Malls are dying. How can cities like Charlotte and Raleigh repurpose them? | Opinion
The department stores. The familiar aroma of soft pretzels. Santas and decorations — hung way too early! — at Christmastime.
The enclosed shopping mall was once a pillar of the suburban experience; now, they almost feel like remnants of a bygone era.
As years have gone by, malls have slowly become languishing public spaces. According to the most recent Mecklenburg County revaluation, Charlotte’s malls aren’t worth as much as they once were. Per Axios Charlotte, SouthPark Mall is worth 15% less than in 2019, while the value of Northlake Mall’s property is down nearly 11%. Mecklenburg County Assessor Ken Joyner told county commissioners earlier this month that malls are seen as a “dated retail concept.”
In fact, in North Carolina, popular malls have closed, gone up for sale or faced financial struggle in recent years. Charlotte’s Northlake Mall in particular is struggling, in part due to mounting safety concerns that have recently prompted more security measures. Apple, a major retailer, permanently closed its store there in March after three shootings occurred in less than three months.
Once key drivers of foot traffic, some retailers — Macy’s, Foot Locker, Gap, just to name a few — have begun to close some locations at malls across the country. The world is changing, and online shopping increasingly sidelines the brick-and-mortar experience.
“It’s just an evolution,” Steven Cox, professor of marketing at McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte, told me. “You go from country general stores to a Sears-type store, to department stores in a mall, from malls to online.”
Ten years from now, there may only be 150 malls remaining nationwide, one expert told The Wall Street Journal last year.
“We overbuilt the malls because they were so successful in the 50s, 60s and 70s,” Cox said. “We just overbuilt them. And now we’ve got them, and nobody wants to use them anymore.”
But when malls close or their success begins to dwindle, what do we do with the space that’s left behind? Between retail space and parking lots, it’s a whole lot of land. The main parcel that Northlake Mall sits on in Charlotte is nearly 2.5 million square feet — about 57 acres. These sites offer something you can’t often find in cities anymore: ample space, proximity and, yes, parking.
For now, the best way to salvage malls may be to turn them into something different — if that’s possible. After all, there’s only so much you can do with a space like that. How can we make sure it isn’t wasted?
The Triangle’s surviving malls are increasingly being reimagined and redeveloped, perhaps in hopes that a little change will lengthen their lifespan. University Place — Chapel Hill’s first enclosed mall — is being transformed into a mixed-use development, complete with restaurant and retail space, office space, apartments and even a public park. Developers hope to revamp Southpoint Mall in Durham with housing and office space.
Similar things are happening across the country. Former malls in cities like Nashville and Alexandria now house health care facilities. One New York mall was recently retrofitted into an affordable housing complex for seniors. During the pandemic, abandoned malls served as COVID-19 vaccination sites.
In fact, the most successful brick-and-mortar shopping centers these days tend to be mixed-use developments that more closely resemble strip malls. Park Road Shopping Center, for example, has managed to hang on by reinventing the wheel as a high-end retail and dining destination.
But it’s certainly no easy feat. Charlotte’s old Eastland Mall has been closed for nearly 13 years and the city is still debating just how, exactly, to redevelop it. After years of decline, Cary Towne Center is finally being redeveloped into the headquarters for Epic Games, the video game and software company.
“Unless you’ve got a real destination mall, we’re not going to be able to do anything with these behemoths,” Cox said.
The first step to making any kind of change is realizing it’s inevitable. And with malls, that inevitability is becoming very clear.
