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I recently visited two "mega malls" on the east side of our state. These places were HUGE, and it actually felt like I was in a small city while walking around in them. Besides your general clothing stores, they had restaurants and pubs, they had hair salons, they had pet stores, one even had both a movie theater and a small little "carnival area" with a play ground for children and a merry-go-round.
My thought was that all this place needs is a grocery store and you could literally live here.
And then I thought - WHY NOT? Why aren't there residential units attached to this monstrosity? You could EASILY build a second or even third floor going up and fill it with apartments/condos.
What a great place to live too, you would have literally everything you'd need right below you.
You could walk everywhere, no need for a car. Although if you did have a car, there would obviously be ample parking. Plus, these places are clearly not just about shopping any more. Like I said, there was a movie theater, there was a food court and restaurants to eat at, there were pubs for nightlife, there was an arcade... you could actually do a lot of stuff there without even "shopping".
How would this be any different than living in a big city? I don't really see how it would. In fact, I think it could be better because of the extremely condensed location of the amenities and the fact that is already designed for "foot traffic only".
Is there any downside that I am missing here? Why isn't this already happening? This seems like it could be the pinnacle of "urban living".
To each his own. I avoid malls whenever I can, so the idea of living in one sounds worse than being Chinese water tortured in my own home. I mean, if you got rid clingy odor of poorly bathed and over perfumed teenagers, bath & body works, and cheap pretzels... no, not even then. It'd still be way to shiny and bright, plus if you did that it really wouldn't be a mall. You can't have a mall without teenagers, bath & body works, and cheap pretzels. My experience living in mixed-use buildings in cities, or even in close proximity to mixed-use, has taught me I don't like it anyway. Some people love it or at least the idea of it, however.
Zizkov. I moved to Capitol Hill after my sublease on a condo in Belltown on 2nd and Battery was up. I lived above Shiro's, which was kind of cool if you're a Sushi nut. (He trained under Jiro, who owns probably the most famous Sushi bar in Japan, before running off to Seattle). In Capitol Hill I lived a block of Pine (Pike-Pine Corridor and Broadway are the main commercial areas). My entire block was single-use residential. By close proximity, I mean in a building adjacent or along a street where there's a lot of night life. I just don't have a tolerance for drunks hooting and hollering every night when the clubs shutdown. No one went down my street in Capitol Hill unless they were going to the super chill bar my street dead-ended into.
I recently visited two "mega malls" on the east side of our state. These places were HUGE, and it actually felt like I was in a small city while walking around in them. Besides your general clothing stores, they had restaurants and pubs, they had hair salons, they had pet stores, one even had both a movie theater and a small little "carnival area" with a play ground for children and a merry-go-round.
My thought was that all this place needs is a grocery store and you could literally live here.
And then I thought - WHY NOT? Why aren't there residential units attached to this monstrosity? You could EASILY build a second or even third floor going up and fill it with apartments/condos.
What a great place to live too, you would have literally everything you'd need right below you.
You could walk everywhere, no need for a car. Although if you did have a car, there would obviously be ample parking. Plus, these places are clearly not just about shopping any more. Like I said, there was a movie theater, there was a food court and restaurants to eat at, there were pubs for nightlife, there was an arcade... you could actually do a lot of stuff there without even "shopping".
How would this be any different than living in a big city? I don't really see how it would. In fact, I think it could be better because of the extremely condensed location of the amenities and the fact that is already designed for "foot traffic only".
Is there any downside that I am missing here? Why isn't this already happening? This seems like it could be the pinnacle of "urban living".
There's an example of this in my neck of the woods, and they're going to convert three new malls into what you describe in the next couple of years. I live In Vancouver BC, and the reason this is financially viable here is because :
1) land prices and demand for housing is high enough to finance the construction of highrises in the suburban areas that have malls with big parking lots. You have to get alot of money from this to justify the disruption to the mall's normal operations, and there has to be the kind of real estate market that can absorb alot of condo units in a big expansion like this.
2) We have rapid transit lines that go out to suburban areas and past the malls. The one mall that's closest to what you describe, Metrotown, is on a rapid transit line, and the three other projects are also on rapid transit lines. Density like this doesn't make sense in an autocentric or a special amenity like this that people want to be close to, and you can't sacrifice the parking spaces for construction unless it's not as important for you as the RT.
Metrotown is a big mall that already has a zillion condo buildings adjacent to it and the mall is basically the town centre, here's a render of some new towers they're putting up next to it:
Here's the area on google maps (it's alot denser now since this satellite image is about four years old)
Lougheed mall will also be transformed, but the website I know has plans of that transformations seems to be down.
Also not that you can't just add floors to the actual mall structure itself because too few units would have windows, their front doors would be the mall front doors which is less than ideal, and you'd lose out on the opportunity to build towers with views. You need to make nice places for people to want to live there and pay the prices necessary to make the whole project viable.
There have been a few discussions of adding a hotel/residential complex in this space as well. Though I am not sure the latest plan for the station includes this, I think most discussion is just more retail, namely restaurants.
I have stayed in hotels connected to the Dallas Galleria - the lobby connects to the mall
Also in Boston the mall acts as an indoor walkway connecting many hotels, there may even be some residential connected to Copley, not sure
To each his own. I avoid malls whenever I can, so the idea of living in one sounds worse than being Chinese water tortured in my own home.
This. It sounds like a horrible idea, and a strange one at that. Isn't the idea of a mall to be single use development (commercial), which is visited by others from single use development (residential)? Why not just live in a commercial corridor of a city? It's not like you're getting a yard or anything.
This. It sounds like a horrible idea, and a strange one at that. Isn't the idea of a mall to be single use development (commercial), which is visited by others from single use development (residential)? Why not just live in a commercial corridor of a city? It's not like you're getting a yard or anything.
The main reasons in the Toronto area are that suburban condos are cheaper and that they're more convenient for getting to work if you work in the suburbs.
Practically every mall in Toronto, and some of its suburbs seems to be building condos around it, or in the case of less successful malls, redeveloping the mall with condos on top, as well as some new malls.
This one is the biggest project I can think of that's currently under construction. It will be a new mall, with condos and an office building on top and next to it. Condos on Yonge | Yonge & Steeles: World On Yonge
There are several similar projects already completed further South along the Yonge subway in places like North York Centre.
This is a proposed redevelopment of a struggling strip mall, although it looks like a lot if not most of the retail would be accessed from outside, so not an enclosed mall. Humbertown Redevelopment | Urban Toronto
This. It sounds like a horrible idea, and a strange one at that. Isn't the idea of a mall to be single use development (commercial), which is visited by others from single use development (residential)? Why not just live in a commercial corridor of a city? It's not like you're getting a yard or anything.
Yea, I don't think this would appeal to those who something urban or those who want suburbia. Though there's a niche of those who don't really care about space or urbanity and want an apartment close to lots of stores. The idea of a mall is to have lots of shops in one place, I don't the idea excludes multiple uses. But it's not the same as a mixed use city neighborhood.
1) It's walkable inside the mall, but often there's nothing to walk around outside of the mall other than a giant parking lot or busy road. There's no neighborhood
2) A mall is private and subject to rules made for the interest of increasing sales. Means no homeless, but also restrictions on freedom that a city would not be able to do. No political cavassing (except maybe in California), public festivals that a town center or a city neighborhood could have aren't there. One of local mall here bans teenagers on Friday night, for example. And the people outside your place would mostly be shoppers.
3) Everything's indoors. Plus for many, minus for me. After a certain point I get stir crazy
4) Malls are usually rather sterile, often on purpose. The stores are the same repetitive chains. Your eating out options the mall food court? No thanks.
An apartment over some pedestrian mall's might be fun, but within a mall I'd feel cocooned within. The OP seems to think the ideal place to live would a place with the most convenient shopping.
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