Revitalization: A MALL ORDER

BY MELANIE ROBITAILLE, SR. STAFF WRITER & GRAPHIC DESIGNER

There’s a fascination with abandoned places sensationalized by Urbexers and social media, and over the last decade scenes of empty, dilapidated, and overgrown shopping centers have gained serious popularity. The year 2007 marked the first time since the 1950’s where no new malls were built in the U.S. according to the BBC, and by 2008, Newsweek had basically declared indoor malls obsolete. Anchor department stores closed at an alarming rate post Great Recession, and factors like a shift to online buying and pandemic restrictions, took their respective tolls on shopping centers around the world.

The first modern mall as we know them was created in 1956 and was the beginning of an unrealized concept, intended to be about community coming together for various purposes not just shopping. The hollow skeletons left today are sadly reduced versions of Austrian Architect, Victor Gruen’s pioneering vision. He was a man ahead of his time who foresaw this moment when he cautioned, “Architecture, as a creative expression, will die if we cannot create conditions within which it can be meaningful.” And in the most ironic twist of all, it was Amazon that became one of the first companies to invest in and re-purpose these empty spaces for their distribution and fulfillment centers.

The economic fallout, not to mention the eyesores, these vast, literal concrete jungles represent is something many cities and investors are scrambling to fix. The problem is conversion costs both time and money, however, investors noticed most malls have a few great things in common: ample, buildable space and prime real estate locations. All that was needed was a bit of catalytic capital, some ingenuity, and suddenly you have mixed use development magic. From one of the largest re-urbanization plans in the U.S. like the Tyson’s Project, to school-centric urban redevelopments like the Crosstown Concourse and Liberty Station, or historic rehabilitations like The Arcade Providence, housing is once again at the heart of many of these conversions. Still, only 8% of brokerages seem to have experience with residential building repurposing according to The National Association of REALTOR’S® 2022 Sustainability Report.

Maintaining an investment while adjusting to shifting buyer behaviors and remote living circumstances has meant making the switch to condo, or in most cases, rental markets and bringing together urban villages like conglomerates RioCan, and SmartCentres, two of Canada’s largest real estate investment trust companies. Well known for their big box retail shopping malls, both have recently began developing mixed retail and residential sites like eCentral, completed in 2019 at Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto, or The Millway in Vaughan, Ontario, to name a few. Here residences are merged with communal working areas, a higher echelon of in-house amenities like lounges, creative spaces or studios, and terraces, all with the convenience of walkable retail, nature, and/or entertainment. It only took some 65 years, but I dare say that Victor would be proud of these communities. He may not have lived to see them become a reality, but he certainly planted the seeds of growth now rising from the very cracks in the foundations of what he first tried to achieve.