Dead shopping malls are coming back. But not the way you’d expect. (This is about taxes).

[image/video - please log in to see this content]

Photo above - "what is dead can never die" . . . even vacant shopping malls.

See that empty shopping mall over there? The one that died during Covid 19? It has a huge footprint, but generates little to no tax revenue to fund the city. Not property taxes, not sales tax on purchases, not even income taxes for the state. It’s like a black hole. The NIMBY crowd wants to keep it empty. (see link below).

The nearest dead mall to me was reborn (around 2015?) as a “professional center”. Dentists, doctors, personal injury lawyers, real estate agents, kitchen remodeling showrooms. Plenty of parking. Public restrooms. A few spots reopened as sandwich shops for the customers and tenants. Win-win.

None of the malls near me have been reborn as affordable housing yet. That may require a much bigger investment for rehab. Radical partitioning. Ditching the building wide HVAC for individual air handlers for each unit. And a LOT of bathroom and kitchen creation. But it could work. Plenty of parking, and either the landlords or buyers will be paying property taxes again.

Now about your data center plan, Google Cloud. And your warehouse idea, Amazon. Not so fast . .

I get it. The opposition to repurposing malls is driven by headlines about soaring electric rates. And amazon warehouses create traffic, 24/7. But is the best idea just to leave those 5 acres of asphalt and graffiti festooned buildings vacant forever? Someone's fantasy is that it will all be bulldozed someday, and a scenic park with a tiny duck pond will magically appear? This will happen at the intersection of 2 major traffic arteries? What are you smoking?

Near my mother's home the preservationists wanted to protect the dystopian ruins of an 18th century paper factory. They said it was historic. Neighbors said it was an eyesore, and dangerous to the kids who climbed the fence to hang out there. Then someone found a dead body inside.

The paper plant was bulldozed. As a compromise the “historic” brick chimney, about 50 feet tall, was left standing. But the nobody had money to restore it. It collapsed one night, thankfully when nobody was standing beside it and gawking up in wonder like it was the leaning tower of Pisa.

Preventing a data center from using a vacant building will not prevent more data centers, or curb electrical demand. Data centers will simply be built on unincorporated county land. Some farmer will sell his cornfield in the blink of an eye. Same with Amazon warehouses. Warehouses will need serious road upgrades too, if you build one in the middle of nowhere.

MSN finds it “concerning” when vacant commercial buildings are brought back to life. This, in a nutshell, is why America is so screwed up. Cities will magically strike it rich without tax revenue and commerce?

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Dead shopping malls are coming back - and their new purpose is even more concerning

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/dead-shopping-malls-are-coming-back-and-their-new-purpose-is-even-more-concerning/ar-AA1W8Tih?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=698dc4a024ca4b1fb254e6c3ab83373a&ei=12

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

ArishMell · 70-79, M

I read it as concerning not that the buildings are being used again, but that little thought is given to the new use. Perhaps it's a matter of them being commercially unattractive to anyone but the giant IT companies, and then only to use as warehouses and server-rooms.

Since these shopping-centres were built as commercial premises, it's hard to see how they can viably be turned into blocks of flats- as the article and you explain.

Whilst the difficulty with new commercial uses is attracting enough, suitable potential clients to make them viable.

Data-centres create looming problems their owners do not admit, nor care about - perhaps they think it not their responsibility.

I don't know if this happens in the USA but there has been in Britain a sort of "executive snobbery" by big companies wanting brand-new buildings on "green-field" sites - and the more pleasant the green fields before being destroyed, the better.

On the other hand many former textile-mill and dockland warehouses have been divided into either flats or retail shops for non-supermarket businesses - sometimes both, shops on the ground floor, flats above.

These though are generally older buildings, mainly 19C, substantially-built with brick walls and stone trim. The mills at least already have plenty of windows, readily replaced with modern double-glazing. They can be attractive, certainly better-looking than the bland sheds of modern supermarkets and warehouses / "distribution centres".

However, such conversions are costly, as reflected in the selling or rental price; even more so for water-side property overlooking what has become a yacht harbour. Certainly not in the "affordable homes" bracket; as the water-side flats are potential second-homes for the owners of the said yachts.

Perhaps this is what the conservationists had in mind for the paper-mill, but if no-one wants to invest in it then the building will be lost.

Not far from the city of Glasgow is an example of what can be done. The ostentatiously "Victorian Gothic" frontage of an early-20C car-factory was conserved, marble staircase and all, to become the front of a shopping-centre whose main retail rooms and car-park extend behind it, replacing the original assembly buildings. (I have seen it, but that was over twenty years ago, so I can only assume it still functions.)

It does seem strange that the country that invented supermarkets and giant shopping-malls (or "~centres" over-here) is now seeing them closing down and left to rot.

Perhaps fittting though that the potential re-users include those whose business methods played a large part in their failure. Just as the supermarkets had already played a large part in destroying so many independent shops and food-producers.

''''''''

"Fullfillment centres"... It took me a while to realise that is Amazon-speak for "warehouse" and "associates" are not as one might expect, institutional shareholders but employees! Where do they find this sort of language?. Quite who finds them "fulfilling" is another matter.