Dead Malls and Adaptive Reuse

[Bridges]

New York Times article about Rackspace and it's reuse of a "Dead Mall".  Pretty interesting.  Challenges our notion of what office buildings and corporate headquarters should look like. 

SAN ANTONIO â€" Where others saw an abandoned shopping mall with weeds growing in the parking lot, graffiti on the walls and homeless men camping out in what was once the food court, Graham Weston, chairman and co-founder of Rackspace, a Web hosting company here, envisioned a corporate headquarters.

A two-story slide takes employees to the food court area.

“I thought, This is going to be awesome!” the infectiously enthusiastic Mr. Weston said of his idea five years ago to move Rackspace’s operations to the defunct Windsor Park Mall in northeast San Antonio. “But everybody else pretty much thought I was crazy.”

Today, his idea to move his company to the very mall where he got the blue ruffle tuxedo he wore to his junior prom seems more innovative than insane, with 3,200 Rackspace employees keystroking in cubicles set up where retailers like J. C. Penny, Zales, Casual Corner and Piercing Pagoda used to be. The project suggests that there might be hidden opportunities in the nation’s glut of dead and dying malls and represents one of the country’s largest and quirkiest recycling efforts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/realestate/commercial/rackspace-revitalizes-a-defunct-mall-into-an-unorthodox-tech-campus.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1351800996-OuTUWjFV6CqtAkQZ/8eScg&

More info about Deadmalls at deadmalls.com

[thelakelander]

What's shown here is the type of redevelopment projects that were envisioned by Bill Killingsworth during the creation of the Mobility Plan.  Thus, the Mobility Plan's credit adjustment system and land use policies are geared to encourage infill and the redevelopment of older shopping centers.  With that said, we do have a few good examples of redeveloping former malls.  Philips Mall (office park at Emerson & I-95) and Grande Boulevard (FSCJ Deerwood) instantly come to mind.

[Bridges]

That's what I was thinking when I read it. 

Wondered if this sort of thing could be done with the west end of Regency Square mall.  I don't know if they its still planed to be torn down or not.  Leaving Dillards and Sears all alone. 

[thelakelander]

To me it looks like the emptying of the west mall at Regency is deliberate.  I wonder if they are setting the wheels in motion for doing something else with that space?

[thelakelander]

They are emptying the mall so that they can shut down the energy and maintenance costs.  Also it focuses the crowd into the remaining retail area so that it is a little more crowded and  feels like a mall instead of the set of a zombie apocalypse film.

This explains the deliberate method I mentioned.  Also, do they see Dillard's as a long term anchor?  The appearance of that store seems like it's gone just as soon as their lease is up.

[fsquid]

great article.

[Mathew1056]

According to Dunhan-Jones, an urban design researcher, most mall that are one story in height do not have the required return in profitability to justify its existence. The space is just not being utilized to its full potential. Regency is an odd ball. The department stores are two-stories, the common areas are only one-story. I do remember a visioning process for the Regency area that has a similar tone to the TED talk that Dunhan-Jones appears in. I assume the ideas spurred by the process have not led to any notable change in direction. General Growth Properties, the owners of Regency Square, do operate some popular shopping centers throughout the country. I guess they are just milking Regency of its last drops of relevance. In an area of so much congestion you would think there would be something worth going to. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/ellen_dunham_jones_retrofitting_suburbia.html

[Adam W]

Years ago I worked for Convergys and we were evacuated to Chattanooga for hurricane Floyd. A small team of us went to the Convergys office in up there to take calls for our project as the Jax site was closed for a few days. Anyway, the Convergys site was in the former anchor of a shopping mall. It was the first time I had ever seen that. It made perfect sense, though.

I guess it's not too far off from reusing the Grand Boulevard mall as FCCJ.