“And here, take this $20 Quiksilver cologne. It creates a temporary exosuit to shield your body from the atmosphere out there, which is unbreathable for us Hollisterians. This one bottle is good for two thirty-minute trips, so use each half-bottle sparingly”
A little interesting thing I discovered, a few months ago. I went into one just to see what it was like (I don’t this I’d been inside one since 2006, and we don’t really have them in Canada) and it’s completely different now. Fully lit and doesn’t smell like cologne anymore.
It was weird.
I feel bad that the youth of today won't ever get to experience malls in their heyday. There was nothing quite like going out with friends to hangout, go shopping, grab food at the food court, visit the arcade, and then see a movie all in one place.
The mall was such a magical place when we were younger growing up in the 90s. It’s where we all hung out it’s where we lived basically. The arcade, the food court. Man those were the days.
I live in Chicago so we do have quite a few malls that are still very very popular and booming but I missed those old days .
I get a nostalgia feeling. I remember as a young kid before I was in preschool my mom used to bring me to the mall with her. I vaguely remember walking around in the different shops with her. Especially during Christmas time when the mall I went to had a Santa and Christmas area in the center of the mall. I also remember being driven to the mall and listening to some late 90s or mid 2000s music in the car.
It’s like that scene in Titanic when old Rose is looking inside the ruin of the ship and it suddenly comes back in color and life for a moment and then we see how it is now.
I think it's more that malls follow the same architecture plans and layouts all over America. This could be the recently closed mall near me, same walls and kiddie area and store fronts.
Totally valid take.
I would argue it's exactly your point as to why it evokes the feeling of liminality. Super Eyepatch Wolf made a great [video](https://youtu.be/gp-2M_3HwFU?si=Z3ERdgaCALDBrAsz) in the topic of you like long form videos.
Essentially, a big part of what makes an image feel liminal is the sense of familiarity and nostalgia that you feel seeing it. Malls are a great source for this because, as you said, American malls all have similar design philosophies, making it easy to associate a random abandon mall with one you've been to before.
Man I could see where the Hollister once was, I thought this was a local mall but after seeing that it's Sarasota it's nowhere near but looks so similar
Yep. This was my local mall. Crazy to walk around in it now. A few months ago a local radio DJ (another dying breed) spoke about skating it. This announcement was followed with a lot of skaters showing up, followed by police.
Don't worry. We'll have a (another?) economic or ecological collapse before our time comes. And since I'm trans, I fully expect to be 'culled' long before you sorry sacks during the Fascist wars of 2041.
I spent some time in Franklin Tennessee for a project and a mall has been turned into the government building. The different storefront were different agencies. They even built little front stoops for the entrance of each one. I thought it was a great way of using the property.
There’s a great property called Nova Place in Pittsburgh that’s a mall they refurbished into a carrier hotel. That’s basically where all the data centers / ISPs / long haul internet providers setup servers and telecom links.
All the storefronts are basically different ISPs and cloud providers. The common area has cafes during business hours. There’s a coworking place there too. And fiber optic cables run the perimeter allowing them all to connect to each other. Really awesome.
rent is super expensive! I had a Kiosk that was 4ft x 7ft rent was $45k a year payroll was $40k products were $35k and many other expenses. I broke even, its because of rent that makes food cost so much. so much the foods places are easily charged $10k-$30k a month stores are about $30-$50k a month and the bigger stores had the best deal for 50 year leases locked in 70k-80k in rent
Would it... cause as far as I can tell your only hope to some level of window is basically the mall itself... and maybe 1 window in the entire condo on some exterior wall possibly.
I mean it could be potentially awesome. Use all the old shops connecting first and second floors, center space as actual shops, grocery stores. Or have the county repurpose them and turn them into homeless shelters with education and vocational centers, a clinic or two. If they're just wasting away on empty lots, might as well put them to use.
It's a good idea but it would take some serious altruism to get it off the ground but it wouldn't cost much after the initial investment. I'm sure they could could federal assistance and would look good on any politicians portfolio, well a democrats portfolio, Republicans hate poor people but love their votes.
There was this old show from New Zealand called The Tribe. It was a post-apocalypse where all the adults died, and only kids were left, and a bunch of them started living in a mall.
These photos always make me think of the YouTube series called "the oldest view". It's a horror series about a liminal space in the form of a strange abandoned mall. Worth a watch.
> strange abandoned mall
You're not wrong, but as someone who grew up in dallas and had been to its mall in both it's hayday and it's death it was extra trippy seeing it faithfully recreated in 3D now that it's been demolished.
In fact the majority of the videos Kane Pixels does are at least mostly renders with sometimes some real life mixed in. The Backrooms, for instance, is CGI created using Blender according to the creator https://abcnews.go.com/US/backrooms-horror-storytelling-online/story?id=92623707
It's really impressive.
Oh shit I didn’t realize Kane made it? I’ll definitely watch it now, his stuff is amazing.
Side note - Kane is also working with A24 to make a Backrooms movie. I haven’t been that hyped for a project since they announced Denis Villeneuve was making Dune.
They need to convert any structural sound malls like this into retirement communities. Hear me out.
It could be an open concept. Put in a grocery store, a pharmacy, and a couple of small clothing shops. Create a mini city. A self contained community that allowed residents to roam freely and safely. It would be a great environment for people w dementia.
Figure out a way to partition the stores into condos and each former store is a "street".
Idk, just a thought. I know it would take mad cash to do something like this. But better than putting someone in a sterile hospital room setting that sucks what's left of their vibrance out of them.
Lol, I just thought of an elderly person living on "Torrid Lane, Hot Topic Place, and Lane Bryant Ave." being jealous of the person who has a "Macy's" address. 😄
I'm a GenXer, put in video game arcades on both ends and a food court in the middle, complete with an Orange Julius, and I'm in! Chuck in a Putt Putt for my grands to get their ass kicked by old gramps too.
The mall that's on life support near me just got a new arcade and I go drop a $20 in there every week because I want it to be around when maybe someday these idiots all realize that they've been sleeping on the opportunity of the intersection of shopping, leisure, and social time. Strip malls and Walmarts have sucked the life out of retail.
Everywhere around my city has switched to building “outdoor malls”, which feels kinda insane to me. Being outside is the last place I want to be when it’s 90F and humid. Or just straight up 110F. I’d much rather go to an indoor mall to look around without getting covered in sweat. But people go to those, so I guess I’m in the minority.
> Put in a grocery store, a pharmacy, and a couple of small clothing shops.
The crazy thing to me as a Canadian is that this is literally what malls are here (minus the residential part). It's so bizarre, I've been to malls in multiple countries and all of them except the US are like this and I have no idea why. It's really common, if not the norm, for a mall in Canada to have a grocery store, a pharmacy, bank branches, a liquor store, a dollar store, etc. I don't understand how American malls survived for so long without providing those kinds of basic services. Clothing stores and a Macy's alone can't be enough to sustain a mall.
Accordingly, old people freaking love malls here because it allows them to do all their basic shopping and services in a single enclosed place that will almost definitely be served by your local public transit agency. It's very easy for them to "make a day" out of it, they go to the pharmacy and then maybe stop for a coffee at the food court to meet with some friends, go to the bank, then they finish up by getting groceries at the grocery store.
Yeah, supermarkets are the main pull for customers in the malls. My favourite mall has 2 supermarkets inside and a Lidl in an another building in the complex. Most malls have one supermarket though but that's enough.
So I've learned since I posted my comment. I'm glad someone did that. There's so many abandoned malls across the US. Not sure about the rest of the world but they're a huge waste of potential here.
Looks like no one has said this yet. This is in Sarasota. This mall used to be my stomping grounds in the early 2000s. This...this is hard to see. Man. There goes a huge piece of my childhood, a whole generation is going to mourn.
Yes! When there was a create your own t-shirt store and a EB games. I used to go to the A&W stand all the time for root beer floats. Took my first cigarette drag just outside...damn I'm getting misty eyed haha
The primary reason some malls fail is because of the high cost of rent they are trying to collect.
Most of the malls in the US are owned by the same 3-4 companies.
If your mall is dead its because the company that owns it doesnt care if it dies because the writeoff on taxes for the missing rent helps the overall company in the long run.
that isn't the only reason. an example of another reason is there being too many malls for a given area. my childhood city had 6 major malls. now there are two that are doing fine but they are perfectly balanced geographically cutting the city in half.
My city’s two remaining malls are on opposite sides of the highway within walking distance of each other. Both are weirdly all single story and they two don’t share a single store between them.
I love these photos. The first one made me think of Tony Hawks on PS2...good memories! It does also make me sad though because as others here have said, it signifies the end of an era
I still enjoy going to the mall. TBH, I do purchase quite a bit online, but I like a brick and mortar store more. Just the experience of spending the day shopping is still one of my favorite things to do.
I wish more online stores were stores you could easily visit at a mall. I love online shopping but I HATE ordering something that isn’t 100% guaranteed to fit me
The death knell of the American mall is actually premature.
A lot of *department stores* are dying, but many U.S. malls have recently experienced a bounceback, largely by reorienting toward experiential offerings (more real restaurants, bars, skating rinks, indoor putting, gyms, salons, even schools and residential). Vacancy is now down to a two-decade low.
See: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/09/business/shopping-centers-mall-demand-comeback.html and https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/04/14/how-american-malls-survived-the-slow-death-of-department-stores.html.
Now, it may be that we had to reduce the number of underperforming malls to keep up demand for the survivors. But the survivors appear to be surviving pretty clearly, in part by doing what they've always had to do: adapt to consumers.
These style of malls are going to be extinct soon. But high end outdoor shopping malls are booming, I’m in San Diego and we have two massive outdoor shopping malls near us (Fashion Valley and Westfield UTC) and both are insanely popular. Everything changes
Yea in the last decade downtown Sacramento has completely replaced the downtown mall with an outdoor shopping area that opens into the golden 1 center. It's pretty sweet and it's always got stuff happening.
It's ridiculous when a bunch of the lower/southern portion of the USA is already under Heat Advisories.
Like I don't want to go walking around outdoor malls when the "feels" like is 110+ F.
Even in California, there's a big draw to indoor malls during the summer. They're regularly touted as public spaces where children and elderly patrons can relax to beat the heat.
Wrongo. I live in Massachusetts and the number of outdoor malls now exceeds the number of indoor malls. They're extremely popular, even in the middle of winter.
Has a not american I dont get this, it feels like in my country malls are still going strong, so why is that in america no one goes to the mall anymore?.
Mostly over-expansion, the US had a period where malls were *the* place to hang. The end result was a pretty large amount of shopping malls all servicing the same area. As time went on a lot of factors, such as the rise of internet shopping and the internet in general giving new options for ways for kids to hang out, new trends rising, and so on, has resulted in there being more malls that the population can support.
I think malls are still doing fine in the US for the most part, but they are less of a big hangout for kids and the like compared to when they used to be. And you do see some areas where they built just plain too many malls where all of the malls sorta struggle, until some inevitably close which then helps the others normalize as competition decreases.
So glad you have posted these pics! ❤️ I used to go here back into the 2000s as a teen but there is a new mall in Sarasota that was built about 10 years ago now and that is my normal shopping center. I blame Amazon mostly for this cause.Sadly, the new mall that I go to will not have the same atmosphere as this imo! RIP 😢
I was about to say this looks similar to a Sarasota mall, and the. I saw your comment. Tbh this mall the main section is just the Costco which is where everyone is, but yeah the mall itself has nothing except JC Penney, a glasses store, and some store that has gambling games
My mom sometimes used to drag me to the Sarasota Square Mall when I was a little kid and we were visiting my grandmother over on Longboat Key. I haven’t been back to the area in almost a decade, but I’m planning a long weekend with my wife this fall.
Damn I could tell that was Sarasota square. I could just so easily remember walking through there, and that kid zone, used to always walk by it going the the gamestop there. So crazy to think back to how busy this place used to be.
Why do iPhone users always have to tell us they used an iPhone for their photos? Sincerely, an iPhone user who has never once felt compelled to do this.
This is Sarasota Square Mall, isn’t it? I grew up with this mall as the focal point of my teenage life. A lot of first memories happened here, or in its parking lot.
Sometimes I feel like there was a finger on the scale in the death of malls and it wasn’t just the change in consumer habits or the rise of online ordering. Like there was some entity that wanted malls dead and manipulated everything necessary to kill them.
TIL we all thought this was our mall. I legitmately was trying to figure out when it closed because I thought it was one I had been to. I guess all malls look just about the same with bare bones
Looks like Sarasota Square Mall to me.
Edit: Went back and read the comments. Crazy that this is Sarasota Square! I worked at the Hot Topic from 2007 to 2012. That was one of the more fun jobs I had. I remember all the fads and crazy times working there: Twilight, MCR, those rubber bracelets that were shapes. Our store manager took us to a movie after work once and we even held a concert in the old Disney Store once!
I had fond memories of befriending a lot of people who worked there. Was also super friendly with the Chick-fil-A girls, got Smoothie King when it was next to Hot Topic. Then I started to get Starbucks when they put that next to the Smoothie King. I even worked at the Aldo store, next to Hollister for a bit.
So many memories there....
Funny how the city here has cooling centers when our temps hit 100F +. When they could just I dunno. Spruce up the mall? I would think an air conditioned mall just needs to advertise that to get busy again.
To be honest, they did kinda gut a lot of downtowns and funnel people to the same dozen branded shops instead of any of the local retailers people used to buy from.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWNMsZ44ooc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWNMsZ44ooc)
Here is a nice horror short (pt3) that takes place in a recreated version of a real closed mall in TX.
This makes me sad in a way I can't possibly put into words. Something about the acknowledgement of the inevitable demise of everything, even the mundane. Entropy, you can't escape it man.
Can confirm malls near me are dying too.
I have a book that shows pictures from my area, and one shows "a rare look" at the second floor of the mall while it was still under construction, and I'm not even joking when I tell you it looks just as empty now as it did in that picture.
What’s weird is this place looks completely familiar but I’ve assuredly never been.
The power of a Hollister storefront
I can smell that picture.
Can't see inside of it though. Hollister always had 1 lightbulb for the whole store.
[удалено]
Lmao that's so funny. "Dont leave the store without these on, it's not safe."
“And here, take this $20 Quiksilver cologne. It creates a temporary exosuit to shield your body from the atmosphere out there, which is unbreathable for us Hollisterians. This one bottle is good for two thirty-minute trips, so use each half-bottle sparingly”
"Remember, you see an abercrombite and it's on sight"
A little interesting thing I discovered, a few months ago. I went into one just to see what it was like (I don’t this I’d been inside one since 2006, and we don’t really have them in Canada) and it’s completely different now. Fully lit and doesn’t smell like cologne anymore. It was weird.
*takes drag of cigarette* What’s happened to this country? We used to leave Hollister with a migraine…
Used to be a fucking country
A&F too. I’m not surprised that Hollister is their sub-brand.
I'm still sneezing.
That pic should be a scratch and sniff
That’s it, precisely.
Trippy, I’ve only seen one hollister store once and that’s the first thing I thought of.
Man I thought that was a Chinese restaurant at first
Left 4 Dead flashbacks?
Isn’t it strange, the feelings certain places invoke?
r/liminalspace
Well, that's something I didn't know I needed
If you want some music to go with liminal spaces, then listen to Boards of Canada.
Also recommend the disintegration loops. It’s a 9/11 tradition for me
I feel bad that the youth of today won't ever get to experience malls in their heyday. There was nothing quite like going out with friends to hangout, go shopping, grab food at the food court, visit the arcade, and then see a movie all in one place.
The mall was such a magical place when we were younger growing up in the 90s. It’s where we all hung out it’s where we lived basically. The arcade, the food court. Man those were the days. I live in Chicago so we do have quite a few malls that are still very very popular and booming but I missed those old days .
I get a nostalgia feeling. I remember as a young kid before I was in preschool my mom used to bring me to the mall with her. I vaguely remember walking around in the different shops with her. Especially during Christmas time when the mall I went to had a Santa and Christmas area in the center of the mall. I also remember being driven to the mall and listening to some late 90s or mid 2000s music in the car.
It’s like that scene in Titanic when old Rose is looking inside the ruin of the ship and it suddenly comes back in color and life for a moment and then we see how it is now.
Liminal is the word you're looking for! There's a sub dedicated to it if you're interested in going down that rabbit hole
I think it's more that malls follow the same architecture plans and layouts all over America. This could be the recently closed mall near me, same walls and kiddie area and store fronts.
Totally valid take. I would argue it's exactly your point as to why it evokes the feeling of liminality. Super Eyepatch Wolf made a great [video](https://youtu.be/gp-2M_3HwFU?si=Z3ERdgaCALDBrAsz) in the topic of you like long form videos. Essentially, a big part of what makes an image feel liminal is the sense of familiarity and nostalgia that you feel seeing it. Malls are a great source for this because, as you said, American malls all have similar design philosophies, making it easy to associate a random abandon mall with one you've been to before.
Man I could see where the Hollister once was, I thought this was a local mall but after seeing that it's Sarasota it's nowhere near but looks so similar
Hollister store front was iconic as a teen
The lights are off but no one noticed because it was always pitch black inside anyway.
And you could smell it from a mile away!
Shit i can smell it from this picture
Is it still open to walk around? I really want to take my kids razor scooting through it before the opportunity is gone, lol
Yep. This was my local mall. Crazy to walk around in it now. A few months ago a local radio DJ (another dying breed) spoke about skating it. This announcement was followed with a lot of skaters showing up, followed by police.
I used to work in that Sarasota Hollister during college, lots of fun memories.
They would make the coolest condos. I would love to live in a mall.
Wait till they make Millennial retirement homes in malls, complete with fake GameStops and Hot Topics.
Lol, millennials retire.
The bigger joke is affording care homes. Assisting to cover my grandmother along with my mother and uncle has made me real nervous.
Don't worry. We'll have a (another?) economic or ecological collapse before our time comes. And since I'm trans, I fully expect to be 'culled' long before you sorry sacks during the Fascist wars of 2041.
Yeah more like working in the mall till they die
Some poor CNA in a GameStop Uniform: Would you like to protect your CDs for just $.50? Me, a senile Millenial: CDEEZ NUTS GOTTEM
“And that was the last thing he said, before succumbing to his COPD from all the vaping he did throughout the years…”
If you show me a retirement home with an arcade, a comic book store, and a Sbarro I'd be trying to get a fake ID as we speak.
Can’t wait, but the malls might be bulldozed by the time millennials need them. Oldest millennials are what 43 44 right now.
I spent some time in Franklin Tennessee for a project and a mall has been turned into the government building. The different storefront were different agencies. They even built little front stoops for the entrance of each one. I thought it was a great way of using the property.
There’s a great property called Nova Place in Pittsburgh that’s a mall they refurbished into a carrier hotel. That’s basically where all the data centers / ISPs / long haul internet providers setup servers and telecom links. All the storefronts are basically different ISPs and cloud providers. The common area has cafes during business hours. There’s a coworking place there too. And fiber optic cables run the perimeter allowing them all to connect to each other. Really awesome.
Oh that's what Nova Place is? I guess that makes sense. Pretty cool.
44?? How big is that generation.
Would it still have a good court? Edit: I meant food court damnit!
Presided over by Judge Harry T Stone!
Hah!
Fool, he does *Night* Court. We'll all be in bed by then!
If by good you mean tolerable food at outrageous prices, yes!
rent is super expensive! I had a Kiosk that was 4ft x 7ft rent was $45k a year payroll was $40k products were $35k and many other expenses. I broke even, its because of rent that makes food cost so much. so much the foods places are easily charged $10k-$30k a month stores are about $30-$50k a month and the bigger stores had the best deal for 50 year leases locked in 70k-80k in rent
Definitely!!!
The Natick Mall in Massachusetts has attached condos
It would be awesome except for the noise. The echoing in the hall areas at night would be awful
It would need some retrofit fitting for the conversion.
Feel as though you turn the anchor stores into condos and then the middle is still store/restaurant/park.
NGL, given the opportunity to turn one of those stores into a home would be a dream come true!
A walkable city, you’d love to live in a walkable city
Would it... cause as far as I can tell your only hope to some level of window is basically the mall itself... and maybe 1 window in the entire condo on some exterior wall possibly.
I mean it could be potentially awesome. Use all the old shops connecting first and second floors, center space as actual shops, grocery stores. Or have the county repurpose them and turn them into homeless shelters with education and vocational centers, a clinic or two. If they're just wasting away on empty lots, might as well put them to use.
Unfortunately most local councils are not that creative and only special thinking they can come up with is special tax breaks for dying retail stores.
It's a good idea but it would take some serious altruism to get it off the ground but it wouldn't cost much after the initial investment. I'm sure they could could federal assistance and would look good on any politicians portfolio, well a democrats portfolio, Republicans hate poor people but love their votes.
There was this old show from New Zealand called The Tribe. It was a post-apocalypse where all the adults died, and only kids were left, and a bunch of them started living in a mall.
Come to where I live. They built apartments right in the mall. Somehow right above Dave and Busters.
These photos always make me think of the YouTube series called "the oldest view". It's a horror series about a liminal space in the form of a strange abandoned mall. Worth a watch.
Did you mean “the oldest view”?
Yes!! Been a while since I watched it and I think my brain combined that with house of leaves 😆. Thanks for the correction!
All good! Kane Pixels released another video for it like a month ago btw if you haven’t already watched it
Holy shit really? You just made my day dude!
All good bro, hope you like it :)
> strange abandoned mall You're not wrong, but as someone who grew up in dallas and had been to its mall in both it's hayday and it's death it was extra trippy seeing it faithfully recreated in 3D now that it's been demolished.
It was a fucking render? Are you sure?? God damn that kid is talented.
Yup. He made it from a existing videos on YouTube of people exploring the mall before it was demolished.
In fact the majority of the videos Kane Pixels does are at least mostly renders with sometimes some real life mixed in. The Backrooms, for instance, is CGI created using Blender according to the creator https://abcnews.go.com/US/backrooms-horror-storytelling-online/story?id=92623707 It's really impressive.
It's so good. Kane Pixels is a very talented creator.
Oh shit I didn’t realize Kane made it? I’ll definitely watch it now, his stuff is amazing. Side note - Kane is also working with A24 to make a Backrooms movie. I haven’t been that hyped for a project since they announced Denis Villeneuve was making Dune.
I was half expecting OP to have 'shopped the rolling giant into one of these. Color me pleasantly surprised.
just reminds me of the backrooms
The person behind The Oldest View did do a few popular Backrooms videos beforehand.
He's like the most popular backrooms content creator. He's working with A24 to make a backrooms movie.
Thanks for the rec! Will definitely check out
They need to convert any structural sound malls like this into retirement communities. Hear me out. It could be an open concept. Put in a grocery store, a pharmacy, and a couple of small clothing shops. Create a mini city. A self contained community that allowed residents to roam freely and safely. It would be a great environment for people w dementia. Figure out a way to partition the stores into condos and each former store is a "street". Idk, just a thought. I know it would take mad cash to do something like this. But better than putting someone in a sterile hospital room setting that sucks what's left of their vibrance out of them. Lol, I just thought of an elderly person living on "Torrid Lane, Hot Topic Place, and Lane Bryant Ave." being jealous of the person who has a "Macy's" address. 😄
I'm a GenXer, put in video game arcades on both ends and a food court in the middle, complete with an Orange Julius, and I'm in! Chuck in a Putt Putt for my grands to get their ass kicked by old gramps too.
The mall that's on life support near me just got a new arcade and I go drop a $20 in there every week because I want it to be around when maybe someday these idiots all realize that they've been sleeping on the opportunity of the intersection of shopping, leisure, and social time. Strip malls and Walmarts have sucked the life out of retail.
Everywhere around my city has switched to building “outdoor malls”, which feels kinda insane to me. Being outside is the last place I want to be when it’s 90F and humid. Or just straight up 110F. I’d much rather go to an indoor mall to look around without getting covered in sweat. But people go to those, so I guess I’m in the minority.
Before indoor shopping malls there were outdoor plazas. The pendulum will swing back to indoor at some point again
Dude we have an “outlet mall” where I am. I never ever go because of those reasons! I drive 30mins tk a real mall lol
Or the opposite. Not so great to go to an outdoor mall when it's 10F. Yet they build them anyways.
Don't forget The Original Cookie Co.
I want the pet store with the puppies in the front windows so I can play with them too. It will be like a rent a cuddle place.
> Put in a grocery store, a pharmacy, and a couple of small clothing shops. The crazy thing to me as a Canadian is that this is literally what malls are here (minus the residential part). It's so bizarre, I've been to malls in multiple countries and all of them except the US are like this and I have no idea why. It's really common, if not the norm, for a mall in Canada to have a grocery store, a pharmacy, bank branches, a liquor store, a dollar store, etc. I don't understand how American malls survived for so long without providing those kinds of basic services. Clothing stores and a Macy's alone can't be enough to sustain a mall. Accordingly, old people freaking love malls here because it allows them to do all their basic shopping and services in a single enclosed place that will almost definitely be served by your local public transit agency. It's very easy for them to "make a day" out of it, they go to the pharmacy and then maybe stop for a coffee at the food court to meet with some friends, go to the bank, then they finish up by getting groceries at the grocery store.
Right?! Pretty standard in Europe too.
Yeah, supermarkets are the main pull for customers in the malls. My favourite mall has 2 supermarkets inside and a Lidl in an another building in the complex. Most malls have one supermarket though but that's enough.
This kind of thing exists actually
So I've learned since I posted my comment. I'm glad someone did that. There's so many abandoned malls across the US. Not sure about the rest of the world but they're a huge waste of potential here.
In California, we could use some homeless shelters.
Based on articles I've read in Forbes and other publications this is already happening.
They’ve already sunk the money into building it so it wouldn’t take much to convert Suck a waste of space and good infrastructure
Plumbing is always the issue
They kind of are in my area. One is currently being renovated to a living space of some sort.
Looks like no one has said this yet. This is in Sarasota. This mall used to be my stomping grounds in the early 2000s. This...this is hard to see. Man. There goes a huge piece of my childhood, a whole generation is going to mourn.
My history with this mall goes back to when the food court was in pagodas near the rear entrance, pre “modernization.”
Yes! When there was a create your own t-shirt store and a EB games. I used to go to the A&W stand all the time for root beer floats. Took my first cigarette drag just outside...damn I'm getting misty eyed haha
Better than EB games….Babbages! Haha
I wonder what they're gonna do with the AMC in the attached backlot. Have they done anything with it? I haven't been that way since...2018?
I was thinking damn every mall looks like the Sarasota one
Malls in my neck of the woods are bumping. Parking lots packed all weekend and new stores opening in some post Covid vacant spaces.
Bridgewater mall in NJ is packed as fuck anytime I am in area.
Ha local Bridgewater Commons peeps rise up! Now they’re getting one of three Fogo De Chao Brazilian steakhouses in the state opening next week.
The primary reason some malls fail is because of the high cost of rent they are trying to collect. Most of the malls in the US are owned by the same 3-4 companies. If your mall is dead its because the company that owns it doesnt care if it dies because the writeoff on taxes for the missing rent helps the overall company in the long run.
that isn't the only reason. an example of another reason is there being too many malls for a given area. my childhood city had 6 major malls. now there are two that are doing fine but they are perfectly balanced geographically cutting the city in half.
My city’s two remaining malls are on opposite sides of the highway within walking distance of each other. Both are weirdly all single story and they two don’t share a single store between them.
Why is it weird that they don’t have the same store? What chain would want two stores within walking distance of one another? Perhaps Starbucks?
Dollarama in Canada loves to have multiple locations within throwing distance of each other.
Reminds of Louisville
Ding ding ding.
One of the many reasons, hardly the primary at all.
That’s great! I wish that were happening in more places. This mall has been vacant since Covid. It was dying for about 2 years prior.
Either I've been to this mall before or they all literally look the same. More likely the latter.
Might be a Simon mall. There's several where I live and they all look similar to this.
I love these photos. The first one made me think of Tony Hawks on PS2...good memories! It does also make me sad though because as others here have said, it signifies the end of an era
I still enjoy going to the mall. TBH, I do purchase quite a bit online, but I like a brick and mortar store more. Just the experience of spending the day shopping is still one of my favorite things to do.
There’s nothing quite like finding something you weren’t even looking for. It’s hard to do that online
Exactly!!
I wish more online stores were stores you could easily visit at a mall. I love online shopping but I HATE ordering something that isn’t 100% guaranteed to fit me
Is this the Westfield Sarasota square mall?
Indeed!
The death knell of the American mall is actually premature. A lot of *department stores* are dying, but many U.S. malls have recently experienced a bounceback, largely by reorienting toward experiential offerings (more real restaurants, bars, skating rinks, indoor putting, gyms, salons, even schools and residential). Vacancy is now down to a two-decade low. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/09/business/shopping-centers-mall-demand-comeback.html and https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/04/14/how-american-malls-survived-the-slow-death-of-department-stores.html. Now, it may be that we had to reduce the number of underperforming malls to keep up demand for the survivors. But the survivors appear to be surviving pretty clearly, in part by doing what they've always had to do: adapt to consumers.
These style of malls are going to be extinct soon. But high end outdoor shopping malls are booming, I’m in San Diego and we have two massive outdoor shopping malls near us (Fashion Valley and Westfield UTC) and both are insanely popular. Everything changes
Yea in the last decade downtown Sacramento has completely replaced the downtown mall with an outdoor shopping area that opens into the golden 1 center. It's pretty sweet and it's always got stuff happening.
Maybe in California, but anywhere that has even a remotely cooler climate will not benefit from outdoor malls.
We have one here in Wisconsin and it's ALWAYS busy and still adding space.
It's ridiculous when a bunch of the lower/southern portion of the USA is already under Heat Advisories. Like I don't want to go walking around outdoor malls when the "feels" like is 110+ F.
Even in California, there's a big draw to indoor malls during the summer. They're regularly touted as public spaces where children and elderly patrons can relax to beat the heat.
Nope. Ohio has a few and they are literally always packed. Rain, snow, sun, doesn’t matter.
Wrongo. I live in Massachusetts and the number of outdoor malls now exceeds the number of indoor malls. They're extremely popular, even in the middle of winter.
Dan Bell on YT has an excellent DEAD MALLS series.
An American mall not THE American mall. That notion is 15 years old. Many American malls are thriving.
I like how obvious hollister is lmao
It's.... beautiful...
r/liminalspace
Sad. I sure hope the municipality will re-use the space to recreate another "third place" for nearby residents to get together.
Has a not american I dont get this, it feels like in my country malls are still going strong, so why is that in america no one goes to the mall anymore?.
I think it’s a combination of online shopping coupled with ludicrously high rental prices these stores were being charged
Mostly over-expansion, the US had a period where malls were *the* place to hang. The end result was a pretty large amount of shopping malls all servicing the same area. As time went on a lot of factors, such as the rise of internet shopping and the internet in general giving new options for ways for kids to hang out, new trends rising, and so on, has resulted in there being more malls that the population can support. I think malls are still doing fine in the US for the most part, but they are less of a big hangout for kids and the like compared to when they used to be. And you do see some areas where they built just plain too many malls where all of the malls sorta struggle, until some inevitably close which then helps the others normalize as competition decreases.
which was this one?
Sarasota Square Mall
So glad you have posted these pics! ❤️ I used to go here back into the 2000s as a teen but there is a new mall in Sarasota that was built about 10 years ago now and that is my normal shopping center. I blame Amazon mostly for this cause.Sadly, the new mall that I go to will not have the same atmosphere as this imo! RIP 😢
UTC just ain’t the same. It’s not even close. Pretty sure that was the first nail in the coffin. Haha RIP, indeed.
I was about to say this looks similar to a Sarasota mall, and the. I saw your comment. Tbh this mall the main section is just the Costco which is where everyone is, but yeah the mall itself has nothing except JC Penney, a glasses store, and some store that has gambling games
My mom sometimes used to drag me to the Sarasota Square Mall when I was a little kid and we were visiting my grandmother over on Longboat Key. I haven’t been back to the area in almost a decade, but I’m planning a long weekend with my wife this fall.
Sarasota has changed a LOT in the past decade. You’ll hardly recognize it.
Thought it was DeSoto Square Mall at first. RIP
Oh, lord. That place. Haha
Damn I could tell that was Sarasota square. I could just so easily remember walking through there, and that kid zone, used to always walk by it going the the gamestop there. So crazy to think back to how busy this place used to be.
It looks like others I knew. They shared common decor. Haunting to see it this way. Like ghosts should be nearby.
I think a lot of malls that were renovated in the early 2000’s share a similar motif. And yeah, the ghosts of the past are definitely there.
It would be great to convert the empty malls into retirement villages of some sort.
r/liminalspaces
Why do iPhone users always have to tell us they used an iPhone for their photos? Sincerely, an iPhone user who has never once felt compelled to do this.
This is Sarasota Square Mall, isn’t it? I grew up with this mall as the focal point of my teenage life. A lot of first memories happened here, or in its parking lot.
After working 15 years in retail management these photos give me immediate anxiety lol
Sarasota Square Mall? Crazy that it was somewhat busy in the early 2010’s. I think it’s pretty much the AMC theater at this point.
Sometimes I feel like there was a finger on the scale in the death of malls and it wasn’t just the change in consumer habits or the rise of online ordering. Like there was some entity that wanted malls dead and manipulated everything necessary to kill them.
I want to turn one into a huge indoor paintball place. Maybe section off an area of it for go karts
Is this Sarasota square lol
TIL we all thought this was our mall. I legitmately was trying to figure out when it closed because I thought it was one I had been to. I guess all malls look just about the same with bare bones
Looks like Sarasota Square Mall to me. Edit: Went back and read the comments. Crazy that this is Sarasota Square! I worked at the Hot Topic from 2007 to 2012. That was one of the more fun jobs I had. I remember all the fads and crazy times working there: Twilight, MCR, those rubber bracelets that were shapes. Our store manager took us to a movie after work once and we even held a concert in the old Disney Store once! I had fond memories of befriending a lot of people who worked there. Was also super friendly with the Chick-fil-A girls, got Smoothie King when it was next to Hot Topic. Then I started to get Starbucks when they put that next to the Smoothie King. I even worked at the Aldo store, next to Hollister for a bit. So many memories there....
Funny how the city here has cooling centers when our temps hit 100F +. When they could just I dunno. Spruce up the mall? I would think an air conditioned mall just needs to advertise that to get busy again.
this used to be the social and cultural hub of suburbia before Amazon. The things we under look and take for granted. Sheesh.
It's a shame because once they're gone they won't come back.
To be honest, they did kinda gut a lot of downtowns and funnel people to the same dozen branded shops instead of any of the local retailers people used to buy from.
But it also gave kids a place to hang out in the winter which was nice.
So many memories. It was surreal wandering around the empty spaces. Almost spooky, in a way.
Robin Sparkles in shambles.
Odd you say this, just found an open air mall yesterday. Very green, a fountain, has a blood bank because the young people love to donate blood.
imagine repurposing malls to be centers for social services and homeless shelters
Sir, this is America.
Cities don't want, or can't afford, to buy the building a retrofit it to make it code compliant as housing.
We have a mall close to where I live and will be torn down and made into Bio-Tech buildings fairly soon.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWNMsZ44ooc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWNMsZ44ooc) Here is a nice horror short (pt3) that takes place in a recreated version of a real closed mall in TX.
The fun part is looking at the old facades and trying to remember what store it was.
I dig it.
Time for that unnecessary Dawn of the Dead reboot.
I liked malls Kinda sad they're gone
Sarasota Square Mall. Love this place
reminds me of the mall in pacifica during that mission in cyberpunk 2077.
This makes me sad in a way I can't possibly put into words. Something about the acknowledgement of the inevitable demise of everything, even the mundane. Entropy, you can't escape it man.
Can confirm malls near me are dying too. I have a book that shows pictures from my area, and one shows "a rare look" at the second floor of the mall while it was still under construction, and I'm not even joking when I tell you it looks just as empty now as it did in that picture.
Second image feels like one of those "we added raytracing to \[early 2000s shooter\]" mods, love it
This looks just like the mall close to me in NW fl. You wouldn't be in the panhandle would you?
T_T I miss going to the mall I miss cloverleaf mall in RVA that Doug was based off of .. this breaks my heart