Death to Malls! Long Live Amazon!

The life and death of malls

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By 1960, there were 4,500 malls in America—some open, many enclosed. By 1975, that number had risen to 16,400, and by 1987, there were 30,000 malls accounting for half of all retail dollars spent in the country. .

.. the Mall of America, birthed near the peak of the mallification in 1992. At the time, it was an unbelievably audacious project: with its amusement park, its 12,500 parking spaces, its five hundred stores, its 4.2 million square feet of space. It made us feel so small, just as it made our needs feel so large.

... To many, the Mall of America seemed to be a turning point. And it may have been one. Malls have been on the decline since the late 1990s, hit first by online retailing, then by the recessions of 2001 and 2008. Vacancies have climbed. Dead malls became a peculiar suburban blight. Not a single enclosed mall has been built since 2006. Today, anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of malls are expected to fail in the next ten years.

Comment: It's not much of a Mall but Four Seasons Mall in Plymouth is completely vacant. The City of Plymouth blew it by not letting Wal-Mart develop it. I worked at Western Woods Mall in Cincinnati during college (shoe salesman). I met many chicks there which was a highlight. (Meeting chicks was almost as important as making $$ for me!). Deadmalls is a website devoted to the topic. I'm not much of a shopper and I never go to the Mall. Kathee rarely goes. The Mall of America is too big ... too far away. Hate it! Image source. Also see Time Magazine "Stores that Are No More". At dinner with my brother in law Thursday: "Everything I need I can find at Wal-Mart or Amazon"

Too many Malls?

Borders Goes Bust: Are There Too Many Stores in America?

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Dan Gross describes it as "peak mall" theory, in this clip. "Have we reached the point where we have all the malls we're going to need?," he asks. E-commerce, coupled with the demise of "conspicuous consumption" as a result of the Great Recession could spell trouble for mall owners and commercial real estate in general.

Comments: Interesting article (with photos ... see links) from DeadMalls.com

Brookdale center was initially developed by the Dayton Hudson company shortly after Southdale, opening in 1962. The Mall featured wide corridors, and only had one level in contrast to the other malls developed from the Gruen model. Brookdale also differed from its counterparts in the Twin Cities area, as the area around the mall was substantially less well to do than the areas around Rosedale, Ridgedale, and especially Southdale.

At its peak, Brookdale had three anchors and over seventy other stores. A wing build in the early aughts brought a fourth anchor position and a food court. In 2004, Brookdale lost its first anchor. Within five years, there was near total attrition from the location. In April 2010, the mall was closed to the public. Causes of the closing include: the graying of the community, changing traffic patterns caused by new roads, the opening of new shopping centers, and the struggles of maintaining a public space.