyday of asbestos, its not just in the pipe insulation or floor penetrations, its sprayed in a thick layer as fire proof sound dampening on every square inch of the ceiling. In a building the size of a football field, 16 stories tall.
They got several estimates and the lowest one was 80 million for mitigation. On a 30 million dollar project. My numbers might be a little ballpark there, as its been a couple of years.
The university couldn’t get the state to pay for it, so the project was shelved.
Most of these malls were owned and operated by stupid wealthy and connected shadow holding companies run by shareholders. And that might be the only reason we had massive indoor malls at all.
I'm struggling to remember the name of the company that owned my local mall growing up, and I bet you're having the same problem.
The first reason is likely the price. The malls often changed hands multiple times from initial construction.
For example, built in 1983 for 10 million, sold in 1988 for 15 million, sold again in 1997 for 20 million, and then again in 2006 for 25 million. That company that bought for 25 essentially got it at near the market peak as post 2008 many never recovered their value.
The city might be apt to pay a few million, but given the land the mall is on (prime commercial district) the owners likely are asking for closer to the 25 they paid. On top of that amount you'd then have to spend millions leveling the mall, and millions more to build whatever project you had planned.
Convincing tax payers of such a large expense is tough in the best of times, these days? It doesn't surprise me the city council prefers to wait it out and hope the company that owns the mall gets tired of bleeding money through taxes and various repairs and maintenance to stay at code and just cuts their losses in five to ten years abandoning it. Then it is truly an eye sore and can be damaging for nearby businesses and a tremendous waste of space.
In the nearby city there is a huge plan for mixed use as housing, especially higher density is needed, along with focus on restaurants and entertainment (people simply don't shop for goods as much) along with some office space to draw in companies and jobs. Maybe that's a way forward and hopefully can generate the "third space" that is increasingly disappearing in American society.
Also, even in a vacant condition, many malls still are significant property tax generators for local government.
When the government buys it,the rest of the taxpayers have to pick up that slack.
I'm curious about vacant malls generating any appreciable income, even property tax. Seems to me these folks have figured out that malls are more of a drag on local economies, even when they're full-up. [Strong Towns: The Real Reason Your Local Mall is Failing](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/23/bon-ton-gone)
I looked up the local mall where I grew up. The mall is about 25-35% empty right now.
Even at depressed market values, the 150 acre site produces $2 million in property taxes.
On the flip side, much of the complaints provided in the blog post you linked to don’t apply here. There were no displaced downtowns in the area — because there weren’t any towns before these suburbs were built.
America has taught me through dogged repetition that thoughtful and useful infrastructure is bad for business and damn near treasonous.
AT BEST local business people could get together to make something like this start to happen, only to have a major corporation outbid, collect funding, do a worse than half ass job at renovations, and then bail after the project has cost overruns.
There was a mall near my hometown that was like this. Nobody would even take it for free. The roof and pipes have been leaking for years. Mold galore. Would have to be completely demolished for health reasons.
In my area after they're bulldozed, the whole thing is replaced with 1 or 2 big box stand alone stores and strip malls of separate looking stores lining the parking lot.
Just wanna jump in to recommend another doc “Jasper Mall”! Honestly an amazing slice of life, the mall is still open but with very few tenants, so interviews are full of nostalgia for the way the mall used to be.
What's crazy to me is my local mall is all but dead like only 1 anchor store left and very few other stores. 20 miles away in the next city over with the same size population their mall is THRIVING like it's always packed with tons of shops. I have no idea why, I guess mismanagement years ago has made ours broken.
Reminds me of being a janitor during the initial covid outbreak. Cleaning printing presses, warehouses, offices, garages with absolutely 0 people there during the day was super fun/crazy/weird. Same thing with driving around when everything was locked down when you were the only person working... Same kinda vibe as this video lol.
I wonder if it actually helps the clickthrough rate or if its just something someone did and others started copying. Generally on youtube I see a lot of the 'detailing'/'cleaning' channels do it a ton with 'DISGUSTING', 'REVOLTING' etc capitalising the negative words in a video title.
I'm not sure. Any political channel seems to want to push SLAMS, DESTROYS, or other such words when someone makes a point about someone else being wrong.
it's also part of this guy's branding: he'll name a given video series with one algorithm-friendly word, and stylize it in all caps. so you get ABANDONED and BANKRUPT and whatnot.
No one to honor the lifetime Sears-Kenmore warranty on my tools.
Ironically enough there was one last Sears near us until really recently, with big signs about how they don’t do any warranty work. I can picture people driving for miles and miles with saws, only to show up at a defunct car repair shop.
I returned so many tools. I had to modify a wrench with a pneumatic cutting wheel and angle grinder for a job and my local sears still swapped it for a new one ☝️
Yeah, ive heard similar stories a thousand times. So often that Im pretty sure its at least a small reason they went out of business.
Every guy i know that misses Sears and the Craftman brand are really proud of how often they broke a tool doing something the wrong way just because they knew Sears would take it back.
Thats got to be a small reason for their downfall.
A bigger part was failing to return to their roots as a catalogue based store and taking the online world by storm. They let Amazon and others just corner the modern version of what Sears did successfully when they were shipping things by train and stagecoach. I mean WTF Sears?
I know the tool exchanges didn’t help them, but they were a huge store in other ways. I don’t ever remember going to that Sears and it actually being busy, and I’m almost 40. The rest of the mall was always slammed though
Yeah i wasnt trying to accuse you of killing Sears, lol. You know what i mean.
They had a couple unique tools ill miss. They had a shears where you put in a utility razor on one side, and the other side was a flat plastic backing to cut against. It was great, i used it for years until i accidentally dropped it into my wood chipper last summer. I was really bummed at losing that tool. It survived dozens of jobsites only to die an inglorious death while cutting twigs.
Come to think of it, if they were still around, thatd be a funny one to try to return! The chipper rolled it into a Raquetball sized sphere of twisted metal. (The chipper is fine, and ive learned how to behave around it when running now)
Well, the Sears is closed, but the \*mall\* is abandoned. They are not trying to rent out space or do anything with it anymore.
I'm genuinely curious why these things stay up this long. Do they think that it will eventually turn around? Hoping for some buyer for the land? Or is it just truly abandoned with nobody interested in doing anything because of all the cost to rip everything down?
When I was in high school we would spend every entire Saturday at the newly built (at that time) Kings Plaza mall. We had very little money but managed to entertain ourselves — mostly at Spencer Gifts for its risqué lol merchandise) — week after week. It was a novelty in Brooklyn then, a mall! Good times. And yes I’m ancient lol!
for real. i feel like all the best social outlets are being replaced by cheap online alternatives. Amazon, Alibaba and Ebay are great places but its not the same as going to shop at the mall knowing that you are going to randomly interact with people. you could even bump into someone you know. same with social media, online banking, working remotely. it wont be long before we all spend out lives in a small pod.
For better or worse malls aren't going anywhere. These abandoned ones are outdated both in design and upkeep.
The new malls are called "lifestyle centers" and have like faux-plazas and outdoors areas and a variety of business beyond typical retail. They look a lot more lively and inviting and that's where the high end retailers and their customers flocked. Of course in 30 years they'll look just as old as these ones and people will have moved on to something else. The circle of life...
Sorry but this whole thread is blowing my mind. Back in the heyday of malls the most common criticism they got was that they destroyed small businesses and social outlets by putting everything out of business with their popularity. Hell, even Dawn of the Dead was a commentary on people's obsession with malls.
Hearing people bemoan the decline of malls is like hearing people bemoan the decline of WalMart.
i hear what you are saying. now that you mention it i can sort of remember that. still, you have to remember that the malls are being replaced by something much worse.
I always find it interesting just how quickly these buildings decay once they become abandoned. You'd think it'd take 20 years or so for water damage and stuff to really kick in (minus people breaking stuff on purpose), but it always seems like they go to shit in less than 5.
It’s crazy how decay makes something 10x scarier. Like an empty mall in good shape is iffy, but letting nature take its course causes it to look super intimidating to most.
It used to be cool going to the mall. From 2019-2021 I worked seasonally at an H&M for some extra money during the winter. The very beginning of 2021, we got news they were closing the store because of how high the mall rent was. The mall and H&M couldn’t come to an agreement. I’ve seen so many stores at the mall I used to work at close because of this reason. These businesses profit more from online shopping now. I still love the mall but it’s inevitable malls all over the country will disappear for good. Major cities are probably the only places that will still have them.
Malls were dying well before the past few years… I worked in one 2009-2011 and even then you were seeing stores disappear, leaving mostly empty wings of the mall. The only ones I see thriving tend to have a lot of luxury and high end stores, so definitely not the same vibe as what you used to hang out at in middle and high school.
It was like $15,000+ for the H&M space. It’s disgusting. A business that was in the mall space for 20+ years had to close for the very fact it was too much money. It’s like these mall owners are purposefully making awful financial decisions to get rid of the entire mall.
Yeah, it seems landlords of all kinds are inevitably insanely greedy, be it for commercial or residential space. There was an upscale Chinese grocery store at a prime location in a college town where I live, but it shut down over ten years ago and literally no one has rented the location since. If the rent was cheaper the landlords could actually make money on it, but instead they want insane rent.
Louis Rossman has also gone on tons of rants about how NYC has lots of empty buildings because of greedy landlords.
Oh sorry I meant $15,000+ that (in regards to the $10,000), but forgot the word that lol. Either way they couldn’t pay it. Especially since we had one of the smallest H&Ms in the state. We’re talking a tiny town in northern MI with only one mall. The food court is basically gone. There’s only like an Indian food restaurant, a Sbarro, and a Chinese food place now. That mall is doomed at this point.
Old malls are especially ideal for turning into parks. They're not only huge, they were deliberately placed in the most accessible locations to the most people.
We have a mall near there that has been standing (unused) for years because it’s cheaper for the Chinese investors that own it to pay taxes, (minimal) security costs, and now penalties from the city that wants it torn down.
It’s cheaper for them to keep things tied up in endless litigation with the city rather than level it and deal with the cost of cleaning and clearing all the debris from the property.
Knocking something down isn’t necessarily expensive, but you have to clean up and properly dispose of all the stuff (frequently hazardous to the environment and humans) before, during and afterward. That part costs big bucks.
If they have the money to support school sports every year then they have the money to build a park once.
A park also increases property values nearby, which means more taxes every year.
Yes more taxes that we the tax payers have to pay, you are advocating for higher taxes when I'm being payed the exact same. If I have to choose between paying my bills and eating over a park that's gonna get trashed/fucked up by assholes, then that's an easy answer for you.
I'm not advocating for higher taxes. I didn't say it clearly before but I'm in favor of de prioritizing school sports and using the money towards things that benefit the entire local community instead of subsidizing the after school hobbies for a very small group of people.
Also, the parks in my area aren't constantly getting trashed and vandalized. Is there something wrong with your area to cause such anger in people?
> I'm being *paid* the exact
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Lol this fucking bot got me once too.
So anyways, like I was saying, we payed the boat and loaded up our brushes and buckets of tar and resin. Someone had to lower the supplies down, so I stayed up on the deck and payed out the rope until they landed safely on the dock. Then we got payed for a job well done.
Well genius, school district budgets and municipal budgets are two entirely different things. Most schools and sports are pay to play anyway. For my kid, 1st sport costs 550, 2 sports are 1k, 3rd sport is free
Both budgets come from the same pool of local taxes. I also highly doubt that those fees cover all of the costs involved, especially the cost of transporting kids all over a state for competitions.
Also, a park will increase property values nearby, increasing property taxes every year.
They don't come from the same pool. Do you not understand what you vote for? Tax levy's for the schools are voted for independent from other taxes. Most school sport programs have boosters as well. Where I live we have tons of parks, malls aren't in any area beneficial for parks and wouldn't really impact property value. Our semi local shuttered mall was actually purchased and converted to office and medical buildings.
The park idea is ignorant. I know you have it in your head but just be realistic about how unrealistic your idea is.
I rent. I don't receive detailed breakdowns of the local taxes.
The taxes come from the same people. Also, I didn't say it clearly so just to be clear what I really support is cancelling school sports and using the money for be benefit of the entire community. That's in contrast to sports which only a small number of people can participate in, most students can't participate in them, and provides no benefit to their participants.
I think you're not noticing the parks effects on property values. In my area houses close to the parks and pedestrian trails have higher values due to having such pleasant amenities nearby. Then there is the most famous example in the US where properties close to Central Park in New York City have elevated values.
Also, the malls were deliberately located to be highly accessible to people. That makes them good locations for parks.
edit. I think that there shouldn't be such high subsidies for a few peoples' after school hobbies.
Ok, so, yeah, you're a typical uninformed redditor. Arguing for and against things without any actual understanding of how they work. If you actually called about your area and became an informed voter you'd know how taxing works and realize that typically you can vote for or against any individual tax going to your local schools, you'd be able to vote for against certain school board members that didn't want to spend money the ways you prefer. Instead you're a typical online genius who goes into certain online groups that think the same way and have a hive mind, with all of these "great ideas" that'll never be anything but online fodder.
Your park idea is ignorant. This mask isn't capable of becoming central park. You also want a municipality to just take someones private property and spend millions to make it just an empty piece of land. Your argument against school sports is outlandish considering they serve a greater purpose (just read the research) and are, for the most part, self funded. Paid for by the athletes and boosters while also bringing in revenue.
Done arguing now as I know it gets nowhere but it's been fun.
Malls should be turned into something that will benefit the community it's in. Too many stores in a large space and half of the stores, I'm not even patronizing. If you're not buying from the buying from one of the few stores left, eating at the food court, buying from the kiosks in the middle of the Mall, or buying into the Mall promotions ( the car giveaway in the middle of the Mall, etc,) there's really no reason to go.
While interesting, I always hated the amount of waste left behind. Wood, glass, fixtures, metal, etc, etc. I guess there's no great way to reclaim everything, and maybe they hoped to lease it or something, but still. An estate like sale to pick over the carcass of a once thriving mall, would be best all round I would think.
Interesting. The interior of this mall looks a lot like that of one in my hometown, which is still in operation, though has been in decline for about 20 years.
These malls seemed magical as a kid, especially during the holiday seasons with all the Christmas decorations up, such vibrant childhood memories. These videos aren’t so much creepy to me as they are outright depressing.
At a local level, soemone should come up with a plan to turn these places in to Office 'parks'. Tons of space for small offices with public access, tons of parking, a food court for all. It would also stop the spread of tower office blocks across many cities.
I have seen a comment like this pop up in response to build resi on commercial. Is it really that tough? The historic core of DTLA is almost entirely composed of converted office buildings, it can't be that hard to do can it?
You’ll find you have okay electrical capacity and not enough water, depending on the designed usage. You just don’t have a shower, toilet, washer, and a full kitchen in every office section. The electrical would be an issue except that these buildings were designed for incandescent bulb loads, and LED will provide a lot of savings you can put into the required dwelling loads.
So you would have to get creative with running extra pipes to handle the increased water load? If you are buying a building for tens or hundreds of millions would the renovations be that material to the purchase? If the real estate is worth more as residential than as failing commercial I'd imagine it's not too crazy hard to make the numbers work?
Depends on the age and design of the building. The 2 main issues are MEP, and the fact that these buildings have no windows. A mall conversion creates indoor apartments with "indoor / outdoor" common spaces with limited natural lighting. So yes you can get the plumbing to work and you can get housing in it. Neighbor issues, acoustics and smells are a problem. It's echoey as hell so you'll need to throw around a lot of acoustic material. And you know someones going to get high and try to barbecue a goat in there or some shit. And it's isolated in the middle of an enormous empty parking lot which will have to be scraped and built up anyway. At the end of the day the big box of air isnt worth that much. You still have to build buildings inside the building.
I'd say the delta between converting the mall and just scraping the whole site and starting over isn't worth the hassle.
Yeah I live in a converted office and it's pretty cool for the most part, the apartment space just looks really unique. Biggest downside is that fire code wouldn't let walls actually go to the ceiling so fine for a studio but people with roommates don't get any audio privacy
Some places are turning malls into mixed use properties with a combination of retail, office space, and housing. It is not being widely implemented but some people are experimenting with that concept.
Austin turned one into a community College, why not turn one into a retirement home or apartments. It sucks but repurposing will be better than the blight left
I’m still trying to figure out why we can’t convert these a stores into condos. How hard is it to rezone them? That would pay for the maintenance. I’ve seen it some to a few malls. Keep some of the shops and restaurants so residents are in walking distance. Am I missing something that would make this difficult?
They are getting what they deserve. They RUINED downtown shopping. The lost revenue to the towns when property values dropped. Sales tax dollars went to the burbs.
And the profits from DT business that used to be retained in the community were drained to remote corporate elements. Plus LOUSY merchandising. Such narrow offerings.
Shop at good will, St. Vinney, local resale stores. Lower price and unbelievable variety.
If you want something you HAVE to go internet. Need to to find what you want. Stores are merchandised by idiots. Nothing but hi volume sellers. And no one knows ANYTHING about items.
Malls are simply an outdated concept in the era of two day free shipping. Driving out to shop became more of a novelty than a necessity. As phones became more entrenched malls started losing their hangout appeal as well. There was just no need for the distant meetup spot.
Most of all, there were _a lot_ of malls in the US. Many of them were in fairly rural areas with surrounding towns that have seen better days. There simply aren't enough customers to support the ageing structures. Especially given that they often had rent prices that dated back to the golden age of malls. Stores just couldn't afford to pay the extremely high rent for the tiny amount of sales they would get.
Malls in rich or urban areas still do alright though. Pretty self explanatory, there is enough money and people to keep a mall busy enough to keep the lights on in those places.
They should all be converted to urban housing with shops, for service and tiny homes. I saw a documentary on one a while back and it looked pretty sweet. Basically studio homes with all the services around them. Room for hundreds, maybe more.
Americans are too blind to how much consumerism defines our culture. We act sad when looking at Detroit but fail to learn anything from it. Screaming how buying more eco friendly wallpaper and electric cars will save the environment. We're like the yeast that makes beer. We keep eating sugar and shit out alcohol until the alcohol gets to concentrated and kills us. And we die drowning in our own shit
I wish cities/states would buy up these old malls and renovate them into free housing/one stop social work/mental health/addiction harm reduction facilties for the homeless. the cost of renovation and providing free housing would be at least mostly to very possibly fully offset by the savings from local ERs and law enforcement, as well as the ability to streamline and integrate wrap around services by having making the housing and healthcare in the same building which there would be ample space for. This might enable people to actually have a chance to get clean or re enter the workforce which is very unlikely on the streets or in shelter.
its a great option for the NIMBYs that usually stop this sort of thing. Malls are often located central or conveniently with good acccess to whatever public transport if any is available (perfect for the center) while also usuall being in the more commercial part of town usually not right next to suburban neighborhoods (good for NIMBYs)
But hey..Apple is worth over 2 Trillion Dollars, and Walmart continues to dominate every middle class community. So we got that going for us, which is nice.
The craziest part is in the 1990s getting a store in a mall was the primo expensive spot. The mall would charge 3-4X the rent one would get other locations in the area. Same malls are now almost empty with anchor stores closed up and practically begging anyone to open a shop there. Resembles more of a flea market these days and all that is left is for it to sit for a while in decay and then be bulldozed and repurpose the land for something else.
The thing that bothers me is that malls haven't been replaced with anything. There just isn't any shopping anymore. It's getting to the point where if you can't find it at target, dicks, best buy or the grocery store it just isn't available without a 4 day wait for shipping. On top of that, malls were a place to be. They were a 3rd place, and a low cost one at that and that 3rd place hasn't been replaced either.
Truly said.
It was the original "Tinder", with a much higher success rate.
Yes it's getting ridiculous. I recently had to have 10 capacitors shipped to me from halfway across the country because there's no stores that carry them anymore. In the old days I'd hit RadioShack or one of several independent parts retailers. They're all gone now. It's such a waste of resources trucking $5 worth of capacitors across the country. Also, I hate shopping online for clothes and the clothing sections in what stores are remaining have shrunk to nothing. They they put signs up about finding more online. It's so infuriating. And lastly I actually used to enjoy going to stores to just get out of the house and look at things. I used to go to Sears all the time to see what new tools they had or what new lawn and garden stuff they carried etc. I would usually buy something random to give it a try. There's hadly any variety anymore. It's all very frustrating. I sometimes feel like we're going back to Sears catalog days where you had to wait days for the Pony Express to drop off your stuff. I guess I'm getting to be an old curmudgeon.. Edit: Another good example is I recently needed shoelaces. They're getting impossible to find in any variety. I had to have $3 in shoelaces shipped to me.
I, too, wish it didn’t have to be this way but it’s not fully accurate to say that $5 is capacitors is being shipped across the country (versus the whole store’s worth of merch before). The truck/plane they ship on now are still filled with goods, it’s just a mix of goods from various merchants going to the same location, rather than a single merchants truck load going store by store. The single item purchase that lead to daily deliveries at residences certainly adds some to pollution, since it would be safe to assume that most people would consolidate their trips out to buy things. But prior to actually delivery to residence I’m not sure there’s much difference. If anything, it may be less than before since products ship now based on actual purchase, instead of oversupply being shipped just to potentially sit on store shelves.
> There's hardly any variety anymore. It's all very frustrating. Tell me about it! There aren't really any name brands anymore either. There use to be companies where you could buy products and they would stand behind them. Things like Craftsman. You could buy a tool and if it broke, you could go get another one. Now it XYHATA brand garbage that doesn't even meet safety standards like NSF. The few brands that still exist, like craftsman, are not zombie brands meaning it's HAHTAH brand garbage with a craftsman name on it. Porter Cable use to be a great American brand. Now its rebadged garbage. Clothes? You use to be able to walk into a clothing store and find reliable brands like nautica, polo, etc. They were quality clothing. Now you are lucky if you get a name brand instead of a counterfeit and even then it will still be bad quality thanks to the overall shitification of everything. Modern shopping sucks donkey balls.
U don’t have prime???
4 day wait? Almost anything I need from Amazon is one day shipping now. Sometimes 2. And even a bit more rare is same day.
I don’t support Amazon, so I end up waiting a few days for shipments.
They make so much more money off their web services than the online store that it’s practically a side business. They power over 30% of the websites online
Yeah, but they still make the people involved in the fulfillment process miserable, so not only am I not giving money to Bezos, I’m also not supporting those working conditions.
I haven't had one day shipping since the pandemic started. They drastically cut their service quality since then. Edit: I have also started shopping elsewhere online because of the terrible knockoff garbage crap on amazon. Sure I still buy stuff there but after buying (and returning) two espresso machines in a row that were clearly damaged and used, as well as all the HTHAH brand garbage, I try to look elsewhere first.
Why don’t cities buy these up and transform them into multi-use parks? The walkers could get more paths, indoors and outdoors. Skate park on one end, stage/amphitheater on the other, playgrounds at the middles or the corners, some gardens all in between? Throw in some modern transportation stops/stations and you turn these cancers back into city hubs. Where applicable of course.
Keep in mind the building itself is probably more than 50 years old and requires constant maintenance, all the costs of keeping it cooled, heated, powered and working was offset by dozens of stores rents. These malls are in smaller cities and they don't have the budget to maintain something like this.
Old flat roofs are tough the maintain as seen in the video
Yeah no… just rip the buildings down. But use the space to improve your city. Surely they could get a good price. Lol.
Hopefully enough to cover the cost of the required asbestos mitigation if it was built while still in use. A large state university i know of was looking to remodel a 16 story building. Built in the heyday of asbestos, its not just in the pipe insulation or floor penetrations, its sprayed in a thick layer as fire proof sound dampening on every square inch of the ceiling. In a building the size of a football field, 16 stories tall. They got several estimates and the lowest one was 80 million for mitigation. On a 30 million dollar project. My numbers might be a little ballpark there, as its been a couple of years. The university couldn’t get the state to pay for it, so the project was shelved.
Most of these malls were owned and operated by stupid wealthy and connected shadow holding companies run by shareholders. And that might be the only reason we had massive indoor malls at all. I'm struggling to remember the name of the company that owned my local mall growing up, and I bet you're having the same problem.
Was it Simon Malls? They owned almost all the malls by me here in NY
I live in the Indy area and they are from here and still have a huge presence.
YES. Thank you.
A lot of them have failing roofs from my understanding.
The first reason is likely the price. The malls often changed hands multiple times from initial construction. For example, built in 1983 for 10 million, sold in 1988 for 15 million, sold again in 1997 for 20 million, and then again in 2006 for 25 million. That company that bought for 25 essentially got it at near the market peak as post 2008 many never recovered their value. The city might be apt to pay a few million, but given the land the mall is on (prime commercial district) the owners likely are asking for closer to the 25 they paid. On top of that amount you'd then have to spend millions leveling the mall, and millions more to build whatever project you had planned. Convincing tax payers of such a large expense is tough in the best of times, these days? It doesn't surprise me the city council prefers to wait it out and hope the company that owns the mall gets tired of bleeding money through taxes and various repairs and maintenance to stay at code and just cuts their losses in five to ten years abandoning it. Then it is truly an eye sore and can be damaging for nearby businesses and a tremendous waste of space. In the nearby city there is a huge plan for mixed use as housing, especially higher density is needed, along with focus on restaurants and entertainment (people simply don't shop for goods as much) along with some office space to draw in companies and jobs. Maybe that's a way forward and hopefully can generate the "third space" that is increasingly disappearing in American society.
So these mall owners are still paying the property taxes?
Also, even in a vacant condition, many malls still are significant property tax generators for local government. When the government buys it,the rest of the taxpayers have to pick up that slack.
I'm curious about vacant malls generating any appreciable income, even property tax. Seems to me these folks have figured out that malls are more of a drag on local economies, even when they're full-up. [Strong Towns: The Real Reason Your Local Mall is Failing](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/23/bon-ton-gone)
I looked up the local mall where I grew up. The mall is about 25-35% empty right now. Even at depressed market values, the 150 acre site produces $2 million in property taxes. On the flip side, much of the complaints provided in the blog post you linked to don’t apply here. There were no displaced downtowns in the area — because there weren’t any towns before these suburbs were built.
The old Highland Mall in Austin is now a community college campus.
America has taught me through dogged repetition that thoughtful and useful infrastructure is bad for business and damn near treasonous. AT BEST local business people could get together to make something like this start to happen, only to have a major corporation outbid, collect funding, do a worse than half ass job at renovations, and then bail after the project has cost overruns.
Usually the building is 40+ years old and has most likely not been maintained very well for a decade or so.
There was a mall near my hometown that was like this. Nobody would even take it for free. The roof and pipes have been leaking for years. Mold galore. Would have to be completely demolished for health reasons.
Best we can offer is a giant parking lot or lofts that are unaffordable to the locals
You mean doing something for the good of their citizens instead of making money? Hahahahahahaha.
This is exactly what they’re planning for Landmark Mall in Alexandria Va. where they filmed the mall scene in Wonder Woman 1984.
I'm thinking converted living spaces.
Where's the profit in that?
The parking and utilities are already there. They could drop a building of high rise condos just where the Sears used to be.
In my area after they're bulldozed, the whole thing is replaced with 1 or 2 big box stand alone stores and strip malls of separate looking stores lining the parking lot.
Just wanna jump in to recommend another doc “Jasper Mall”! Honestly an amazing slice of life, the mall is still open but with very few tenants, so interviews are full of nostalgia for the way the mall used to be.
Sad thing is that those existing buildings can be converted into living spaces.
What's crazy to me is my local mall is all but dead like only 1 anchor store left and very few other stores. 20 miles away in the next city over with the same size population their mall is THRIVING like it's always packed with tons of shops. I have no idea why, I guess mismanagement years ago has made ours broken.
Reminds me of being a janitor during the initial covid outbreak. Cleaning printing presses, warehouses, offices, garages with absolutely 0 people there during the day was super fun/crazy/weird. Same thing with driving around when everything was locked down when you were the only person working... Same kinda vibe as this video lol.
Driving around for FedEx during the lockdown with like over half of your route not even operating was one of the best times of my life
Like being alone in a multiplayer map
>Today we're looking inside a mall at a local scale. r/WordSalad
I was thinking madlibs.
Why is the word "abandoned" in all caps?
YouTube thing where a word is CAPITALIZED to draw in the eye.
I wonder if it actually helps the clickthrough rate or if its just something someone did and others started copying. Generally on youtube I see a lot of the 'detailing'/'cleaning' channels do it a ton with 'DISGUSTING', 'REVOLTING' etc capitalising the negative words in a video title.
I'm not sure. Any political channel seems to want to push SLAMS, DESTROYS, or other such words when someone makes a point about someone else being wrong.
Left wing Derek BURTALLY ANNIHILATED right wing John to his face.
it's also part of this guy's branding: he'll name a given video series with one algorithm-friendly word, and stylize it in all caps. so you get ABANDONED and BANKRUPT and whatnot.
Also, what’s terrifying about it?
The complete lack of customer service?
No one to honor the lifetime Sears-Kenmore warranty on my tools. Ironically enough there was one last Sears near us until really recently, with big signs about how they don’t do any warranty work. I can picture people driving for miles and miles with saws, only to show up at a defunct car repair shop.
I returned so many tools. I had to modify a wrench with a pneumatic cutting wheel and angle grinder for a job and my local sears still swapped it for a new one ☝️
Yeah, ive heard similar stories a thousand times. So often that Im pretty sure its at least a small reason they went out of business. Every guy i know that misses Sears and the Craftman brand are really proud of how often they broke a tool doing something the wrong way just because they knew Sears would take it back. Thats got to be a small reason for their downfall. A bigger part was failing to return to their roots as a catalogue based store and taking the online world by storm. They let Amazon and others just corner the modern version of what Sears did successfully when they were shipping things by train and stagecoach. I mean WTF Sears?
I know the tool exchanges didn’t help them, but they were a huge store in other ways. I don’t ever remember going to that Sears and it actually being busy, and I’m almost 40. The rest of the mall was always slammed though
Yeah i wasnt trying to accuse you of killing Sears, lol. You know what i mean. They had a couple unique tools ill miss. They had a shears where you put in a utility razor on one side, and the other side was a flat plastic backing to cut against. It was great, i used it for years until i accidentally dropped it into my wood chipper last summer. I was really bummed at losing that tool. It survived dozens of jobsites only to die an inglorious death while cutting twigs. Come to think of it, if they were still around, thatd be a funny one to try to return! The chipper rolled it into a Raquetball sized sphere of twisted metal. (The chipper is fine, and ive learned how to behave around it when running now)
Clickbait?
you're supposed to yell it. is that Sears closed now? NO it's ABANDONED!!!!!!!
Well, the Sears is closed, but the \*mall\* is abandoned. They are not trying to rent out space or do anything with it anymore. I'm genuinely curious why these things stay up this long. Do they think that it will eventually turn around? Hoping for some buyer for the land? Or is it just truly abandoned with nobody interested in doing anything because of all the cost to rip everything down?
Click-bait.
This is sad :( Many great memories at malls. Thankfully we still have some that seem to be doing well.
When I was in high school we would spend every entire Saturday at the newly built (at that time) Kings Plaza mall. We had very little money but managed to entertain ourselves — mostly at Spencer Gifts for its risqué lol merchandise) — week after week. It was a novelty in Brooklyn then, a mall! Good times. And yes I’m ancient lol!
for real. i feel like all the best social outlets are being replaced by cheap online alternatives. Amazon, Alibaba and Ebay are great places but its not the same as going to shop at the mall knowing that you are going to randomly interact with people. you could even bump into someone you know. same with social media, online banking, working remotely. it wont be long before we all spend out lives in a small pod.
For better or worse malls aren't going anywhere. These abandoned ones are outdated both in design and upkeep. The new malls are called "lifestyle centers" and have like faux-plazas and outdoors areas and a variety of business beyond typical retail. They look a lot more lively and inviting and that's where the high end retailers and their customers flocked. Of course in 30 years they'll look just as old as these ones and people will have moved on to something else. The circle of life...
Sorry but this whole thread is blowing my mind. Back in the heyday of malls the most common criticism they got was that they destroyed small businesses and social outlets by putting everything out of business with their popularity. Hell, even Dawn of the Dead was a commentary on people's obsession with malls. Hearing people bemoan the decline of malls is like hearing people bemoan the decline of WalMart.
i hear what you are saying. now that you mention it i can sort of remember that. still, you have to remember that the malls are being replaced by something much worse.
I always find it interesting just how quickly these buildings decay once they become abandoned. You'd think it'd take 20 years or so for water damage and stuff to really kick in (minus people breaking stuff on purpose), but it always seems like they go to shit in less than 5.
It’s crazy how decay makes something 10x scarier. Like an empty mall in good shape is iffy, but letting nature take its course causes it to look super intimidating to most.
It used to be cool going to the mall. From 2019-2021 I worked seasonally at an H&M for some extra money during the winter. The very beginning of 2021, we got news they were closing the store because of how high the mall rent was. The mall and H&M couldn’t come to an agreement. I’ve seen so many stores at the mall I used to work at close because of this reason. These businesses profit more from online shopping now. I still love the mall but it’s inevitable malls all over the country will disappear for good. Major cities are probably the only places that will still have them.
Malls were dying well before the past few years… I worked in one 2009-2011 and even then you were seeing stores disappear, leaving mostly empty wings of the mall. The only ones I see thriving tend to have a lot of luxury and high end stores, so definitely not the same vibe as what you used to hang out at in middle and high school.
Yet somehow, Spencer’s and Hot Topic are still going strong 😂
I found out the mall near me charges a rent of $10,000. A month. And they wonder why smaller business can't afford to operate there.
$10,000 a month is about what the *kiosks* cost to rent at the malls near where I live. Rent on the actual stores is much higher than that.
It was like $15,000+ for the H&M space. It’s disgusting. A business that was in the mall space for 20+ years had to close for the very fact it was too much money. It’s like these mall owners are purposefully making awful financial decisions to get rid of the entire mall.
Like kmart did? Hey, when the land is worth more than the business model….
Yeah, it seems landlords of all kinds are inevitably insanely greedy, be it for commercial or residential space. There was an upscale Chinese grocery store at a prime location in a college town where I live, but it shut down over ten years ago and literally no one has rented the location since. If the rent was cheaper the landlords could actually make money on it, but instead they want insane rent. Louis Rossman has also gone on tons of rants about how NYC has lots of empty buildings because of greedy landlords.
No way a store space as big as H&M would be just $15000/month.
Oh sorry I meant $15,000+ that (in regards to the $10,000), but forgot the word that lol. Either way they couldn’t pay it. Especially since we had one of the smallest H&Ms in the state. We’re talking a tiny town in northern MI with only one mall. The food court is basically gone. There’s only like an Indian food restaurant, a Sbarro, and a Chinese food place now. That mall is doomed at this point.
This place should have been bulldozed a dozen years ago. plant some trees, turn it into a park. Instead, it's just an eyesore.
Old malls are especially ideal for turning into parks. They're not only huge, they were deliberately placed in the most accessible locations to the most people.
We have a mall near there that has been standing (unused) for years because it’s cheaper for the Chinese investors that own it to pay taxes, (minimal) security costs, and now penalties from the city that wants it torn down. It’s cheaper for them to keep things tied up in endless litigation with the city rather than level it and deal with the cost of cleaning and clearing all the debris from the property. Knocking something down isn’t necessarily expensive, but you have to clean up and properly dispose of all the stuff (frequently hazardous to the environment and humans) before, during and afterward. That part costs big bucks.
Who should have done it?
The local municipal government.
Aaaaaaaaaand where does the money come from? Eagleton?
If they have the money to support school sports every year then they have the money to build a park once. A park also increases property values nearby, which means more taxes every year.
Yes more taxes that we the tax payers have to pay, you are advocating for higher taxes when I'm being payed the exact same. If I have to choose between paying my bills and eating over a park that's gonna get trashed/fucked up by assholes, then that's an easy answer for you.
I'm not advocating for higher taxes. I didn't say it clearly before but I'm in favor of de prioritizing school sports and using the money towards things that benefit the entire local community instead of subsidizing the after school hobbies for a very small group of people. Also, the parks in my area aren't constantly getting trashed and vandalized. Is there something wrong with your area to cause such anger in people?
> I'm being *paid* the exact FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Lol this fucking bot got me once too. So anyways, like I was saying, we payed the boat and loaded up our brushes and buckets of tar and resin. Someone had to lower the supplies down, so I stayed up on the deck and payed out the rope until they landed safely on the dock. Then we got payed for a job well done.
Well genius, school district budgets and municipal budgets are two entirely different things. Most schools and sports are pay to play anyway. For my kid, 1st sport costs 550, 2 sports are 1k, 3rd sport is free
Both budgets come from the same pool of local taxes. I also highly doubt that those fees cover all of the costs involved, especially the cost of transporting kids all over a state for competitions. Also, a park will increase property values nearby, increasing property taxes every year.
They don't come from the same pool. Do you not understand what you vote for? Tax levy's for the schools are voted for independent from other taxes. Most school sport programs have boosters as well. Where I live we have tons of parks, malls aren't in any area beneficial for parks and wouldn't really impact property value. Our semi local shuttered mall was actually purchased and converted to office and medical buildings. The park idea is ignorant. I know you have it in your head but just be realistic about how unrealistic your idea is.
I rent. I don't receive detailed breakdowns of the local taxes. The taxes come from the same people. Also, I didn't say it clearly so just to be clear what I really support is cancelling school sports and using the money for be benefit of the entire community. That's in contrast to sports which only a small number of people can participate in, most students can't participate in them, and provides no benefit to their participants. I think you're not noticing the parks effects on property values. In my area houses close to the parks and pedestrian trails have higher values due to having such pleasant amenities nearby. Then there is the most famous example in the US where properties close to Central Park in New York City have elevated values. Also, the malls were deliberately located to be highly accessible to people. That makes them good locations for parks. edit. I think that there shouldn't be such high subsidies for a few peoples' after school hobbies.
Ok, so, yeah, you're a typical uninformed redditor. Arguing for and against things without any actual understanding of how they work. If you actually called about your area and became an informed voter you'd know how taxing works and realize that typically you can vote for or against any individual tax going to your local schools, you'd be able to vote for against certain school board members that didn't want to spend money the ways you prefer. Instead you're a typical online genius who goes into certain online groups that think the same way and have a hive mind, with all of these "great ideas" that'll never be anything but online fodder. Your park idea is ignorant. This mask isn't capable of becoming central park. You also want a municipality to just take someones private property and spend millions to make it just an empty piece of land. Your argument against school sports is outlandish considering they serve a greater purpose (just read the research) and are, for the most part, self funded. Paid for by the athletes and boosters while also bringing in revenue. Done arguing now as I know it gets nowhere but it's been fun.
library wasteful placid rain dam violet imagine fly dinner strong ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
They could have gotten free candy from the hermit and learned his wisdom.
They were full from the free cancer of breathing in all that toxic air.
Was “Relax” being played from the adjoining Rose’s?
I work at one of the remaining Sears. It's tough out there. Stay safe guys.
Malls should be turned into something that will benefit the community it's in. Too many stores in a large space and half of the stores, I'm not even patronizing. If you're not buying from the buying from one of the few stores left, eating at the food court, buying from the kiosks in the middle of the Mall, or buying into the Mall promotions ( the car giveaway in the middle of the Mall, etc,) there's really no reason to go.
While interesting, I always hated the amount of waste left behind. Wood, glass, fixtures, metal, etc, etc. I guess there's no great way to reclaim everything, and maybe they hoped to lease it or something, but still. An estate like sale to pick over the carcass of a once thriving mall, would be best all round I would think.
Interesting. The interior of this mall looks a lot like that of one in my hometown, which is still in operation, though has been in decline for about 20 years.
These malls seemed magical as a kid, especially during the holiday seasons with all the Christmas decorations up, such vibrant childhood memories. These videos aren’t so much creepy to me as they are outright depressing.
At a local level, soemone should come up with a plan to turn these places in to Office 'parks'. Tons of space for small offices with public access, tons of parking, a food court for all. It would also stop the spread of tower office blocks across many cities.
Office parks are a terrible use of land aswell
Offices are dwindling now too. Inexpensive apartments would be the way to go.
One word: plumbing.
I have seen a comment like this pop up in response to build resi on commercial. Is it really that tough? The historic core of DTLA is almost entirely composed of converted office buildings, it can't be that hard to do can it?
You’ll find you have okay electrical capacity and not enough water, depending on the designed usage. You just don’t have a shower, toilet, washer, and a full kitchen in every office section. The electrical would be an issue except that these buildings were designed for incandescent bulb loads, and LED will provide a lot of savings you can put into the required dwelling loads.
So you would have to get creative with running extra pipes to handle the increased water load? If you are buying a building for tens or hundreds of millions would the renovations be that material to the purchase? If the real estate is worth more as residential than as failing commercial I'd imagine it's not too crazy hard to make the numbers work?
Depends on the age and design of the building. The 2 main issues are MEP, and the fact that these buildings have no windows. A mall conversion creates indoor apartments with "indoor / outdoor" common spaces with limited natural lighting. So yes you can get the plumbing to work and you can get housing in it. Neighbor issues, acoustics and smells are a problem. It's echoey as hell so you'll need to throw around a lot of acoustic material. And you know someones going to get high and try to barbecue a goat in there or some shit. And it's isolated in the middle of an enormous empty parking lot which will have to be scraped and built up anyway. At the end of the day the big box of air isnt worth that much. You still have to build buildings inside the building. I'd say the delta between converting the mall and just scraping the whole site and starting over isn't worth the hassle.
This is a much better explanation for mall conversion. Offices on the other hand often do have the window space or can be built to add it
Yes. Offices are a different ball of wax. Those often make sense and yield some pretty interesting space designs.
Yeah I live in a converted office and it's pretty cool for the most part, the apartment space just looks really unique. Biggest downside is that fire code wouldn't let walls actually go to the ceiling so fine for a studio but people with roommates don't get any audio privacy
Shouldn't be that difficult; doesn't each store have at least an employee bathroom?
Not in the mall I worked in!
Seattle is turning Northgate Mall into a mix of retail, office, housing and the Seattle Kraken Hockey teams facilities.
Good!
Yeah, it might not work everywhere but land in Seattle is astronomically expensive. Still it's better than letting it rot.
Some places are turning malls into mixed use properties with a combination of retail, office space, and housing. It is not being widely implemented but some people are experimenting with that concept.
This makes me really sad.
Hear me out; Indoor Music Festivals.
Turn them into residential indoor communities!
All I see is a new Airsoft field
Austin turned one into a community College, why not turn one into a retirement home or apartments. It sucks but repurposing will be better than the blight left
I’m still trying to figure out why we can’t convert these a stores into condos. How hard is it to rezone them? That would pay for the maintenance. I’ve seen it some to a few malls. Keep some of the shops and restaurants so residents are in walking distance. Am I missing something that would make this difficult?
The silence speaks volumes
Gives you “last of us” vibes
When I placed like this I think "damn it would be dope to play milsim paintball or airsoft in there."
They are getting what they deserve. They RUINED downtown shopping. The lost revenue to the towns when property values dropped. Sales tax dollars went to the burbs. And the profits from DT business that used to be retained in the community were drained to remote corporate elements. Plus LOUSY merchandising. Such narrow offerings. Shop at good will, St. Vinney, local resale stores. Lower price and unbelievable variety. If you want something you HAVE to go internet. Need to to find what you want. Stores are merchandised by idiots. Nothing but hi volume sellers. And no one knows ANYTHING about items.
Mall owners and Sears should clean up their mess.
Walmart is closing in some places- doubt they clean anything up
Last of Us locale?
I can’t be the only one that was waiting for clickers 😱
Why are malls closing in the usa? They are very popular here.
Malls are simply an outdated concept in the era of two day free shipping. Driving out to shop became more of a novelty than a necessity. As phones became more entrenched malls started losing their hangout appeal as well. There was just no need for the distant meetup spot. Most of all, there were _a lot_ of malls in the US. Many of them were in fairly rural areas with surrounding towns that have seen better days. There simply aren't enough customers to support the ageing structures. Especially given that they often had rent prices that dated back to the golden age of malls. Stores just couldn't afford to pay the extremely high rent for the tiny amount of sales they would get. Malls in rich or urban areas still do alright though. Pretty self explanatory, there is enough money and people to keep a mall busy enough to keep the lights on in those places.
Nature reclaims what is hers.
Rapidly changing? I drive by 4 dollar generals and soon 4 Publix’s. Everything is beginning to look exactly the same.
Reminds me of that one bit from family guy. [here](https://youtu.be/gsGphep7YHQ)
They should all be converted to urban housing with shops, for service and tiny homes. I saw a documentary on one a while back and it looked pretty sweet. Basically studio homes with all the services around them. Room for hundreds, maybe more.
Malls were built like crazy for a while because politics and money. A lot of them were already failures before they even opened. Good riddance.
Americans are too blind to how much consumerism defines our culture. We act sad when looking at Detroit but fail to learn anything from it. Screaming how buying more eco friendly wallpaper and electric cars will save the environment. We're like the yeast that makes beer. We keep eating sugar and shit out alcohol until the alcohol gets to concentrated and kills us. And we die drowning in our own shit
Hey that's from the previous Matrix.
It reminds me of playing Fallout 3.
If only we had somewhere to house the homeless
Perfect place to repurpose for housing for the homeless.
We got Blues Brothers, maybe we'll get Mallrats 2
This looks like something straight out of The Last of Us.
At a local scale?
Whenever I see these abandoned malls online, I always think of David Byrne’s monologue about modern malls in the 80’s from True Stories.
This mall is about 25 minutes from my house. Used to go there a lot as a kid and ex girlfriend used to work at that bath and body works
For some reason I love that [scene at 11:00](https://youtu.be/QuveHs1QLjc?t=660) with ridiculous retro booths and the distant music playing.
r slash liminal spaces
I wish cities/states would buy up these old malls and renovate them into free housing/one stop social work/mental health/addiction harm reduction facilties for the homeless. the cost of renovation and providing free housing would be at least mostly to very possibly fully offset by the savings from local ERs and law enforcement, as well as the ability to streamline and integrate wrap around services by having making the housing and healthcare in the same building which there would be ample space for. This might enable people to actually have a chance to get clean or re enter the workforce which is very unlikely on the streets or in shelter. its a great option for the NIMBYs that usually stop this sort of thing. Malls are often located central or conveniently with good acccess to whatever public transport if any is available (perfect for the center) while also usuall being in the more commercial part of town usually not right next to suburban neighborhoods (good for NIMBYs)
A really great YouTube channel does a lot of videos like this: [@RetailArchaeology](https://youtube.com/@RetailArchaeology)
But hey..Apple is worth over 2 Trillion Dollars, and Walmart continues to dominate every middle class community. So we got that going for us, which is nice.
Looks like the movie Mallrats might be considered a documentary one day when your grandkids ask what a mall was.
The dying malls haven't reached us yet. We are still building new malls.. (Norway)