Mitikah in Mexico City, Mexico All images courtesy of Stantec
The mall of the future: less retail, more content For the mall to survive, it will need to embrace nontraditional uses and “messy vitality.” Here’s how to do it. by Daniel Aizenman
M
alls are important, they’re some of the most visited places in our communities, frequented by billions of people around the world every year. To survive, however, they need to become places that are about much more than retail transactions. Honestly, malls are in decline.
cases, they didn’t adjust to omnichannel or improve the physical customer experience to remain essential and competitive. Late to adjust to a new online shopping reality, they saw a decline in the customer experience, traffic, and sales. Right now, the industry is in turmoil.
Hundreds of American malls shuttered after the 2007-09 recession. And retail researchers estimate 25% of America’s roughly 1,000 remaining large malls will close over the next 3 to 5 years.
The pandemic, which closed malls temporarily and pushed consumers to eCommerce and overnight delivery, has accelerated the downward trend for retail malls. What we thought would happen over the next 5 or 10 years is happening now.
What happened? Malls rely on department stores and hero retail tenants as anchors that draw people and support hundreds of other retail tenants nearby. These anchor tenants didn’t anticipate how online shopping would compete with their mall presence. In many
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The once stalwart retailers that were formerly reliable anchor tenants are now entering bankruptcy. UBS researchers say that 9% of the 80,000 retail stores in the US will shutter across the country by 2026. They predict eCommerce sales will rise to 27% of the total retail sales by then, up from 18% today. Bad news for
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