Ask Lemmy

Turn them into arenas where the public can hunt millionaires for sport.

A while back ago, there was an abandoned mall, a company bought it and allowed anybody to rent a small space in the open mall as a small business shop. People would put up curtains as walls and rent was very cheap.

The place was full of small vendors, more classy than a flea market, especially with the AC, but many artists selling all forms, and many odd widgets being sold. There was even a place that did custom glass blowing, etc etc. it was a real pleasure to be in and a community thrived there.

Importantly it was open consistently each day, so you could just randomly pop in and see what's up.

From what I understand, the place was even making a profit, but apparently not enough. It was eventually sold and now it warehouses antique cars.

I think all those artists and small vendors vanished or moved online.

I miss it.

It was good.

I'd like more of those back, and to experience what community could develop from that.

Fill it with scorpions. I will not be taking questions.

Good day.

Paintball. So many times in the 90s I’ve fantasized about this while at the mall.

Seems like a good place for free public housing.

Libraries, museums, local mom and pop stores, basically a complete rejection of what these places stood for.

Turn it into housing

Vertical farms managed by the local community.

I think in the current climate, public community/leisure spaces would be good. Nobody has any money, a lot of people don't have heat (or cooling) at home, spaces where people can just exist comfortably need to be made. What if a former office could be converted into tennis courts, chess rooms, libraries, computer rooms, just a room with sofas or tables where you can sit and not buy anything?

I know everyone wants to make a profit but loads of these spaces are just empty, surely something could be done?

Become abandoned haunted spaces with nature overtaking.

The dead mall inside the city here became mostly parking for the stadium, with a couple of businesses and a city bus transfer center. The one to the east became an office park.

I would like to see the upper levels of office buildings converted to housing and the ground floor to retail, couple floors between left for offices.

Malls I would like them to become city parks with skate parks (they usually have more up and down than the rest of the city) and buildings with libraries and community space and events rental space.

I don't want any of this as much as I want a healthy mass transit system, safe bike routes, and safe walking routes. But I do want the buildings converted and it is possible, I used to work for a construction company that did nothing but renovation and repurposing of commercial spaces.

Tear them down and give it back to nature.

Corporate offices might make good housing, malls could be useful for community services. Medical centres, libraries, hackerspaces, community courses (volunteer led), open up skylights in some of the old stores and build greenhouses for community gardens, temporary accommodation, kitchens for homeless people (and other services), market stall spaces and short term storefronts for small businesses so people can have a fair go at selling their stuff without being locked into years-long contracts. So many good ideas in this thread!

Free-roam VR arcades where you have a whole mall or office to run around in would be cool!

Turn malls into mixed housing/office/commercial space. You could live work and play in the same place, like a mini Mall of America.

Housing/retail neighborhood with doors to the outside and resident community areas inside.

In no particular order:

• VR arcades
• Laser tag
• Art exhibitions

hanging gardens of rotting C-suites, hedge fund managers, and politicians.

Turned into individual owned housing with specific bans on corporate ownership and HOAs.

Some sort of community space, like skate park or exhibition. In the vein of art exhibitions, it could have sections for people to do graffiti

My mall turns into a market every weekend. Anyone can sign up and come set up some tables and sell their things. Lots of homemade decor and antiques, usually some cool stuff.

Not the anchor stores, but two of the biggest store fronts which are in the corners in the main square of the mall converted. One is a 24 hour gym, the other is a gymnastics and ninja warrior type training place, and there are always classes of different age groups, and they also sell like open passes so you can go just about any day during open times and work out on the equipment. Talking about cool trampolines, shit hanging from the ceiling to climb around and swing yourself. Between those two places, there is a constant stream of people coming and going from the mall.

They also have a few stores that aren't your typical mall stores. For example, a liquor store, dentist office, bike shop, etc.

One thing that I think has helped the mall a lot is a movie theater, and it's the only one within a twenty minute drive, so even though it's small a lot of people go there.

Between all that, the other stores are doing pretty well.

I would like to see much more mixed use buildings. First floor or two shops and then a floor or two of offices and then residential going up further.

Skate parks

Pickleball court centers and medical malls of doctors offices.

I live in NE Ohio. In Cleveland the offices buildings are getting converted to apartments and the malls are getting torn down and replaced by Amazon warehouses

For malls, demolish one of two of the anchor stores and use the footprint to build some 5 over 1 or 7 over 2 apartments. Build pedestrian streets out into an out of the way part of the parking lot and full that area with townhomes. Given the size of the anchor's footprint, you may need to install a small elevated park for residents. If there is mass transit nearby, have a free shuttle run to the stop. The hope is to get a development large enough for a grocery store.

Use the mall to anchor a BRT corridor, making a stroad leading up to the mall more transit friendly. Focus on smaller buses at first with small headways to get people to use the busses. Have at least three or four sites where you can level dying strip malls and replace them with dense housing.

High-density housing

Rewild the space and repurpose the materials as much as possible to build sustainable walkable community centers