We’ve had a number of big box closings here. The old K-Mart sat for decades before being torn down for a new Walmart. The old Walmart turned into a nautical cabinet factory. The old CostCo was taken over by the local power company as its central HQ, garage and storage facility. The old Albertson’s is being renovated by another supermarket chain, but we suspect that the mid-sized chain involved may get taken over by private equity. That’s what did in the old Albertson’s; it’s a long story.
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I remember a prescient article in the '90s (in Wired? Mondo 2000?) about big-box stores shutting down and the spaces being repurposed as shared bohemian living spaces and art studios/galleries, vast parking lots turned into gardens, etc. At the time it struck me as a bit dystopian, given that urban areas still had affordable spaces for such things, the idea that artists would be exiled to the kinds of suburban wastelands where big box stores exist. Now, given the unaffordability of living anywhere, it’s a hopeful vision. So fingers crossed…
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Well said!
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Because the ones I ask who are over 50 all blame it on the damned Millenials not buying stuff and on the Internet. Heavens forfend they look at their own industry’s complicity in all those bricks-and-mortar spaces for rent in NYC.
I have to give you credit, that’s the nicest way of describing a mob-style bust-out I’ve ever heard.
And there we have it. Say what you will about Gordon Gekko, his justifications were more entertaining than a lazy Libertarian buzz phrase.
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It’s a good idea as long as the empty space is the vacant lot on which the retail building once stood. As others have noted, it’s difficult to retrofit these spaces for safe residential use. If that’s the solution it’s better to demolish the structure and start over by building proper housing.
On my latest visit to L.A. I noticed that, in the course of barely 3 months, the Westside Pavillion mall was half-gutted. Turns out they’re converting it to office space, which makes more sense. There was also talk of Cedars-Sinai hospital turning the Beverly Center into a medical school, but I think that got stalled. Someone I knew in the local real estate industry says that only a handful of high-end malls with luxury stores (e.g. the Grove, Century City, the newer part of 3rd Street) are going to survive the retail-pocalypse there.
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It’s been one of the many reasons why I think market economies can’t operate properly under capitalism (at least as people have been told how they operate). Personally, I think eventually all firms should be owned by their employees and decision making get flattened down as reasonably as possible to ensure production follows effective demand of consumers and not what some young Christian Bale clone demands in a quarterly earnings report.
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Creative destruction that Schumpeter envisioned I don’t think exists. It’s not that his idea is wrong since nature does have similar forces in play but that capitalist market economies always minimize destruction in all forms. I mean look at how we’ve all gravitated towards index funds now. Why try to beat the market when the firms can be aggregated in terms of an industry (or even multiple industries)? In a way, I think all this indicates that cooperation, not competition, drives market economies even in capitalist ones. It’s really a question of who benefits from the act of cooperation/coordination.
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But… But… I want my house to be in the middle of all that!
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There’s nothing wrong with the concept itself, it’s more how it’s been used by establishment greedheads to gull the rubes. In our new age of right-wing populism and late-stage capitalism, though, the phrase is going a little out of fashion with the Know-Nothings:
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Basically, this changes the news story from “1,000 homeless in the city freeze to death every winter” to “100 residents die in tragic flophouse fire” (repeat N times per year). Although I don’t think the homeless freeze that badly in San Diego.
It’s perhaps not an outright bad idea, but it means creating a space that will generate negative news articles on a continual basis. News about the filthy living conditions, the rampant drug use, the murders, the tragic fires, the waste of taxpayer money, prostitution, etc… It’s extremely problematic.
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Getting the plumbing and electrical to scale up for residential use and be up to code would be a nightmare too.
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Three years ago, the KMart closed down here. I’d like to see the Costco next door move their Tire Center there, because where it is currently, it effectively blocks one of the 2 main exits from the parking lot. Alternately, with minimal retrofitting, you could put a kickass farmer’s market or swap meet there, for very little more cost than the current setup in someone else’s parking lot or empty field.
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I saw that episode of Black Mirror too!
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Praise Jeebus and pass the popcorn! 
is going to hell for that remark
Near my mother-in-law’s place they converted a local theatre to one of those fire and brimstone churches. Apparently the acoustics are great and having a shouty preacher means he doesn’t need amplification.
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It seems that when one of the theaters or other larger mall venues goes under, the court of last resort is always a church of some type. How many malls that are on their way out have a church as one of their last tenants?
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Oddly enough one of the hardest retrofit issues we’re having in Cleveland is what to do with all of the abandoned churches.
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Here in prog CA they’re doing the opposite, up the street from me: an entire (though small) indoor mall is being turned into a Target.
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