New Life-Support for "Dead Malls" or Dead "Shopping" Centers > What To Call It - A Park ???

Re: This Report > Industry Outlook for Shopping Centers

By Ron Nyren January 23, 2017

Believe it or not, your MesaZona blogger is at a loss for words to wrap his head around what is a trap of names that deal with how and why and where we live and work and enjoy life- it is totally subjective to everyone's point-of-view across a big spectrum of interests and outlooks in dynamic change.
Just add 'Food Hall' to the 'mall' [see link at end of article]

To get local and get a handle on things, let's take a trip back-in-time to what Main Street Mesa looked like 30 years after its founding by "the pioneers" in 1878 to the year 1908 - 109 years ago [Reference and image from: AZ100 BlogSpot ]

The copy with the image is this:

"Commercial life centered around the intersection of Main and Macdonald, seen here about 1908, looking west. On the SW corner (at left) is the Mesa City Bank, which later became Mesa Drug Company. The next building west is LeSueur, Gibbons & Co. mercantile, established in 1905. It later became LeSueur-Botkin Co. and finally sold to Bayless mercantile of Phoenix in 1926. The building was then replaced by the Nile Theater."

It's just a flash-back to a snapshot in time at just one intersection of the original One-Square Mile, where a mercantile-based economy took root to grow commerce, back when streets and roads were dirt and wide enough for a 12-mule team to turn around, water ran in open canals - all this growth way before auto-mobiles that came to rule future development and expansion onto surrounding lands . . . even back then people needed other things to do than shop, as noted by what's now  called 'adaptive re-use' for a mercantile location replaced by entertainment.

Fast-forward to now to bring readers to the subject of the referenced article cited above where the featured opening image is Dana Park that's not called a shopping or mall - and it is a Mesa success story incorporating some of the trends and strategies that follow

Experts from ULI’s Commercial and Retail Development Councils discuss the future of shopping malls, changing consumer preferences, strategies for replacing vacant department store buildings, the challenges of adding non-retail uses to malls, competition from online retailers, and other trends.

Source: Urban Land Magaine 23 Jan 2017

 

Each takes a piecemeal approach yet are complemented by the exchange with the others, recognizing that where people are attracted to shop is more than that to meet a number of needs that developers of mostly suburban 'malls' or 'shopping centers' did not start off planning for.

 

 

This image to the left is Mesa's Tri-City Mall, one of the first 'malls' that killed the active commerce downtown just blocks away from the original one-square mile.
Like more than a few others it had its hey-day, now in the process of getting some of the strategies outlined applied to the land area and real estate

Already-established urban centers by a natural evolution and dynamic process - like what happened here on Main Street - did establish all of the things that are recommended as strategies in the expert comments . . . and if you look at Dana Park it could be taken as a block off an ideal picture-perfect Main Street

 

Readers of this post are encouraged to hook up with the report's link to see how the experts answered the following questions:

1. How are shopping mall owners and developers addressing changing consumer preferences, especially those of millennials?

 

2. With anchors like Sears and Macy’s announcing multiple closures, what are some of the more creative approaches you have seen for replacing shuttered department stores?

 

3. What are the biggest challenges of incorporating more nonretail uses into shopping malls? Are shopping center owners teaming up with developers of other property types?

 

4. How much of a threat do online retailers pose to shopping malls?

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Dana Park had AJ's right from the get-go
The writer of the following article days food will be 'the anchor tenant'
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-next-anchor-at-your-mall-could-be-a-food-hall-2017-01-24?link=sfmw_tw