"We Are Extremely Over-Retailed" Picturing The Death Of America's Malls

Zero Hedge ^ | 01/05/2015 | Tyler Durden

[SeekAndFind]

Starting in the mid-1990s, "the mall genie was out of the bottle," says one mall analyst, "and it was never going to come back." While about 80% of the country’s 1,200 malls are considered healthy (vacancy rates of 10% or less), that compares with 94% in 2006; and more than 30 million square feet of malls are more than 40% empty, a threshold that signals the beginning of what one one analyst called "the death spiral."

 

As The NY Times reports, like beached whales, dead malls draw fascination as well as dismay, "nobody ever thinks a mall is going to up and die," but as the following images show - dead or dying they are.

 

“It’s depressing,” Jill Kalata, 46, said as she tried on a few of the last sneakers for sale at the Athlete’s Foot, scheduled to close in a few weeks. “This place used to be packed. And Christmas, the lines were out the door. Now I’m surprised anything is still open.”

“I have no doubt some malls will survive, but major segments of our society have gotten sick of them,” said Mark Hinshaw, a Seattle architect, urban planner and author.

“It is very much a haves and have-nots situation,” said D. J. Busch, a senior analyst at Green Street. Affluent Americans “will keep going to Short Hills Mall in New Jersey or other properties aimed at the top 5 or 10 percent of consumers. But there’s been very little income growth in the belly of the economy.”

“We are extremely over-retailed,” said Christopher Zahas, a real estate economist and urban planner in Portland, Ore. “Filling a million square feet is a tall order.”

“Everybody has memories from childhood of going to the mall,” said Jack Thomas, 26, one of three partners who run the site in their spare time. “Nobody ever thinks a mall is going to up and die.”

Nearly 15 percent are 10 to 40 percent vacant, up from 5 percent in 2006. And 3.4 percent — representing more than 30 million square feet — are more than 40 percent empty, a threshold that signals the beginning of what Mr. Busch of Green Street calls “the death spiral.”

Industry executives freely admit that the mall business has undergone a profound bifurcation since the recession.

“Our business is more regional and high-end focused,” he said. “There are gradients of dead or dying or flat, but anything that’s caught in the middle of the market is problematic."

 

“The mall genie was out of the bottle,” Mr. Simmons said, “and it was never going to come back.”

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[ifinnegan]

More communist claptrap from Zero Hedge.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

Come visit beautiful Randall Mall!

[SeekAndFind]

TYPICAL DAY AT THE FORTUNE OFF MALL IN LONG ISLAND ( IRONICALLY, THE ROOSEVELT FIELD MALL JUST A FEW BLOCKS AWAY IS ALWAYS PACKED ):

[knarf]

I haven't researched the areas those malls are in, but around here .. in SW Pa. .. probably because of the gas well boom (did I say boom ? ... I meant BOOM !!! ..) the malls are still being built from scratch and Appleby's type steak/restaurants going up all over the place

If a mall is dead ... the money has left ... plain and simple

Has NOTHING to do with "being retailed"

[MrB]

Online shopping is part of the reason,
but the biggest reason is “teen crime”.

Shoplifting, real customers fearing for their safety, real customers having to put up with obnoxious crap...

[Dilbert San Diego]

The mall violence in recent days reminds us of an unspoken issue. And that issue is that critical numbers of gang types and a thuggish element are scaring away legitimate shoppers from some of these malls.

As legitimate shoppers leave, sales go down. As sales go down, retailers pull out of these malls. And no new retailers want to go into a mall with a ghetto reputation. So the malls slowly die off .
..

[Gaffer]

I haven’t been to a Mall in over 20 years at least. I don’t go there because the ones that are still alive are beset with types that don’t belong there.

[SeekAndFind]

We need more of these then:

[VanDeKoik]

I can think of a million things better to do than to walk around a mall.

Then again, I’m not a teen girl or in my 80s.

[Dilbert San Diego]

One big mall near me has an annoying loud thumping music soundtrack of rock and roll and even some rap music playing. That music is so annoying that I get in and get out as soon as I can. I don’t know who in management decided that people want to hear the thump thump thump of rock and rap as they shop. Clearly they don’t give a blank about affluent customers such as me.

[lacrew]

A lot of ‘urban planners’ cited in the article.

‘Planners’ usually hat malls and big box stores (I smile when I catch one of our city’s planners in Wal Mart and say ‘hello’...they usually look like a dog that just ate a plate of cookies).

Most failed malls are the result of another mall being built nearby - usually in a ‘better’ area of town. So the failed mall is a symptom of a deteriorating neighborhood - certainly not an indicator that people have tired of malls.

Yes there are some empty stores...in particular the ‘anchor stores’ like Sears and Macy’s are closing at a lot of malls. But the malls aren’t going to suddenly disappear anytime soon.

[jonose]

Malls have been killed by amazon prime. Why waste time when
the item can be delivered to your door in 2 days?

Malls have turned into stores to try stuff on.
The really bad news is that software that will take a selfie and translate that into custom fit clothes is right around the corner. Once this happens, malls will be in big trouble.

Speaking of big trouble, how many of the defunct malls are carried at top value on the books of the too big to fail corporations?

[central_va]

We use the internet to order our Chinese made crap. The only stimulus is to UPS and FedEx. Retail dead, manufacturing killed. Ain’t it great?

[MrB]

It’s funny that they cater to the crowd that’s more likely to shoplift than actually buy anything.

[Ouderkirk]

Typically, the death spiral begins when the riff-raff comes in from the bus stops and starts to cause problems involving the money spending patrons. The people with money to spend, leave to spend it where there is security and a lower population of the troublemaking “ethnics”.

Want to keep your mall going...skip the front door bus stops, and keep the security tight. Enforce the loitering ordinances, supervise the parking areas tightly and take out the trash.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Your message reminds me that some black entertainer told a joke about malls. He said that every city has a mall where white people go, and a mall where white people used to go. I’m sure he gets lots of laughs with that. But sounds like some truth to that.

[ErnBatavia]

[PapaBear3625]

Shoplifting, real customers fearing for their safety, real customers having to put up with obnoxious crap...

One local mall went downhill as soon as there was bus service between the mall and an "underclass" area.

The absolute WORST thing mall management can do is allow their parking lot to serve as a public transit hub. Or have public transit stopping anywhere near.

[RayChuang88]

The problem is that too many mall managers don't know how to attract the type of retailers that can drive more foot traffic to the mall. It's not a coincidence that Arden Fair and Westfield Roseville Galleria in the Sacramento, CA metro region are doing well because they have both a Nordstrom and Apple Store located there, both of which drive a lot of foot traffic to the mall.

Indeed, the Mall of America near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has done extremely well because they very well knew the mall must have retailers and attractions to make it a destination everybody wants to go to.