Repurposing shopping malls

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Repurposing American shopping malls.

And there’s a reason behind that repurposing. According to Statista, e-commerce has risen by almost a quarter since 2019. Meanwhile, the foot traffic at urban retail centers has dropped by about the same. That’s hitting brick-and-mortar stores hard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Meaning empty stores in malls. So the retail behemoths that once hosted big-box stores like Macy’s and Sears are looking for alternative renters, and finding some you wouldn’t expect.

WORLD Radio Reporting Producer Mary Muncy has the story.

SOUND: [ASD KARAOKE]

MARY MUNCY: About 30 people are dancing to Christmas carols in the backroom of a mall storefront now called Arms Around ASD, or autism spectrum disorder. Some of the people are singing along. Most of them have special needs.

Volunteer Jenn Hartzog says Friday is the day when they have the most going on, and when they get the most walk-ins.

JENN HARTZOG: I love that we get a lot of walk bys. You know, people come in and say, what do you do here? Well, let me tell you.

Hartzog tells them they support people with autism and their families through therapy and self-care, all from the Asheville Mall.

In addition to retail staples like JCPenny and Old Navy, the mall has three non-profits, a mechanical bull, and an air-soft shooting range all things to try to get people into the mall and off of Amazon. Most of the mall’s spaces are filled and a few local shops have just moved in.

But other malls across the U.S. have been slowly losing renters over the last few years becoming “Zombie malls.”

SOUND: [WALKING AROUND THE INNSBRUCK MALL]

Just down the road from the Asheville Mall, the Innsbruck Mall sits mostly empty and quiet. The doors to the main mall building were locked, so I stayed outside.

AUDIO: It looks like the big-box stores closed. A few smaller things moved into it but nothing to really bring anyone back here.

There’s graffiti on the walls and trash in the corners. It’s become an eyesore.

Loren Keim is a professor at Lehigh University at the Goodman Center for Real Estate. He teaches real estate investment, analysis, and how to value large properties like skyscrapers, casinos and shopping malls.

LOREN KEIM: Well, I mean, we're always transitioning. We had downtown areas where everybody went and shopped. And it became difficult as we all started driving cars and trying to get there and figure out how to park to get in and out of downtown areas. So malls were built off highways, which typically did not go through cities.

Those were popular for a while. But then shoppers wanted a quick stop, so malls started transitioning to more outward-facing stores.

KEIM: Now, with so much being transitioned over to distribution, where we're going to Amazon, or we're going to any online store and ordering something, it's making it easier for shoppers to find hard to find items, and have it show up at their doorstep the next day, they don’t necessarily go out to shop.

Not only that, but there are so many malls in the U.S. that they compete with each other, and often a town can only support one.

So Keim says mall owners are repurposing that space into things other than retail. Some malls are becoming more like Main Streets, converting some of their unused retail space into apartments, office space, and gyms. Things that will generate foot traffic around whatever retail remains.

A lot of malls are also bringing in healthcare. In 2022, Nashville struck a deal with Vanderbilt University Medical Center to turn a nearby mall into a giant hospital.

But most malls are transitioning on a smaller scale, bringing in clinics, escape rooms, and sometimes churches.

PAUL KNIGHT: I'm Paul Knight. Actually Pastor Paul is what a lot of people call me. Lead Pastor of Hope Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Hope Church started renting a space in the Grand Cities Mall in 1996.

SOUND: [MALL ACTIVITY]

One day, Knight saw a lady pushing a Kmart cart up the center aisle of their worship center. She sat down in a chair, weeping. Her sister had just died and she came in to pray. Knight sat and talked with her.

KNIGHT: And I realized if I was in a regular church building on a corner someplace, this would never happen, people wouldn’t ever drive a grocery cart up the aisle of the church, to the front and pray. And I thought, “I love this.”

Later the church decided to buy its space in the mall, and in 2015 they bought the mall itself.

Now along with their church-proper, they have a childcare center and a food pantry. Tenants still rent storefronts from them, and that money goes back into keeping the mall a thriving city center. After all, what better place for a church than Main Street?

KNIGHT: I was giving a couple ladies a tour of our main worship area. And we stepped outside the doors, and the lady came to an abrupt stop. And she said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Where's the church end and the mall start?” I said, “That's the point.”

As the U.S. transitions to a new form of retail, infrastructure will have to change with it, and that will leave some spaces like the Innsbruck Mall collecting cobwebs. But Knight sees the disruption as an opportunity for redemption.

KNIGHT: The building has to be a tool, right? And the tool is something that we want to use in our context, to help more and more people encounter God's people, the church.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

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