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The specter of ghost malls haunts the Bay Area
The Great Recession has brought an end to a great many industries – or at least changed them for good. Newspapers and auto dealerships are among the businesses that were teetering on the edge, when the economic crisis came along and pushed them off. Shopping malls also belong on that list. In fact, the great American retail center has been in decline for years. A website called deadmalls.com has been chronicling its demise since 2000, and dozens of malls have failed during that time. But now, things appear to be getting even worse.
The pleasure kills
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Responses (8)
Here's a terrific link I found on Edutopia: Lessons from the Mall ... how to create schools with aesthetics that stimulate kids and provide an environment they want to hang out in ... plus another link, from an architectural firm, about turning vacant department stores/malls into charter schools. Very timely now with raising of the upper limit on the number of allowable charter schools in the Race to the Top state competition for fed dollars in education.
Edutopia: www.edutopia.org/mall-architecture-school-design;
architectural story: blog.onlinelandplanning.com/2009/01/08/charter-schools-a-worthy-tenant-for-empty-department-stores-aspx.
Hm, I'm reminded of the startup I read about recently,
http://postabon.com/ -- which aims to chronicle "good
deals". Maybe this could be mashed up with http://deadmalls.com and some additional information
to create a map of places where the buyer/renter can get
a good deal on commercial real estate. Who wouldn't
want to rent a storefront somewhere if the price was
cheap enough? :)
With some added services, these dead malls can become
the new "cloud"...
All of the suggestions so far (aside from the initial question) are for keeping these massive, outdated buildings.
Open space is needed in many communities. Many mall sites were raw land before construction started. How about tearing them down and rehabilitating the land underneath them? It can be used for parks, or farms, or sports fields, for starters.
Trader Joe's / condos mixed spaces! Just kidding: I say make them into community centers with basketball courts and meeting spaces, and use the renovation project as a job skills/educational opportunity, like the Youth Employment Partnership (http://yep.org/) does in their Oakland warehouse.
From Stephanie Upp: "As a grad student in Austin, TX in the late 90's, I participated in a summer-long project that brought together community residents, business leaders, transportation planners and architecture students for a series of gatherings (focus groups & dead mall tours) that culminated in a day-long charette about our best ideas -- design & use -- for these empty shells. Not sure what became of the plans (and malls), but the collaborative process was fabulous & inspiring."
Marjorie Schalles writes: "Homeless shelters! Weight lifting gyms! Food shelves! Indoor parks for walking dogs, letting kids run loose. So many ideas..."
One more from Stephanie Upp :
"Market Creek Plaza in San Diego: an excellent example of mall revitalization benefiting the local community: http://www.facebook.com/l/849c1;www.marketcreek.com/"
It would be interesting to see the results of that session... What was your favorite idea of the bunch?