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If malls continue to shut down and decay over the next twenty years, someone should turn them into retirement communities for GenX and Millennials.

Imagine apartments built into what used to be department stores, (Oh, you’re JC Penny 203? I’m at Sears 106). Get those old arcades up and running. Set up meal stations at the food court. Once people actually live there, stores will start to move back in.

If I’m unable to finish my life in my own home, that doesn’t sound like a terrible option.

pelletbucket ,

they’ve already started turning them into rental units because that’s apparently the entire American economy now

Sibbo ,

Imagine how much money you could make by ripping off retired people who cannot leave the mall anymore due to old age.

Not that I would endorse this. Combining retirement homes with retail sounds dangerous for the retired.

JoMiran ,
@JoMiran@lemmy.ml avatar

In Austin (when I lived there) the main mall finally closed down in the 2Ks. It was obvious that nobody was going to pick it up so the city turned it into an Austin Community College campus.

Carrolade ,

This is now my favorite housing idea ever.

cashmaggot ,

I've thought about this a lot, on account of infinite people having an insane amount of trouble just keeping consistent shelter over their heads. My gal had suggested this as a means for the homeless. I know that right now malls are being lent out to many individual small organizations (namely churches as far as I know it). But I am not sure this is sustainable as a whole. Due to maintenance costs, hazardous situations like mold and lack of privacy.

I also think about how people keep saying cost of living is why people aren't having kids. But I have lived in multiple places that were once a much larger living space that had been jankily peacemealed into several much smaller apartments. I am a human that enjoys having space of my own, even if it's micro in nature. I can't imagine I am alone in that. And I don't believe people will want to further invest in divvying up spaces in malls. At least, unless they're getting kickbacks. And they'll probably do it in the worst of ways. Leading to spaces that will be barely sound and fast to degrade but slow to fix. I mean shelter is super duper important. But I swear to god your surroundings can affect your mental state. And when you're wedged together in a decaying mold filled building with a bunch of aging individuals facing a slew of different health-issues it'll probably deteriorate your wellness faster than if we tore the places down and utilized some sort of cheap eco-friendly building material/robo-builder to assist making healthier homes.

Also mind you, I don't think we're gunna have beautiful low-income or middle-income homes if the greige, vinyl, orange-peel, chrome take-over points towards anything.

solsangraal ,

when internet still basically consisted of angelfire and geocities (yes, even before myspace), we used to go to the mall and pester the goth kids smoking cigarettes by the mall entrances who were there because they also had nothing else to do

ZeffSyde ,

Whatever.

Go to Abercrombie and buy another polo shirt, conformist. /S

Varyk , (edited )

Malls are actually doing fine.

Apparently they were already shutting down the too-many-malls that there were, but there are still a few hundred and they’re doing well.

Specifically, for the reasons you’re saying, because they have a food court and arcade stations and basically our community centers, more than just shopping outlets.

It looked like all the malls were dying out because there were simply too many for the American population, but now that number’s kind of stabilized and slowly growing again.

But as for the disused ones that were built during the boom 20 years ago? sure.

They’d make good housing.

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

The malls that are succeeding still are the ones that are transitioning to hosting nearly exclusively luxury and fashion stores, i.e., retailers that don’t have to compete with Wal Mart and Amazon. These are obviously only viable in areas that are fairly affluent to begin with.

aubeynarf ,

you have to go all the way down below the dirt to prep a site for residential units. With a toilet, shower, and sink per unit, the density of sewer and water plumbing is much higher than commercial. Fire codes also demand egress points (a.k.a. windows) for every bedroom - hard to do Inside a big box retail space.

j4k3 ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

Also the weight for housing is much higher than the structure is designed for with large open space retail. If the thing didn’t collapse, it would probably sink into the ground enough to cause problems.

Now, if one could find a way to replace the department store footprints with housing, and have the mall corridor administered by a municipal authority without some criminal venture capital thief, something like this could be a great way to create practical compact and walkable living spaces. We need stuff like this, but no one in real estate can act in good faith with long term sustainability. Quarterly return vampires are too deep into their suicide run to handle sustainable life goals, even if the doors fall off mid flight.

idiomaddict ,

Is a mall on Black Friday ( in the mall heyday) really lighter than a residence of the same footprint? Or is the average weight over time more important than a dozen hours every once in a while?

j4k3 ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

The more open a floor plan appears, where there are not large support columns, the lower the weight bearing capacity will be in general.

With something like modern skyscrapers that appear to have open floor plans, there is a massive structure somewhere within the design. The structure is usually in the center built around the elevators and stairs, although there are other methods too. This structure is engineered for the specific loads of each floor and the total structure, along with various environmental factors such as weather. Like all structures, this starts with a foundation that is large enough for the designed load with a small margin of safety added. The cost of the foundation is directly related to the weight bearing capacity. No one is building structures with substantial extra unused capacity. Likewise, people like the aesthetics of open indoor spaces. This involves designing a structure with the minimal amount of load bearing capacity so that it does not need support columns throughout for the roof and upper floors. This particular aesthetic constraint means that the total load bearing capacity of department stores is very close to what you see in a typical store. If you start adding a bunch of walls and furniture to subdivide this space, there us absolutely no chance that the structure could handle the load. Even if you would like to add support columns, the foundation is engineered for the load. You can’t reinforce something like this in a cost effective way. The size and depth of the pad, rebar density and structure all must be substantially different. You’re likely to need piles or other features that tie in the structure to deeper bedrock elements of the underlying earth.

idiomaddict ,

I guess I’m picturing a mall with lots of support beams in the stores themselves, but not many in the hallways. I wonder if my local mall growing up was originally built for a different purpose. I can’t really picture any other malls, but I’ll keep an eye out when I visit a different one.

jaybone ,

Malls are usually multiple stories. Couldn’t you do all the plumbing on the first floor to avoid going underground. And then add structural reinforcement at the first floor to prevent higher floors from collapsing / sinking? Yeah for egress you’d have to put the bedrooms along the exterior walls. But I’m sure you could still get plenty of use over the space which does not border an exterior wall both as part of the unit and as part of some shared community area.

j4k3 ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

Watch when an old mall is demolished, the structure and the way the heavy equipment is used. You’ll start to see the issue better. It UA usually sketchy business to demolish because of the spans involved. It is more like light bridge construction than it is a typical building. It can’t be demolished incrementally like taking out bites of the structure and working across. The ones I’ve seen drop the roof first and clean up what remains.

Only an engineer can really say one way or another, and every building will be different. However, I’m willing to bet the load bearing structure is specialized and unique to the application. I doubt there is any flexibility for repurposing more than 10-15% outside of the tolerance you see utilized. It is like the question why can’t a Honda Civic perform like a Bugatti. Technically anything is possible if you point your money machine gun at it in a currency downpour, but is it still a Civic when a Bugatti is cheaper?

The smarter option is likely to demolish the light structure of the department store and build a proper apartment building that is then attached back onto the mall corridor.

SendMePhotos ,

Bet you’re real fun on renovation shows…

idiomaddict ,

…I want someone like them working on every single renovation

lemmefixdat4u ,

How do earth-sheltered homes comply? I’ve seen a few, and they have no windows in most of the rooms, including bedrooms. And there’s a few who’ve taken to living in caves, old mines, and decommissioned missile silos. There must be an exception to this code.

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

Forget that, how to tower blocks comply? There isn’t a single exterior fire escape on any of the multi-story apartment buildings anywhere in my entire county, and some of those fuckers are 7 or 8 stories tall. Your choices in the event of fire are an interior stairwell, or splat.

SpaceNoodle ,

They tore down the big, stagnating mall a few minutes from my place years ago. It’s still a big, empty lot.

This would have been a much better and surely most cost-effective solution. Instead, we’re probably eventually gonna get another soulless office park in spite of dwindling demand.

cashmaggot ,

I didn't know this, on account of like not knowing a lot of land owners. But I did know one (for sure), and they had some property that unfortunately burnt down. It was more economically sound for them to keep the place an empty lot with a guard and a gate than to build something back up. I think that's naners. But also the whole situation was some kind of nanas.

I heard the same thing for landlords in the past. That having the property in any state is better than having to reinvest that cash into upkeep. So you don't particularly care about the renter's life quality, as much as you care that they keep floating money up to you and not complaining as things fall apart around them. And keeping people in crisis mode is a great way to counter any sort of counter-measures they can bring down on you. But also keeping public support organizations under-budget and overwhelmed is a solid way of sending the message "you're on your own."

I know it's kinda like a learned helplessness thing - but when everything around you is shit, and you're trying your best and just keep sinking - it's tough to fight assholes. But this is all er...my thoughts on the matter. I don't know anything definitively. Just figured they're banking that property until it's time to sell. And anything that goes into it - is money that cuts overall profits.

dustyData ,

That would be really good, but this idea has been explored and unfortunately it is only viable on a very narrow amount of buildings. Most malls aren’t properly built to be housing and the costs of adapting them for housing exceed the cost of just building new housing elsewhere. And the costs of tearing it down and rebuilding are even greater. Overall, Malls are economic net negatives for communities, all single use infrastructure constructions are.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

This is the answer.

A cheap / half assed conversion would be a ghetto. It would be awful.

Sanitation would be a huge problem also. In an apartment you have access to air from the outside. Imagine everyone living in a box in the same enclosed space. Yes I understand malls have gargantuan (and expensive) air conditioning systems. It would still stink.

Not to mention the money. Even a derelict mall is still worth many millions of dollars. You have to buy or lease the building from them.

You’d be much better off creating a walkable community of low-cost housing in a low-density semi-rural area.

TootSweet ,

Stahp, I’m not even 40 yet.

Matt Damon gets older meme

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

Nah. Vaporwave themed laser tag arenas. Let’s go.

dbx12 ,

Cool idea but lack of natural light could be an issue.

Darkassassin07 ,
@Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca avatar

Hey, that’s a benefit to some of us…

LostWanderer ,

I would love to see this kind of repurposing of properties to be far more common! Malls tend to be fairly central, so they make ideal locations for being nearby everything a person could need in a residential setting.

Guadin ,
@Guadin@k.fe.derate.me avatar

This isn't a too shabby of an idea. It probably won't be used but a mix of stores and homes in one building sounds great.

dan1101 ,

That would be a cool place to live to me.

Rhaedas ,

The idea of apartments centered around a grocery plaza has been a thing for a while. It's almost an answer, except it still requires transportation to everything else. Plus the stores tend to be higher prices to support the cost of property and because they can.

Kaboom ,

Add a metro station, a large parking garage, should work

fine_sandy_bottom ,

apartments centered around a grocery plaza has been a thing for a while

Do you mean like… a town?

Rhaedas ,

A town is a bit more than that, but it is how towns typically began, from a central trading place and nearby settlements. Only this is a planned concrete parking lot and established chain along with fully built domiciles, already in a city/town's jurisdiction.

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