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Northgate will be semi-urban, but a city center? There will be a couple smallish office buildings, a couple hotels, the hockey center (now open), 1,000 apartments or so (Seattle's only Dallas doughnuts), and a fair amount of retail to replace the mall which has been 2/3 demo'd. I'm hopeful for the Northgate area, which has a lot of growth planned outside the mall property as well as on it, but it'll be a decent concentration of densish things but not much of a center in an urban sense.
The Seattle area shouldn't have excess big boxes for long. Land is too much in demand, for housing most of all. And we guide much of our growth (housing and retail) to limited areas that are mostly overlapping.
Well, perhaps “city center” is not correct. But please note I said the plural “centers” as in local centers within the city. Offering office space and eateries. While this been going on in Seattle for a few decades, I think this will continue be the future
Why are malls failing? One obvious reason is online shopping.
There are other reasons such as having to navigate around the entire mall looking to find the shops.
Finally, the real estate that many malls hold are poised for new development, residential and commercial within walking distance.
Exactly. E commerce has taken its toll and reshaped the retail industry. But why are strip mall retailers (TJ Maxx, Academy, etc) booming while mall stores are dying? Convenience
Not sure about the future, but in the present, the supply chain and real estate of physical retail is still valuable. And mall retailers like Dicks, Macys and Dillards can sustain since they’re also go in, get what they need and leave.
It’s specifically the indoor navigation portion with food courts that’s dying.
I've seen many interesting things replace big box retailers that have and continue to shut down. Everything from data centers to gyms.
Would be nice to hear some interesting examples around the country.
Other big box stores, generally. Some sit empty for a while. I think a couple might be used as warehouses for local business/factories.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pnwguy2
Why are malls failing? One obvious reason is online shopping.
There are other reasons such as having to navigate around the entire mall looking to find the shops.
Finally, the real estate that many malls hold are poised for new development, residential and commercial within walking distance.
Malls.
Their downward trend began before online shopping hit its stride. 80's/early 90's were their peak.
People (or developers who decided what's what) were gravitating towards giant shopping centers with big box everything. Bigger stores with wider varieties of stuff. Park on one end, then get in your car to drive to the other end because they are terrible for walking.
I hate those types of places.
Enclosed malls were actually pretty cool. Shielded from the elements, lots of small specialty shops, food courts that often had some pretty good food, playgrounds, benches, maybe some light entertainment of some sort...
Kind of an amusement park but for shopping instead of riding rides. Some of them do have rides actually.
There were/are some outdoor malls with the same concept but they don't work too well in places I tend to live due to the weather.
I like cutesie downtowns better than any of that, but that doesn't pertain to big box.
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I just saw that the Bay Area company that owns the former Fry's Electronics building in Renton WA near Boeing is going to build a development of 1,000 apartments there. The 150,000-square-foot store was built in 2002, and will be demolished, which seems a shame.
In the past 5 or so years
Tom Thumb - A gym and one of those membership stores where everything is the same price but it's mostly junk.
Fry's Electronic - A furniture store.
Gander MTN. - Pottery Barn. Will see how long that last.
Hemispheres Furniture - A different furniture store. Was originally a K-Mart.
Burlington - A furniture store.
A large Sear's Outlet - A appliance, furniture & mattress store.
Not a lot of big box stores changing hands.
One interesting study is Ward Parkway Center in Kansas City. It struggled big time but it’s really bounced back. They anchored it with a Target and there is a Trader Joe’s there as well. Those are two popular places that people are going to go to irrespective of Amazon. They also stacked it with places like Home Goods, TJ Maxx and other stores that have proven resilient despite the rise of online shopping. It’s enough to bring sufficient foot traffic in to support the smaller, more traditional retailers also in the mall. It’s not a particularly special mall but it’s impressive how they were able to reverse course.
Sears usually owns the land and buildings their stores operated out of. Here, when the Sears store that was an anchor at one of our local malls went belly up, Sears tore down their own building, re developed it into a multi store strip type affair, and are now operating it as landlords competing with the mall they used to be a part of. So far they've moved in a "Home Goods" outlet, and a few smaller ones
One interesting study is Ward Parkway Center in Kansas City. It struggled big time but it’s really bounced back. They anchored it with a Target and there is a Trader Joe’s there as well. Those are two popular places that people are going to go to irrespective of Amazon. They also stacked it with places like Home Goods, TJ Maxx and other stores that have proven resilient despite the rise of online shopping. It’s enough to bring sufficient foot traffic in to support the smaller, more traditional retailers also in the mall. It’s not a particularly special mall but it’s impressive how they were able to reverse course.
Yeah that was nice to see how they brought it back like that.
On the other side of town in the Northland, the old Antioch mall area has been partially demolished and reconfigured with more stand-alone buildings that have a variety of fast-casual-type food places, a Walmart neighborhood market, and a Petsmart. Also, they built apartments where the back of the parking lot used to be since there's no need for that much parking there anymore.
A similar development went in at Blue Ridge Crossing minus the apartments.
Then there's the old Metro North Mall space. An odd stand-alone Macy's still clinging on for dear life after the entire rest of the mall was demolished. Kind of a strange visual. Looks like they're going mixed-use with apartments and retail.
A closed car dealership was torn down and converted into an Amazon Fresh Grocery Store.
Dollar Tree / a closed grocery store (I think Dominicks) and restaurants were torn down to make way for a new Costco. Dollar Tree moved into a newer space next to the Asian grocery store, H-Mart, which also underwent renovation.
A closed gym has been redeveloped into a storage facility.
A formerly struggling plaza with furniture and electronics stores is now an Asian restaurant hub.
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