The indoor shopping mall turns 60 this year, but an Atlantic Cities article questions whether it’s dying:

At the mall’s peak popularity, in 1990, America opened 19 of them. But we haven’t cut the ribbon on a new one since 2006, for reasons that go beyond the recession.

Not a single new mall in the whole of the USA opened since 2006. That’s quite amazing. And by the sounds of it many of the existing malls are struggling to survive too:

By Dunham-Jones’ count, today about a third of our existing malls are “dead” or dying. That’s not to say they’re mostly vacant. But they have dreadful sales per square foot. High-end dress stores have moved out, and tattoo parlors have replaced them – “things,” Dunham-Jones says, “that would normally be considered way too déclassé for a mall.”

About a third of our malls are still thriving, and those are the biggest, newest ones. But America is no longer building many new highways, which means we’ve stopped creating prime new locations for mall development. Some of the earliest amenities of the enclosed mall – air-conditioning! – no longer impress us. And the demographics of suburbia have changed dramatically. Malls draw the largest share of their customers from teenagers, and the baby boomers who largely populate suburbia no longer have teenagers at home.

So what’s replacing these malls? Well, often it seems that we’re seeing something of a return to traditional style “main street” shopping, but within more mixed-use developments known as “lifestyle centres”. The article goes on:

… the suburban mall of Gruen’s plan appears to be victim of more than just the recession. Dunham-Jones, who has tracked this trend in her book Retrofitting Suburbia, estimates that more than 40 malls nationwide have been targeted for significant redevelopment. And she can count 29 that have already been repurposed, or that have construction underway.

In 2010, Columbus, Ohio, tore down the dead mall in its downtown for a park. Voorhees, New Jersey, demolished half of its dead mall, built a new main street and relocated its city hall into the remaining building. In Denver, eight of the area’s 13 regional malls now have plans for redevelopment. One of them, in suburban Lakewood, was converted from a 100-acre super block into 22 walkable blocks with retail and residences.

“It’s the downtown that Lakewood never had before,” Dunham-Jones says. Ironically, this is what Gruen had been aiming for. “Except that now it’s open-air.”

Americans haven’t particularly outgrown the consumer impulse that Gruen detected. We still love to flock to dense agglomerations of Body Shops and Cinnabuns and Brookstones. But now those places look increasingly like open-air “lifestyle centers,” with condos above or offices next door. Some of these places are just the old mall in a new Main Street disguise. But when you add residences, and cut Gruen’s mega-block into what actually looks like a downtown street grid, that begins to change things.

“You’ve got to get a mix of uses, but the connectivity is probably even more important,” Dunham-Jones says. “The uses will come and go over time, but if you can establish a walkable network of streets, that’s when you’re really going to establish a ripple effect in changing suburban patterns.”

Of course the City Rail Link project means that Westfield’s downtown shopping mall will need to be demolished. This is great as the mall is a pretty hideous building on one of Auckland’s best pieces of land. But elsewhere in Auckland it doesn’t really seem as though we’re following the USA’s trend. Within the land few years we’ve seen Sylvia Park and Albany malls open, two of Auckland’s biggest, while big redevelopments of both 277 Newmarket and St Lukes are on the cards to occur in the next couple of years.

I suppose this begs the question of whether Auckland’s fundamental retail environment differs from the USA, or whether they’re just a little ahead of us in the trend and it’s an inevitability that we’ll start to see a “post mall” retail environment. I certainly hope so, as long as it’s something better than the “mega centres” we often see sprouting up around shopping malls (yes I’m looking at you Wagener Place, St Lukes!)

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33 comments

  1. Surely the aim of mall owners and tenants should be to maximise the time that malls are productive. The days of the 9am to 5:30pm mall seem numbered with an increasing number of malls having cinemas, restaurants and bars. Designing malls to be more town centre like will mean these uses can be better integrated. Albany mall makes a valiant attempt to integrate these but you are still left with the feeling that you are in a shopping mall.

  2. We might want to see malls disappear here, but realistically some are hugely popular. Lower Hutt’s Queensgate is extremely busy at times – to the point where it could probably be enlarged to better accommodate the throng of people (and cars). It all depends on each mall’s situation in its wider environment. Upper Hutt Mall is clearly in decline. It failed to suck enough air out of its surrounding main street; Queensgate did however.

    However this is an Auckland blog, so… by-and-large the ‘suburban’ malls are well patronised, and thus will thrive in the medium term. Sylvia Park deserves mention for attempting to blunt the sharpest edges of big-box development. St Lukes conversely gets the brickbat. But ultimately it all comes down to demand – affected by location and surrounding competition. The best we can hope for is sensible tinkering when the owners develop them in the future…

    1. Yeah I don’t actually mind Sylvia Park too much. It feels like they’ve found a road somewhere, pedestrianised it and put a roof on top. In fact if you were to duplicate it and put in some cross streets it would almost resemble a functional town centre.

      1. Indeed. The outdoor courtyard bit with the restaurants is a good touch. I sometimes wonder what happened to the office development plans they had. (Perhaps a little narrow minded to not include apartments in the those plans.) The cynic in me wonders if the need for customer car parking trumps the need for office space. Pure speculation though…

        1. I think you might be right. That’s why I think Shore City is one of the best malls. All the parking is contained in one structure meaning that the mall interacts with the street better (although not as well as it should). Personally I think malls should have carparking either underneath the main structure or incorporated into it. I’m realistic in believing that malls will always have some form of parking but we really need to intensify it and make it more of a common parking area for the whole area like Takapuna. I foresee a time in which carparking buildings will be full almost all the time. With shoppers office workers during the day, shoppers on the weekend and residents at night. We’re always told that the market is effective in creating efficiencies yet carparking is strangely inefficient.

        2. I agree James B. Sylvia Park and Shore City are definitely the most pleasant malls. Saint Lukes and West City would probably be the worst in my opinion.

        3. KIPT still want to build offices on site but I think part of the problem is that our planning rules would require them to put more parking in which they don’t want to do. Understandably they want to make better use the parking they already have which is designed to take a peak shopping load.

  3. Westfields have a reputation for charging ferocious rents. That in turn means that the stores in their malls are not cheap – or rather, they are not competitive with internet shopping and discount outlet stores that recession-hit shoppers are flocking to spend their reduced discretionary dollar. Increasingly, marquee mall stores are serving aslittle more than changing rooms for internet shoppers.

    Not only is the internet cheaper, it is frequently far more personalised. Everyone wants that unique tee shirt or coffee mug tailored with their name on it. It seems to me people increasingly want to buy these sorts of consumer goods and electronics online and to get their shopping “experience” in markets and niche mainstreet stores selling unique or rare items.

  4. I don’t think malls are dying but need to evolve from the big box car focus. Would love to see retrofitting done to WestCity and St Lukes to accomodate the train stations nearby and more inviting for predestrians. WestCity for example you need to trek across the uninviting maze in the carpark to get inside from the train station. Definitely needs a skybridge or rethink about the entrance on the train station side.

  5. Yes Henderson definitely needs some work. Although the mall has some great features, Would love to see the main street revitalised with better urban design, more evening trade and quality townhouses/apartments close by. Still not sure why the council has such a large carpark by Falls restaurant.

  6. I think here in NZ we are also seeing the Main Street resurgence. Its great to see Queen Street bustling on a Saturday again. Also, with regards to local shopping malls dying and being converted, Clendon Shopping Centre in Manurewa was a thriving shopping mall in the 80’s and then in the 90’s and early 00’s it died and went into severe disrepair. A couple of years ago, the mall was completely refurbished having its main roof taken off and given a more “street” feel, new shops added and older ones torn down. Today Clendon Shopping Centre is busy every day and has a wide variety of shops catering to local needs many which were in the original format but have been moved to better suit the street feel; the butcher, fishery, and green grocer are right next to the New World and there are cafe’s and a brand new Mc Donalds with Mc Cafe (not saying if thats good or bad for the area).

    http://finstar.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Original-Clendon2485332.jpg

  7. Interesting the Clendon example. THree Kings and Royal Oak malls spring to mind of some smaller malls that have always suffered. Yes love the mainstreet revivals. Was in Kingsland on Saturday and was alive. Mt Albert slowly seeing life again needing a bit more variety.

  8. Hmmm, a quick google search reveals untold new malls opening regularly in the US. None since 2006 is completely false.

    1. This source (http://theweek.com/article/index/94691/the-vanishing-shopping-mall) modifies the claim to no “major” malls since 2006. It seems that they’re a victim of the recession…

      Q. If malls go, could downtowns come back?
      A. In this economy, not likely. Some developers have already tried building “lifestyle centers” in downtown areas left blighted when stores and shoppers fled to the outskirts. But there is no single “big fix” that will pump life back into downtowns full of boarded-up stores, says development expert Teresa Lynch.

    2. They are bending the truth a bit, but it’s not completely false.

      From wikipedia:

      only one new enclosed mall has been built in the US since 2006

      The key word here is “new”, it goes on to say

      Some enclosed malls have been opened up, such as the Sherman Oaks Galleria. In addition, some malls, when replacing an empty anchor location, have replaced the former anchor store building with the more modern outdoor design, leaving the remainder of the indoor mall intact.

      Plus the word “encolsed” is also very important, but outdoor malls are a different thing in this articles context of urban design.

  9. Construction of everything has slowed in the US, so the state of their mall construction isn’t a reflection of a global trend. There’s plenty of enclosed malls being built around the world, especially in China where the concept has really taken off. Still building them throughout Europe and the UK as well, despite their financial situation. But are still building them in the US as well.

  10. I can’t see why it isn’t in the planning rules for all parking to go underground. Its easy to say “its too expensive”, but that’s not the council’s problem, is it. The developer either wants the mall or they don’t.

    I can’t imagine too many other cities who allow parking for new malls to sprawl over a massive ground level space, or tower 6 storeys into the sky.

    I can only think of one major mall in KL which has surface parking to any great degree, and that would represent about 5% of total parking spaces. Most have 100% underground.

  11. “The Shard may be, at almost 310m, the tallest building in the EU, yet it has just 48 parking spaces – the point being that it sits right by London Bridge station, a major transport hub. “It’s another big shift – to tell people, ‘Look, stop going around in cars.'” Love it….

    As an aside, oh to have some imagination like that in the new buildings in the CBD – too many glass boxes……

    1. The Shard does happen to be an office building, not a mall… just a thought, eh? And you are aware that if the Shard was built in the Auckland CBD, it could also have 48 car parks? And could have had even if built 10 years ago?

      As for St Lukes, can we drop the argument that it is “close” to a train station? Morningside is over 800m away. Try walking that distance with several bags of shopping, or a new radiator, or a TV, or really, anything somewhat larger and heavier (I have done such things many times because I don’t have a car) – it isn’t fun, and it is no surprise it won’t work for many. Similarly, the vaunted Sylvia Park’s public transport share is actually pretty low. We aren’t London where Westfield claims that Stratford gets 3/4 of it’s traffic by PT. Malls here do have cars because Kiwis haven’t been given a good PT system to start with yet, and are not in the habit for using it for shopping even less.

      As for “is the shopping mall dying” – even if you argue that it’s past it’s prime, “dying” implies that the concept is moribund, rather than saturated. And I argue that there’s two reasons malls are having it tougher: the economic situation of the middle class (if you don’t have money, then you don’t shop much) and, as others have noted, the internet sales.

      Interestingly, Westfield for example are quite aware of that – encouraging retailers to be all about the experience of the shop in their internal presentations, one of which I attended a few months ago. They haven’t quite accepted yet that one day, the higher-class mall may just be a showroom -i.e. a place where the big brands show off their goods for testing and trying on, FULLY AWARE that shoppers will buy online – basically, the brick-and-mortar store will then become a part of the advertising budget of a brand!

  12. “The Shard does happen to be an office building, not a mall… just a thought, eh?” Yep, was aware of that. That’s why I had one post about shopping malls, and a separate one about The Shard.

    “And you are aware that if the Shard was built in the Auckland CBD, it could also have 48 car parks? And could have had even if built 10 years ago?” Actually, no I wasn’t. I would have thought that planning rules around minimum parking spaces would have obliterated any notion of having only 48 car parks – even if an Auckland version was 1/3rd the size of the original. I’m using the Britomart Area redevelopment has a guide – a huge carpark to accommodate increased patronage in the area, despite the largest public transport facility located right next door. You would expect it to be different?

    1. Auckland’s CBD doesn’t have minimum parking controls (in fact it has maximums). As far as I know it hasn’t had minimum parking requirements for quite some time (if ever?)

    1. The CBD (basically, within the “motorway moat”) is under a different district plan than 95% of the rest of former Auckland City (it’s called the Central Area Section). It became fully operative in 2005 (so I may have been slightly exaggerating with the 10 years).

      It actually has MAXIMUM car parking rules, and no minimums. If you development only has access from Type 1 roads (such as Queen Street), the maximum car parking is a whopping 0 (yes, you may not have ANY car parks without special dispensation). Much of the rest is only 1 car park between 105-150 sqm, extremely low, especially for Auckland. Around the edge of the CBD this leads to strange situations that a development only 20m further away suddenly has to provide hundreds of car parks, where within the CBD it cannot have more than a few dozens.

      Though that special dispensation, sadly, does sometimes undermine the the good intentions – the Britomart parking monstrosity was presumably allowed because they had some exemption from earlier times related to the intended future uses of the area. In all likelihood, the consent process had in one shape or form been going on for forever already, too.

  13. Re St Lukes being too far from the train station. You live in a pessimistic world. Public transport uptake to malls will continue improve. From memory the photos I’ve seen of the St Lukes development the Morningside drive side will just be a big fat wall and carparks. How about make this side more people friendly and accessible to pedestrians and public transport users? Bike racks provided? Open up to the outside world. One day I can perhaps envisage helpful free shuttles to and from the station to the mall. It would be useful to have an inviting entrance on Morningside drive to come to. More measures need to be taken to remove cars from this already congested part of the city than arrogantly designing to ensure that’s the only way to use the mall. Build for the future and work with the community.

    1. St Lukes is not close to Morningside, PT needs to be fully integrated with shopping to really work, even Sylvia Park is too disconnected in my view and by overseas practice. But it is up to the territorial authority to encorage expansion at better sites and not consent expansion of poorly placed facilities like this. Daft.

  14. I’m fully aware of the exception to our parking led planning regime in the severed CBD but as it seems pedantry is the rule here you will note that I didn’t specify the CBD. Also The Shard is a mixed use building with a hotel, retail and a few apartments, but that is hardly the point, it’s a vast building and the thinking here would have been that it must be served by cars and provide housing for them.

    A recent and disappointing example is Ironbank on K’rd for which the developer successfully fought to be allowed to provide more parking than the max, despite it being right next door to two huge parking buildings. It is also worth noting that they could only supply this parking with an extremely expensive car stacking system and extra excavation that must have added considerably to the capital cost of the building; the resultant rents are high in this building and it remains not fully leased. Is there a lesson here? And Samson Corp are arguably the city’s best developer currently building another dramatic building in lower Parnell also with floors and floors of car parking. In fact in this case they are building up at the same time as excavating below, very impressive but at what cost?

    Of course they must have done their sums but I wonder if they are working to a somewhat backward looking model? Is it impossible to profitably rent a building in AK without floor after expensive floor of dedicated in building parking? How much more competetive could the rental be with fewer parks?

    And, of course, how many more unwanted new car movements will this building generate on Parnell Rd?

    1. Hi Patrick – working a lot with developers, I would say that many still WANT the extra car parking. However, there’s an increasing number who don’t, so the tide is slowly shifting. But right now, extra car parking is still a great sales argument for many buyers and tenants. Whether that makes sense in 5 years or 20 isn’t really the point for a developer who needs to stack up the money now, and will in many cases be out of the property a few years later at latest.

      Also, I keep thinking of a certain post Josh made when he was still running the blog. Even in a city that intensifies, and improves PT, the car traffic to the CBD’s still RISES. Not as fast as population and employment does, but it still rises. So on that point, Ironbank / Samson may have made an economically smart move in the long-term sense (and they are apparently the type of developer who DOESN’T flog their properties on, but keeps them). So who knows – the monetary value of car parking spaces in the CBD may even continue to rise, even in a post-CRL world…

      I do agree that exceptions to the minimum parking rules are granted quite easily, comparatively speaking (i.e. if the developer is willing to spend time on consultants and lawyers). At least with the Unitary Plan, we will hopefully get a reversal of the starting assumption (with emphasis on “don’t provide too much” rather than “don’t provide too little”).

  15. Yes Samson never sell, which is why their buildings are so much better. They know they will have to maintain them. So they build more like a university or a church…. they also are to be applauded for their commitment to designing a better city, but it is a shame that this doesn’t seem to be extended to how their parking policy also affects quality of place.

    I would love to see the math for Ironbank especially; lower capex; higher occupancy?

  16. Yet in London, the two new shopping malls at Shepherd’s Bush and Stratford have been a roaring success, both built adjacent to multi-line tube and rail stations (3 and 6 respectively) and with plenty of car parking and adjacent to major highways. Big shopping malls are also successful on the periphery of Paris and Rome, mainly with people on middle to lower incomes because they are very price competitive.

    Meanwhile comparing the Shard with London Bridge stations (national and underground) under it, which have numbers of passengers each weekday comparable to the total number of commuters to Auckland’s CBD (around 170,000), is a bit of a stretch.

  17. I think the reason that the two Westfields have been so successful is that decent malls are about as common as hen’s teeth in London, esp. if you have no car. With them both being located in relatively poor parts of London they have helped generating urban renewal for those areas (and yes Startford might have another event on here next week that has greatly helped it. In Shepherd’s Bush it is only because Hammersmith & Fulham Council made it part of their consent).

    I’ve been to the Lakewood Mall mentioned in the article, used to shop there a lot it; it is very similar in layout/ethos to Botany Downs with even worse public transport connections.

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