A Mall-To-Neighborhood Case Study

Last month, I argued that struggling malls could be converted to mixed-use housing developments. The idea is that adapting malls accomplishes several goals simultaneously and economically; it diversifies a city’s housing stock, capitalizes on a huge but (in Utah County) floundering asset, cuts down on the need for massive parking lots, and potentially produces a cooler kind of living space in more monotonous cities.

The Orem mall is a prime candidate for adaptive reuse — or in other words being converted to housing.

I used Provo’s Towne Centre [sic] mall as my case study, but that’s not even the best candidate.

Orem’s University Mall is already two thirds empty, so there’s really no reason not to give this idea a try there.  Orem also lacks a central downtown, which problem could be remedied by turning the current mall into a diverse neighborhood. The area around University Parkway and 2230 North — near Movies 8 and Shopko — is also a prime candidate for redevelopment; there’s a lot of space there, but the current configuration hasn’t produced anything really successful.

But the real question is, would any of this actually work?

A recent article in The Atlantic Cities seems to suggest it would. The article describes a historic mall in Providence, Rhode Island, that is about to reopen as a housing development:

[…] this spring a shuttered shopping center in downtown Providence will be reborn in micro form, with two stories of micro-apartments above ground-floor micro-retail.

The end product, at least according to the pictures, looks kind of like a much cooler version of City Creek.

There are a few caveats: the Providence mall is historic, micro apartments aren’t for everyone, Providence isn’t Provo, etc. etc.

If relatively stable Providence can sustain a mall-to-neighborhood conversion, fast-growing Provo should easily be able to do the same.

But the specifics aren’t what cities like Provo should copy. Instead, the broader idea of taking something old and adapting it is the point. The end product can be historic, industrial, or just plain vanilla and can be designed to appeal to any demographic. In the end, however, it simply makes sense to take big empty-ish buildings and turn them into some sort of living space — especially in Utah County, where the population is expected to double in the coming decades.

One more thing also deserves mentioning: implementing this idea could have an array of benefits on the community, but it won’t work if we make the areas surrounding our adaptation cites more hostile. I’m specifically speaking of the area around Movies 8 that I mentioned above. That spot may get a super street, which would produce more, faster traffic. It would be hostile to pedestrians and bikes.

That spot already produces many failed business, which I’ve argued is a result of its design, but if we make it more hostile to people it’ll be that much harder to adapt it into a livable neighborhood. And as this recent example from Providence shows, adaptation really is something that can work.

Build Neighborhoods Out of Malls

Malls in Utah County and everywhere else are struggling. If this is news to you trying reading this article that has some background and history, or click here, here, or here for recent posts on the subject.

The now-vacant Nordstrom space in Orem.

Or just go to a mall. Trolley Square is in serious financial trouble, two thirds of the anchor spaces in the University Mall are empty, and rumors indicate that the Towne Center Mall is about to lose the Gap.

Like many cities, Provo doesn’t seem to have grasped the enormity of this problem; the question isn’t “how can we save the mall?” it’s “what can we do in the not-too-distant future when we are required to move to Plan B?”

I believe the best answer — at least along the rapidly growing Wasatch Front — is to turn malls into neighborhoods.

This idea likely would involve two components: 1) repurposing existing mall infrastructure for housing, etc., and 2) building new (mostly residential) structures in underused mall parking lots.

Repurposing existing mall structures is the most exciting part of this concept. Basically, former retail spaces could be carved up into condos or apartments. Anything would be possible, though a natural outcome would be semi-industrial feeling units — cement floors, exposed ducts, concrete pillars, etc. This type of housing doesn’t appeal to everyone, but it basically doesn’t exist in cities like Provo.

This is a loft in Salt Lake City that was converted from an old factory. It’s small, and therefore relatively affordable, but costs a lot per square foot. Provo has nothing like this but could easily use it’s mall spaces to cater to a similar niche.

In other words, converted mall spaces are the warehouse lofts of tomorrow. Even up in Salt Lake City converted warehouses are popular and command high prices per square foot of real estate. For example, listings here, here, here, and here are all unlike anything in Provo right now. This listing is a new building that’s even trying to copy the aesthetic of a converted warehouse.

Aesthetics aside, this type of development provides the opportunity to create big multi-unit buildings at a fraction of the cost. And because the units can vary in size, they can also remain affordable. Right now, Provo basically loses anyone looking for housing in the nice-but-affordable multi-unit market.

The second part of this concept would involve building more housing — as well as other things like schools, libraries, parks, etc. — where mall parking currently exists.

The advantages of this plan are that the land is open, already surrounded by infrastructure, and privately owned. It would take a horrible space and make it desirable and profitable at a fraction of the cost that similar projects require. And if the owners were on board, it would combine the best aspects of both infill and new development.

And there’s a massive amount of space:

Provo’s Towne Center Mall, surrounded by staggering parking lots.

At the Provo Towne Center Mall much of the existing parking already goes unused so there’s no reason this part of the plan couldn’t beginning immediately. It’d almost certainly help the mall by adding customers. The development could be single family homes, apartments, condos, etc. The point is that there’s room for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of residences in this space.

There are an infinite number of possible configurations, but take a look at the pictures of the Towne Center’s north side:

Sears and a parking lot in Provo.

Now imagine if front doors were cut out of the Sears wall for condos, essentially turning it into row housing. On the right side of the picture, where there are cars, there could be more row homes, cottages, or tall buildings. I’d favor something that created a pleasant street wall, but regardless it only takes a little bit of imagination to see this as an incredibly vibrant neighborhood. It’d be a narrow little street filled with families. And it’d make a developer rich.

Here’s another picture:

The same spot from a different angle.

In the picture above, imagine homes lining the left side of the street. And again, the great thing about this idea is that much of the infrastructure already exists. It’d be like getting a City Creek (with a bit of Daybreak) in Provo that was far cooler and vastly cheaper. It could be done in a way that incorporated some of the mall’s current function as a retail center, or the entire site could be reimagined. There’d be ample space — perhaps the first floor of the Sears that faces east — for a grocery store like Harmon’s.

This idea really coalesced for me after I wrote a series on building houses in the street. People liked the idea, but thought it’d be tough to overcome the political and physical obstacles. Malls spaces don’t fix existing streets, but they are open, underperforming and not ruled by existing infrastructure or NIMBY problems.

In fact, if cities can make something like this work malls may become major assets, much like old factories and warehouses turned out to be beneficial to post-industrial cities.

Variations of this idea already exist. The Atlantic Cities recently mentioned one, and City Creek and The Gateway also probably both fit the bill.

But all of those projects are firmly grounded in a mall mentality and frankly I wouldn’t reside in any of them. Provo and cities like it, on the other hand, have an incredible opportunity to treat their malls as exercises in adaptive reuse. And in the end if we do nothing that’s exactly what we’ll have in place of our malls: nothing.

What Will We Do With Our Dying Malls?

City Creek in Salt Lake City.

The holiday shopping season is just wrapping up and that means a lot of people headed to the mall. But as is no surprise, fewer and fewer people are actually visiting America’s malls.

I’ve written before about malls, but The Atlantic Cities recently provided a useful, if gloomy, article about the future of brick and mortar retailers generally and malls in particular. The article basically states what everyone already knows: that people are shopping more and more online and less and less at malls. In other words, demand for mall space is evaporating and it won’t come back.

These mall and shopping center stalwarts are closing stores by the thousands, and there are few large physical chains opening stores to take their place. Yet the quantity of commercial real estate targeting retail continues to grow, albeit slowly. Rapidly declining demand for real estate amid growing supply is a recipe for financial disaster.

That pretty much describes the situation in Utah, where there are too many malls and high vacancy rates at older centers. And bafflingly, Utah is adding new malls all the time, with the Outlets in Lehi opening this year on the heels of City Creek in Salt Lake City. It boggles the mind. It’s especially odd that certain media outlets are basically running free PR for these places even as shopping centers down the street crumble and fail.

The Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City. When the City Creek mall opened down the street in 2012, the Gateway lost a bunch of major tenants.

The Atlantic Cities article provides a more detailed analysis, stating among other things that 10 percent or more of the 1,000 largest malls in the U.S. will likely fail in the next decade. Many will be demolished. Others will be repurposed. It’s a bleak situation:

These malls are becoming ghost towns. They are not viable now and will only get less so as online continues to steal retail sales from brick-and-mortar stores. Continued bankruptcies among historic mall anchors will increase the pressure on these marginal malls, as will store closures from retailers working to optimize their business. Hundreds of malls will soon need to be repurposed or demolished. Strong malls will stay strong for a while, as retailers are willing to pay for traffic and customers from failed malls seek offline alternatives, but even they stand in the path of the shift of retail spending from offline to online.

Utah’s population growth will help stem the tide for a while. And a mall like City Creek could survive for a very long time because it’s propped up by the LDS Church and doesn’t actually have to make any money.

Provo’s Towne Center Mall. This mall’s days are numbered, and that number is not very big.

But in the end the data — not to mention many people’s intuition — clearly indicates that malls are not going to be epicenters of vitality and prosperity in communities of the future. The cities that succeed will be the ones that figure out what to do with their malls so the transition to something different is smooth.

The mall-ish Riverwoods in Provo. The managers of this development are battling falling demand by hosting more and more events to draw people in. Many of the events are successful, but in between the area remains conspicuously underused. This development is also plagued by major design issues that almost completely undermine its attempts at mixed uses.

Best November Posts

Yesterday morning I woke up and realized I hadn’t done a best of November post yet. November also happened to have several of my favorite posts, so I decided to do a “best of” wrap up a bit late:

1. Provo in the Snow: The most popular post ever on this blog by far, this post shows what Provo looks like around 4 am immediately after (or, during) a heavy snow storm.

This picture originally appeared in a post about Provo in the snow.

2. Provo: The Poorest City in Its Class: Have you ever wondered why Provo just can’t seem to fill up downtown? Or why it’s just not as vibrant as some other cities of comparable size? This post is part of a series that postulates that the problem is a lack of wealth in Provo. Specifically, this post notes that incomes are lower in Provo than in places like Boulder, Colorado, Ann Arbor, or even Ogden. This later post also notes that poverty levels are higher.

3. Calgary: “Our Tolerance for Crap Must Be Zero”: Poverty is one problem, but another is that people continue to tolerate crap in the city. This post quotes Canadian mayors as saying that cities must stop tolerating terrible things. This post also spawned several others, the most recent of which was this one about Nu Skin destroying a beloved downtown mural.

4. Malls: Another One Bites the Dust: Trolley Square, Utah’s coolest mall in its biggest, most densely populated city, is struggling. That’s because malls are generally a bad investment and because they’ve been overbuilt along the Wasatch Front. This post suggests that it is perhaps time to stop deluding ourselves that malls will help cities.

5. Cowboy Partners: A Primer: If you’re curious what downtown Provo will look like in the future, check out this post, which shows pictures of projects built by developer Cowboy Partners. Earlier in November Provo approved a new housing development by the company and though the specific plans for the project haven’t been released yet, these images show what kind of buildings they’ve done in the past.

6. Another Lesson From Sandy: Biking is Part of Emergency Preparedness: Utah is filled with people who are ready to face a disaster at any moment. But one thing that may be overlooked is emergency transportation. This post notes that after Hurricane Sandy, the people who could get around most quickly and efficiently — or at all, in some cases — were the people on bikes.

CRAP ALERT!* New Mall Opens in Lehi

In what seems like an exercise in absurdist theater, Lehi has just opened a new mall: The Outlets at Traverse Mountain. Apparently no one from that city has ever visited any other cities and consequently observed that malls are a colossally bad investment. Just last week in fact I mentioned that the best local example of a mall is in serious trouble.

In reality this is Salt Lake City’s mall bubble expanding outward; each successive developer or community thinks a new mall will be an economic savior. And it is, at least until another developer comes along and builds another, better mall.

In economic and development circles, this approach (usually as applied to housing) is often referred to as a Ponzi scheme. Building ever more malls as the existing ones fail seems to fall into the same category.

So who is foisting this Ponzi scheme onto Utah County? Apparently it’s the Craig Realty Group, a Newport Beach-based shopping center developer “that specializes in upscale factory outlet centers.” That quote comes from this BS-laced press release.

Naturally, the Craig Realty Group (via KSL) — which seems to have used a computer and perhaps Google maps but never firsthand observation of the real world — eschewed the phrase “Ponzi scheme” in favor of this justification for the mall’s existence:

The developer wanted the location for a lot of reasons. It is right off the freeway, in between Salt Lake and Provo, and next to Cabelas. The variety of businesses and prime location should attract male and female consumers, especially with the new mall bringing many stores to Utah for the first time.

This is perhaps a good time to remember the many failings and false promises of Cabelas and big boxes generally. (Also, a Scheels recently opened in one of the worst buildings in Utah, and it’s just up the freeway from Cabelas.)

Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps in 100 years this mall will be a thriving epicenter of social life and economic vitality. But if that happens it would be truly unprecedented.

Orem has a dying mall. Apparently, Lehi wanted one too.

More likely, this project will provide an example of how not to grow a city. It’s a perfect example of big, cataclysmic investment that operates under a failed model of placemaking. It’s car centric in a world moving away from cars. It’s nonlocal and generic, both in what it offers and in its design. There is no precedent for its long term success — not just economically but as an asset to a thriving and vibrant city.

In other words, in the end it’s just more crap.

*Too often people who build crap aren’t called out for it. The KSL article about the Lehi mall is a great example, failing as it does to critically examine anything regarding malls generally or the project specifically. After my recent post on crap, I decided that if no one else is going to call these people out, I guess I should.

Malls: Another One Bites the Dust

The coolest mall that I can think of is in serious trouble.

According to ABC 4, Salt Lake City’s Trolley Square mall has defaulted on millions of dollars in debt:

Bank of America has filed a complaint against the group that operates the Mall. It states the Mall’s Manager owe more than 50 million dollars in loans.

The story attributes the mall’s troubles to the infamous shooting in 2007 and the recession. Oddly, it fails to mention that Salt Lake City also became completely over saturated with newer malls — e.g. Gateway, City Creek — and that the market cannot support an ever growing number of shopping centers. In the past, I’ve referred to this idea as Salt Lake City’s “mall bubble.”

City Creek in Salt Lake. Obviously, building several new malls isn’t likely to have a great impact on existing older ones. It’s no surprise, then, that Trolley Square is now struggling.

Though Trolley Square’s demise seems fairly obvious, the situation is really unfortunate. Unlike most malls, Trolley Square is an example of adaptive repurposing; the building was an old trolley barn that was converted to retail space years ago. That sort of project is typically greener than building a new structure, and in the case of Trolley Square produced a rare mall that had some genuine charm and character.

But it has clearly been struggling for a while now. The last time I visited, nearly a year ago, it felt deserted. It was a surprising and erie environment that contrasted sharply with my first visit years ago. Presumably, things haven’t improved.

The ABC story states that the owners don’t want to shut the mall down, though given the general state of malls in America I’d say that’s very optimistic thinking.

But in any case, this situation offers a couple of clear lessons. First, don’t build so many malls. A given geographic area can only support so many retail centers and Salt Lake leaders bafflingly seem to have forgotten that fact. Utah County leaders may also need to keep it in mind.

Second, don’t assume any mall is immune to failure. In Utah County in particular there seems to be a sense that the malls are going to survive simply because people want them to. I wish that were the case, but Salt Lake City is denser and richer than Provo or Orem. Trolley Square was physically better than the malls in Utah County.

And yet it’s still failing.

The point is that the same thing could very easily happen in Utah County if owners and managers don’t start thinking of some radical solutions.

Solutions for Utah County’s Malls

I’ve argued before that Utah County’s malls appear to be dying. I also may be the only person who was disappointed when Sears recently announced it was staying in the Provo Towne Center mall; my feeling was that it simply delayed the inevitable, possibly giving the community a false and detrimental sense of security along the way.

But if malls are dying — and Orem’s 66 percent anchor vacancy rate is just the most local evidence that they are — what can communities do with them?

Like many malls, University Mall in Orem has lost major tenants in recent years.

Earlier this week, The New York Times reported on a man in San Antonio who had one possible solution. According to the article, Graham Weston saw his community’s dead mall and decided to make it his tech company’s headquarters. And it worked:

Today, his idea to move his company to the very mall where he got the blue ruffle tuxedo he wore to his junior prom seems more innovative than insane, with 3,200 Rackspace employees keystroking in cubicles set up where retailers like J. C. Penny, Zales, Casual Corner and Piercing Pagoda used to be. The project suggests that there might be hidden opportunities in the nation’s glut of dead and dying malls and represents one of the country’s largest and quirkiest recycling efforts.

The article goes on to point out that malls are indeed struggling, but that Graham invested heavily in customizing his mall-office. Now, additional development has sprung up around the site:

Shops and restaurants now encircle the mall, hoping to lure Rackspace employees, whose average salary is $69,000, far above the local average of $37,000. Stratford Land, a real estate development company based in Dallas, purchased 111 acres nearby in January, promising to build restaurants, shops and multifamily housing for Rackers.

This exact strategy may not work in Utah County because there likely isn’t a billionaire looking for a massive office space.

But the point is that communities should think creatively about what goes into a mall. When an anchor leaves, it doesn’t necessarily have to be replaced by another anchor. Instead, mall operators could consider repurposing the space as housing or offices. In reality, such projects would benefit everyone, including the mall itself, by building more customers into the immediate area. Malls could even become more authentic, vibrant developments as they evolve naturally in the market place.

When Nordstrom pulled out of this mall earlier this year, it was left with just one anchor, Macy’s. Rather than spend years searching for another anchor, why not convert the Nordstrom space into something entirely new?

The result, at least for Utah County’s malls, could be something similar to Salt Lake’s City Creek, but at a tiny fraction of the cost and in a less fabricated-all-at-once kind of way. In reality, there’s no reason to build new, mixed use development to replace malls when current development can be adapted more readily.

The possibilities are endless, but the point is that it may be time to stop thinking of malls as “malls” and more as potential developments, or even neighborhoods. The alternative is watching them languish, die, and be razed.

Sears is Staying in Provo

In a reversal of announcements made earlier this year, Sears revealed today that it will not pull out of its location in Provo’s Towne Center Mall. According to my colleague Genelle Pugmire, the decision was made in response to significant public opposition to the planned closure.

The story is still unfolding as I write this, so continue to check back here and in Genelle’s story for more details.

Earlier this year, I wrote that the Sears closure may actually be a blessing in disguise. Aside from the fact that the store seems like a disaster whenever I wander inside, the company is deeply troubled — see previous posts here, here and here — as are malls themselves. My feeling was that Utah County could cut its losses by consolidating its two dying malls.

Given this new announcement, that’s apparently not going to happen anytime soon. And if Sears’ Provo location remains profitable, it’s possible that short-term change isn’t absolutely necessary.

But long-term prospects for both Sears and malls are grim, meaning civic and business leaders may still want to have an exit strategy in the works.

Best August Posts

August was a short month for this blog because I spent more than a third of it traveling. Nevertheless, there were still a handful of posts I wanted to highlight. So as is the custom, here are the best posts from August:

We Can Have Better Neighborhoods if We Just Choose to Build Them: People sometimes talk about cities as if they’re immutable. But that’s a fiction. People built our cities and I believe there is no obstacle — from zoning to public opinion to financing — that people also can’t overcome. If our cities are imperfect it’s because we yet lack the will to fix them.

Trading Historic Buildings For Blight and Parking Lots: This post explains how a local developer wanted to turn an old church into apartments, but then despite everyone’s enthusiasm, the project was stalled or killed by absurd city fees.

What to do With Wasted Street and Parking Space: Like many cities, Provo includes a fair amount of underused pavement. Parking lots sit empty, streets are too wide, and there’s less room for people. This post suggests that all the wasted space could simply be cordoned off and turned into pedestrian zones.

Blame Streets for Auto-Bike Accidents: Poor road design not only doesn’t help prevent accidents, it actively encourages them.

What City Creek Could Have Been: City Creek in Salt Lake City is great. But this post tries to imagine what could have been if investors had used the $2 billion they spent on the mall to fund startups and business development. Hint: the results would have been much better. This post is part of an ongoing effort to think about the implications of local and non-local commerce.

Squares and the Heart of a City: Provo has no public squares. Let’s fix that.

Provo, Utah: A great city that will get even greater if we’re smart, informed and work really hard.

The Post-Nordstrom Mall

In light of my earlier post today on City Creek, I thought I’d share a few photos of Orem’s University mall. These photos were taken a week or so ago, when Laura and I ventured up to the mall to see how it was faring in the wake of Nordstrom’s departure.

The parking lot around Nordstrom was basically empty, much as the mall's north parking lot has been since the departure of Mervyn's a few years ago.

I was prepared for the worst, so seeing even a few people in the mall was a pleasant surprise (economically at least. I have no inherent love for malls). But a few people wandering around hardly makes a healthy mall. Indeed this picture is notable for all the empty space: empty chairs, vacant pathways, etc.

As these pictures show, the University Mall is not terrible, as far as malls goes. Aesthetically it's far superior to Provo's mall. But these pictures also show that at least on the evening I visited, it was far under capacity.

You can be the judge as to whether these pictures reveal a healthy retail environment or a failing one.