Watched a Doc last night on this issue and was surprised to see the numbers. The pics are creepy to see... Completely Surreal Photos Of America's Abandoned Malls
This is surely why ^^ Retailers need to adapt to the dot com world or bust. Old-line stores like Sears and Macys are closing stores left and right, not to mention how many other smaller retailers just gave up and went out of business.
Yep, the small strip mall near me is pretty empty except for a Home Depot and a car parts store. Sad state of affairs indeed! This mall used to have a Kmart, a Radio Shack plus a few clothing stores.
Amazon opened a fulfillment center up near me. I have to drive by it everyday and i have also been to it. The shear size of their operation is unbelievable. When i say they opened up 1 fulfillment center i mean they have 4 walmart DC sized warehouses in the immediate area. All having a different purpose. They have so many employees that they are forced to park off site and be shuttled in by a fleet of buses. They have the police there solely to keep the peace when their employees come in for work and leave from work. The internet has changed how people shop and seeing it with my own eyes is a testament to how services like Amazon have changed our economy. Ive seen a million different govt and private warehouses and nothing quite stacks up
My one thought was why doesn't Govt use these empty building. For something like social housing for the homless?
Malls were all the rage when I was younger. We had 7 large malls around the city at one point. We are now down to one with the 3/4 of the rest still standing and pretty much completely vacant.
I have seen some of the land from abandoned malls for sale and purchased by private companies. Those private companies leveled the mall and built warehouses.
No doubt ....just seeing the empty building and knowing the huge number of homeless. You'd think it would be an idea for government. Or not lol
In my area the downward spiral of the malls coincided with the box stores springing up. Walmart,Meijer,Target ect. Amazon and online buying was just the nail in the coffin.
I have a cousin in the commercial real estate business that's doing well on these empty strip malls...they go in and buy them dirt cheap and end up leasing them out to mostly local start ups in the area. Of course, he's a fucking monster with research and crunching numbers...but like they say, where there's misfortune there can be great opportunities.
Besides Internet shopping Maybe malls also declined as you now don't have to go there to talk to girls? Social media dating y know
Does anybody remember these in the 80's. We would cut school, skateboard to the mall and play video games. Those were the days!!
There was an arcade like that at the mall that my younger brother and I hung out in while I was in high school. Played PacMan and Zaxxon...ohh good times! EDIT: The arcade was called Fun Factory I even played in a PacMan tournament then...got 20th highest score out of 100 players 1982...an awesome year!