24 January 2020

Retro-Fitting Malls + Re-Making Districts To Better Serve Community Needs

A Look At America's Retail Apocalypse In Charts
Nov 8, 2017 8:47 PM
A Look At America's Retail Apocalypse In Charts | Zero Hedge
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Of course, the wave of retail failures is a direct hit to an industry that is the largest employer of young Americans and those at the low end of income scale
Meanwhile, investor distaste for retail debt comes just as the industry faces a massive wave of maturities over the next five years.
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Making matters more difficult is the explosive amount of risky debt owed by retail coming due over the next five years.
Just $100 million of high-yield retail borrowings were set to mature this year, but that will increase to $1.9 billion in 2018, according to Fitch Ratings Inc. 
And from 2019 to 2025, it will balloon to an annual average of almost $5 billion.
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 Malls of the future have an opportunity to fulfill other community needs besides commerce,
June Williamson, a City College of New York architecture professor and the author of "Retrofitting Suburbia," tells Business Insider.
Here are what may become of the many failing malls of today:
Extracts from an article written by Leanne Garfield 13 May 2017
http://www.businessinsider.com
> Closed department stores will likely become other businesses that can benefit from the large square-footage, like
Fitness centers
Churches
Offices
Public libraries, and even

Medical clinics
> Since most food courts have a lot of natural light, they could be used as gathering spaces for community groups or child daycare centers if they close down, Williamson says.
Most failing food courts, however, are redeveloping into clusters of high-priced restaurants right now, like the one at Miami's Aventura Mall, which will get rid of the cheap chains and 
open a revamped eatery this fall.
> Mall atriums are wide-open spaces that can allow for events, like concerts or fashion shows, or serve as showrooms for cars — all of which generate revenue, Williamson says.
> Many dead retail spaces will likely morph into businesses that have community-based functions, like apartments, public libraries, indoor farms, and refrigerated spaces for processing food (for local restaurants or grocery stores), Williamson says.
"You'll find DMVs, town halls, and libraries in malls increasingly, the type of place where the public government can interact with the public," Williamson says.
> Some public spaces, like libraries, don't bring in much rent, so they mainly serve as a way to attract people to the mall, she says.
"If the mall owners can't keep the place fully leased, this at least keeps people coming who could keep the other leasees from fleeing," she says.
The 'Main Street' was killed by the mall, so developers are trying to build new downtowns inside the malls.
> Malls may increasingly (and somewhat ironically) turn their surface parking lots into space that emphasizes walking over cars.
This, in some ways, would be a nod to the original intended use of a "mall," Smiley says.
Until the 1960s, shopping centers had green plazas called "malls," until it became a term for the enclosed center itself.
"The genealogy of the word 'mall' is a landscape term — a pedestrian space. But we've co-opted that term and linked it to retail," Williamson says.
In coming years, she predicts that many malls will downsize the amount of surface parking they offer, and turn it into public space that can benefit the surrounding community.
> Ethnic malls are shopping centers that target a specific ethnic demographic in the community. She says this type of customized mall can thrive more than a traditional mall, because it better meets local shoppers' needs.