Mall Owners Rush to Get Out of the Mall Business | Hacker News Reader

Mall Owners Rush to Get Out of the Mall Business

wsj.com

19 pointspanabee31 comments

Can we stop linking WSJ articles now? I love the Journal but the paywall is no longer bypass-able. Even Googling the article doesn't get me past it anymore.

Same thing for me, I used to be able to get around it and not anymore.

Me too... I thought it was a cookie thing and the WSJ didn't want me to have any more "free" views, but linking through Google News doesn't even work from an incognito window.

It's a Dow Jones article, so there's no reason to link through WSJ. For a non-paywalled version, follow this link: http://news.morningstar.com/all/dow-jones/us-markets/2017012...

For the most recent example of a failed mall, see Pittsburgh Mills: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/21/pittsburgh-area-mall-sells-fo...

A $100 winning bid for the Pittsburgh Mills at the foreclosure auction. Not bad (and quite sad)

Wait until they get the property tax bill.

It's a bid from the bank that holds the mortgage -- mostly symbolic. In effect it's a transaction to write off the loan and take possession of the property. There were no real bidders, as the bank could raise the bid all the way to the amount they're owed without any real effect on their bottomline.

We don't necessarily go shopping at malls, but on oppressively warm days, we'll take the tykes down to the local mall and use their indoor playspaces. And while we're hanging about for a couple of hours, we'll make impulse purchases and maybe take in a meal in the food court.

We're not alone -- everyone I know does this. I'm not at all sure this is a sustainable customer base for asset-heavy businesses like mall holding companies.

I've never been in a mall with an "indoor playspace".

They're fairly common in California. Anything to get more foot traffic, I guess.

Shopping malls were once quite popular in the U.S. The idea was to provide city-like commerce options to people in small town America. Obviously the Internet (especially Amazon) has made this model obsolete in virtually every way possible. It's inevitable that we'll see more malls closing down over time. I'd love to see some initiative to purchase these malls and appropriate them for other purposes (office spaces, manufacturing, etc). However, it's probably not worth it in the end due to maintenance costs.

As an aside, if you haven't seen Dan Bell's Dead Mall Series you should check it out. The Rolling Acres Mall is probably the most infamous of the dead malls he has filmed and worth a watch if you're interested in urban exploration and urban decay [1].

[1] https://youtu.be/Zov7PEXdVZk?list=PLNz4Un92pGNxQ9vNgmnCx7dwc...

There's definitely been (at least in my anecdotal experience) a split between the larger malls and the small/medium size ones. The larger malls are still enough of a draw (with lots of shopping, dining, and entertainment options) to bring people there.

The smaller malls are losing business to the larger ones, since people going to the malls are often looking for 'something to do' instead of just looking to buy a widget. Once a large anchor store or two closes at the small/medium malls (as has happened with department store chains like Macy's or JC Penney), the death spiral of the mall begins.

Some malls have recovered but only with major revitalization, renovation, and often repositioning (adding more upscale stores if the area has the business for such). An example of this in NY is the Nanuet Mall in Rockland County. That mall started failing more due to the nearby Palisades Center that was built in the 90s as a mega-mall. The Nanuet mall closed (completely I believe) before being demolished and recreated.

Sadly, I can't add any comments based on the specific WSJ article, as it is behind a paywall.

Well another example of a mall that picked up on this and saved themselves was Bergen Mall in Hackensack, NJ. That mall was straight up frozen in the 90s up until the late 2000s despite being quite large. Few people went there, especially since Garden State Plaza was so close by and offered so much more.

Their owners COMPLETELY rebuilt the mall to complete with it in 2009 or so and turned it into a mid-upscale property. Completely turned it around.

To all those with teenageish children: do kids nowadays still hang out at the mall?

I'm not sure in other countries but in Australia, I have never seen children / teenagers ever actually "hanging out" at the mall.

I don't personally have any of my own but I haven't seen any of my friends children there either. Most likely are either the skate park ( where teenagers who don't skate seem to hang out as well) or the youth centre which is basically a glorified arcade with councillors etc and the library which is less of a library and more of a sitting place with games, movies etc.

Again, this is simple anecdote and in Australia so may not apply to the rest of the world.

I'm from rural australia and I definitely remember kids hanging out at local shopping centers. I visited home recently and they still do, especially in summer (40+ degrees, who can blame them).

Westfield Bondi Junction has a lot of kids hanging around after school finishes.

They did and still do in Australia. It may depend on the area though, inner city Melbourne for instance isn't as shopping center centric as the rest of Australia.

Yes, i know of middle school kids in Oregon who want to go hang out at the mall.

Not beyond 14 in my experience.

Honestly, I probably spent far too much time hanging out in parking lots. I grew up in NJ and I am currently 22 in my last year of University so I'm talking about '06-'12 period.

Kids in my town definitely hang out at the much trendier (and overall nicer) outdoor mall that was built on my side of town a few years ago. We have a more traditional mall on the north side of town, but no one I knew growing up would hang out there because it was so far. We hung out at the movie theater instead.

About time.

Although I avoid them like the plague the subjective "feeling" of malls has always seemed to me like a succession of gimicks to get people to buy more stuff they dont need. Often, and this is really being presumptive, these gimicks seem most effective on those least able to afford them.

Less malls means less in-your-face marketing for the suceptible masses....unless of course someone built a massive online search engine that was equally effective at pumping ads in people's faces....

The suit is b... Err, does anyone know how old the "malls are dying" meme is? I seem to recall hearing this for about the last 20 years or so.

Malls are no longer what they were. Lots of malls are dying, those that are thriving have become something else.

I, for one, will mourn the loss of malls. It's nice to have things physically laid out in a physical space.

When the arcades left the malls I stopped going. Then again I also got old and the world changed.

Does anyone know where these mall closures are happening? I feel the article barely skims the surface of why these malls are closing.

People have less money, less free time. The internet. Amazon.

http://www.deadmalls.com

I can only tell you what I see near me. Here in greater Des Moines, several malls and shopping centers are shadows of their former selves, especially Southridge. In OKC, Crossroads Mall was barely surviving last I looked. Not much data, to be sure.

The Kansas City area's gone from... 8? 9? fairly large malls to one, that I'm aware of.

We have gained an outdoor version that has the bonus creepiness of trying to look like a nice, organic downtown of a quaint small european city while being full of f*cking cars and feeling fake as hell. Several of those around now. All of them would be 100x better if they'd shut down the roads to car traffic and make everyone park on the edges and walk (including and especially the somewhat older local prototype for the model, "The Plaza"). They're like malls but you get rained on and it takes way longer to walk anywhere, and you might get run over. They're really popular for some reason.

[EDIT] I can think of four really big versions of the above around here now, and a couple smaller ones, and I'm sure there are more. Similar model to a mall, usually developed and owned by one entity, which tightly controls who can and can't be there (local KC example: MeMa's getting kicked out of The Legends because they didn't have enough other locations). They're exactly like malls but worse. I do not understand.

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