How to save the Mall

[Love365]

To save a Mall it needs 3 things.

1. A Book Store

2. A Furniture Store

3. A McDonald’s


The Book Store and the Furniture Store are needed
so people have a comfortable place to sit and rest.

The Furniture Store should sell recliners and couches.

The Book Store should have good seating.

The food doesn‘t technically need to be a McDonald’s
but something close to that.

 

[AlexB23]

To save a Mall it needs 3 things.

1. A Book Store

2. A Furniture Store

3. A McDonald’s


The Book Store and the Furniture Store are needed
so people have a comfortable place to sit and rest.

The Furniture Store should sell recliners and couches.

The Book Store should have good seating.

The food doesn‘t technically need to be a McDonald’s
but something close to that.

4. Shut down Amazon

5. Place small malls in airports.

6. Allow malls to have community centers.

 

[Desk trauma]

Why should malls, or any business model that’s failing due to falling use, be saved?

 

[AlexB23]

Why should malls, or any business model that’s falling due to falling use, be saved?

OP likes to talk about saving things, and I like saving things also. We need communal spaces, and malls sadly may not be the answer, so I agree with you.

3rd places explained: Third Places: What Are They and Why Are They Important to American Culture? | English Language Institute

 

[Tuur]

I remember a time when there were no malls. I remember when we didn't have local shopping center. Malls were enclosed shopping centers where you could visit several stores in climate controlled comfort.

This was in the age when mail order was bigger than people now think, I once had to pour over Commerce Department info for sales data and was surprised to see mail order was bigger than Internet sales then (this was maybe 20 years ago). This means malls sprang up in the age when shop at home wasn't unusual. The first one I went to had a bookstore. It closed years ago. It had one upscale and one chain eatery. Both have closed. It had a real sporting goods store (where hunting and fishing weren't verboten). That closed. It's big anchor store, a department store, went bankrupt decades ago.

If I'd been paying attention back then, going to a jewelers in that mall to look for my wife's engagement ring should have been a tip-off that things weren't quite well. The prices where high compared to others. I ended up buying her ring from another jewelry store, one not in a mall. An office supply that's now in that mall is on the expensive side. With the anchor store gone, the high prices in most stores in the mall were a turn-off. Fewer stores meant fewer paying rent., and that means it turned seedy, and that meant fewer wanted to go there.

That isn't the only mall I've seen go down hill like that. Malls used to have at least some elegance, but elegance comes at a price, and if few can pay it, the elegance vanishes.

These days, I have no great desire to go to a mall if I'm where a mall is located. They don't carry what I want at reasonable prices.

 

[AlexB23]

I remember a time when there were no malls. I remember when we didn't have local shopping center. Malls were enclosed shopping centers where you could visit several stores in climate controlled comfort.

This was in the age when mail order was bigger than people now think, I once had to pour over Commerce Department info for sales data and was surprised to see mail order was bigger than Internet sales then (this was maybe 20 years ago). This means malls sprang up in the age when shop at home wasn't unusual. The first one I went to had a bookstore. It closed years ago. It had one upscale and one chain eatery. Both have closed. It had a real sporting goods store (where hunting and fishing weren't verboten). That closed. It's big anchor store, a department store, went bankrupt decades ago.

If I'd been paying attention back then, going to a jewelers in that mall to look for my wife's engagement ring should have been a tip-off that things weren't quite well. The prices where high compared to others. I ended up buying her ring from another jewelry store, one not in a mall. An office supply that's now in that mall is on the expensive side. With the anchor store gone, the high prices in most stores in the mall were a turn-off. Fewer stores meant fewer paying rent., and that means it turned seedy, and that meant fewer wanted to go there.

That isn't the only mall I've seen go down hill like that. Malls used to have at least some elegance, but elegance comes at a price, and if few can pay it, the elegance vanishes.

These days, I have no great desire to go to a mall if I'm where a mall is located. They don't carry what I want at reasonable prices.

How old are you? A time before malls? Just messing with you, my parents remember a time with less malls (1970s). Malls became big in the 1980s and 1990s. Do you like the mall food, such as Auntie Anne's or Cinnabon?

 

[AlexB23]

Yo, do you guys like Auntie Anne's?

Auntie Anne's - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Info about Auntie Anne's: The Real Reason Auntie Anne's Became A Fixture In American Malls - Mashed

 

[Tuur]

How old are you? A time before malls? Just messing with you, my parents remember a time with less malls (1970s). Malls became big in the 1980s and 1990s. Do you like the mall food, such as Auntie Anne's or Cinnabon?

I'm in my sixties. I remember a country store that was like a small department store, and was heated by a pot bellied stove. I remember going into a grocer's in town and buying cheese cut from a hoop. Small stores went away with the rise of chain stores, then those went away in favor of other stores.

The last time I was in a mall was when the offspring were in high school. We went to an office supply store. After looking at the prices, one came to me and said at the same time I did "This is overpriced." We went to a Walmart and bought school supplies that cost less. That, in a nutshell, is what happened to malls.

I don't have a favorite mall food. They changed, anyway.

 

[ozso]

When I lived in Las Vegas until 2014 there were about three regular malls and then several big malls in the Strip hotels. They were fun to walk through especially when it was really hot outside. Basically miles of interconnecting extravagant malls.

 

[ozso]

Yo, do you guys like Auntie Anne's?

Auntie Anne's - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Info about Auntie Anne's: The Real Reason Auntie Anne's Became A Fixture In American Malls - Mashed

I think I've only gotten a pretzel there once or twice. If I eat at the food court, 9 times out of 10 it's Panda Express.

 

[ozso]

How old are you? A time before malls? Just messing with you, my parents remember a time with less malls (1970s). Malls became big in the 1980s and 1990s. Do you like the mall food, such as Auntie Anne's or Cinnabon?

When I was a teen the Northridge Mall in Nothridge, California was the place to go around 1975-79. We used to take the bus there. Ironically it was the same bus and route I took to get to middle and high school. I was there at earlier ages too with adult family members.

 

[AlexB23]

I think I've only gotten a pretzel there once or twice. If I eat at the food court, 9 times out of 10 it's Panda Express.

Interesting stuff. The cinnamon coated pretzels are the best. So, you like Chinese-American food better? I like some Asian food, but Indian food is the best.

 

[AlexB23]

When I was a teen the Northridge Mall in Nothridge, California was the place to go around 1975-79. We used to take the bus there. Ironically it was the same bus and route I took to get to middle and high school. I was there at earlier ages too with adult family members.

Nice. That sounded fun. Panda express was not founded until 1983, so what did you have for food there in the late 1970s?

 

[eleos1954]

To save a Mall it needs 3 things.

1. A Book Store

2. A Furniture Store

3. A McDonald’s


The Book Store and the Furniture Store are needed
so people have a comfortable place to sit and rest.

The Furniture Store should sell recliners and couches.

The Book Store should have good seating.

The food doesn‘t technically need to be a McDonald’s
but something close to that.

Because of all the stealing being allowed ... malls are a thing of the past.

 

[AlexB23]

Because of all the stealing being allowed ... malls are a thing of the past.

That is true also, but I would have to say that Amazon is the biggest reason, and theft as one of the other big reasons.

 

[Love365]

Malls had security guards in the past.

 

[AlexB23]

Malls had security guards in the past.

I thought all malls had security guards. There is a 2009 film called Mall Cop. I should see it, if it is wholesome.

 

[Niels]

I remember a time when there were no malls. I remember when we didn't have local shopping center. Malls were enclosed shopping centers where you could visit several stores in climate controlled comfort.

This was in the age when mail order was bigger than people now think, I once had to pour over Commerce Department info for sales data and was surprised to see mail order was bigger than Internet sales then (this was maybe 20 years ago). This means malls sprang up in the age when shop at home wasn't unusual. The first one I went to had a bookstore. It closed years ago. It had one upscale and one chain eatery. Both have closed. It had a real sporting goods store (where hunting and fishing weren't verboten). That closed. It's big anchor store, a department store, went bankrupt decades ago.

If I'd been paying attention back then, going to a jewelers in that mall to look for my wife's engagement ring should have been a tip-off that things weren't quite well. The prices where high compared to others. I ended up buying her ring from another jewelry store, one not in a mall. An office supply that's now in that mall is on the expensive side. With the anchor store gone, the high prices in most stores in the mall were a turn-off. Fewer stores meant fewer paying rent., and that means it turned seedy, and that meant fewer wanted to go there.

That isn't the only mall I've seen go down hill like that. Malls used to have at least some elegance, but elegance comes at a price, and if few can pay it, the elegance vanishes.

These days, I have no great desire to go to a mall if I'm where a mall is located. They don't carry what I want at reasonable prices.

Amazon is basically the Sears of the 21st century. Although I grew up when malls were popular, my parents also had the Sears catalog, Lands End, etc. A lot of our clothes were mail order.

It's interesting to see the recent fascination with dead malls and other dead retail outlets. People are painstakingly recreating old malls and Kmarts in virtual reality, for instance. There's a surprising amount of nostalgia for the shopping mall experience.

 

[AlexB23]

Amazon is basically the Sears of the 21st century. Although I grew up when malls were popular, my parents also had the Sears catalog, Lands End, etc. A lot of our clothes were mail order.

It's interesting to see the recent fascination with dead malls and other dead retail outlets. People are painstakingly recreating old malls and Kmarts in virtual reality, for instance. There's a surprising amount of nostalgia for the shopping mall experience.

There are hundreds of videos about abandoned malls on the internet, and some of them are fascinating. Sears is sadly no more, and Kmart has been dead for a few years. Time flies, my brother.


Abandoned 1990s mall (duration: 12 minutes, age rating: 12+)

 

[bèlla]

Malls are never coming back. They're being repurposed like schools and the majority will be used for housing. Online shopping is growing and retailers are decreasing their physical footprint. Stores may be convenient for consumers but they're paying rent and salaries whether you shop or not. The only way to break even is with a membership like Sam's and Costco.

~bella