Step into the shopping
center of the future. A world filled with exciting ideas. Since they started
popping up in the 1950s, malls have been the quintessential American shopping experience. Bustling temples dedicated to the wonders and excesses of retail, food
service and entertainment, the rise of the mall coincided with the growth of the suburbs. The heyday of the malls
really is the 1970s, sometimes referred to as
the malling of America. They really thrived at providing some sort of public gathering space, some sort of social life, in addition to actually
giving people places to shop. Over the past few decades before then, lots of developers were building malls, and it kind of coincided
with the growth of highways. So as more people started traveling and interstate started being built, developers really wanted to put something to attract people to stop. Take a look at an average American mall today however, and you'll see a very different picture. Closed stores and empty hallways became the norm in many malls even before COVID-19 delivered them another set of problems in 2020. So what happened? This is the story of the rise
and fall of American malls. When malls worked best,
they survived and thrived thanks to their anchor stores. Those are the stores that are on the edges of the malls and that are outward
facing to the parking lot. So if you're a shopper, you're gonna walk
through one of these big, usually a department store. So if you're thinking about
Macy's or Sears or JCPenney, those are called the anchor stores. So once shoppers are done shopping there maybe they wander to the
middle part of the mall, shopping at the other apparel shops or even going to buy some food. But you really had to have a reason for people to shop in the first place. Because anchor is
bringing all those people, they tend to pay very little rent. Around 80% of income from all owners come from the inline
stores inside the mall. Over the past few decades, malls have been facing
challenges from all sides. The first being, there's
just too many of them. As early as in the 90s, the malls were beginning
to compete with each other. We have a lot more retail square footage
per capita than Canada. We have only seven times more retail square footage
per capita than Europe. After the 2008 financial crisis lowered retail spending across the board, malls and especially
their department stores also had to contend with a new challenge
that was growing fast. Malls started to suffer in the early 2000s with the rise of online shopping. Suddenly they didn't have
that captive audience who had to go to the
mall to buy something. You didn't have to get up, get in your car drive
all the way to the mall and then see a bunch of other people. You can just do it from
the comfort of your home. Department stores overall have become less relevant over the years. Many have fallen totally off and that's Sears, JCPenney. Several bankruptcies in this space have really hurt the industry. But as department stores goes so does the mall oftentimes. So if department stores
start closing locations that means they're usually leaving malls. This is the Greenbrier mall
in Southwest Atlanta, Georgia. It's in many ways emblematic of the problems facing malls today. It's been there since 1965. So for more than half of a century it's been serving this area of Atlanta that's predominantly black and also as middle-class neighborhood. It started with anchor stores
that were department stores. So you had JCPenney and then Riches which was later bought by Macy's. So you had these two national chains. It had the first Chick-Fil-A in a mall like that type of format. So when you think about
the history of malls like Greenbrier had like
the perfect template but now Macy's will be exiting the mall meaning that the mall will
be left without an anchor which is vital to
attracting other shoppers to come into the stores. Greenbrier then because
it's kind of an example or a test for all these other
middling malls across America about what do you do when
these large department stores as a business decision on their end are trying to just stay
in the high quality malls, how does a middling mall survive? What's their next strategy? Greenbrier is a textbook example of how closely the deterioration of the middle class in the US is tied to the health of its malls. The median income for the surrounding area has reduced by $6,905
over the past 15 years to a total of $20,756 per year. And yet residents and store
owners hope that Greenbrier Mall will see better days. Malls are made up of the people and communities that help fuel them. Greenbrier is still a place
that people go to and cherish even if on paper it
doesn't have the elements that make it a thriving mall. Well, a lot of the existing constituents and residents there feel in many respects that they worked hard their whole lives to be able to experience
the American dream The single family, suburban
house in a leafy yard near a big mall that had a great Macy's. They're very reluctant to see
that taken away from them. Now that Macy's has gone, Greenbriar may try to take
inspiration from what many malls were doing in the years
following the financial crisis focusing not on shopping but experiences. That was a trend we were seeing in 2016 up into the pandemic pretty much. And by experiences I mean everything as
traumatic as a waterpark or hosting like concerts
to have people wanna come other than just to buy stuff. Having Instagrammable moments, making sure your store is pretty that people wanna take a photo and post it on Instagram or Twitter. Historically the mall has always
been a place for teenagers. You like to hang out, see your friends and also kind of be seen at the mall. And that hasn't completely changed. Like before the pandemic,
about 95% of gen Zs, so today's teenagers had gone to a mall in a three month period. So teenagers are still going to the mall and they've always been key
to having thriving malls because they're coming
into their spending power. And once you went over teens hopefully you're really winning over a loyal customer for life. But thanks to lock downs
across the country, most malls at one point or
another were shuttered in 2020. That means no one using
the multi-billion dollar American Dream malls indoor
ski slope, no one going to the King of Prussia Mall's
indoor skydiving attraction. Basically the pandemic gave malls what they didn't need. Another problem. What would your net income or net operating income have been in 2022 without COVID and what is it now in a post COVID world? So, our view is it was a roughly 10% hit to net income over that period. That's Vince Tibone from the analytics from Green Street Advisors,
which rates American models from A to D just like a report card. And if malls did have a report card, they wouldn't exactly make honor roll. Here in the US, out of
1000 malls in the country, there are roughly 250 malls
we grade A- or better. The B and C quality malls which is the vast majority
of the malls by count we think are on a negative trajectory. And it's gonna depend on a lot of the local dynamics
ownership decisions around how much money do
you invest in the property will determine whether this mall can survive as retail or
rapidly melting ice cube. While there have been a few bankruptcies among real estate investment trusts that own mostly B to D
malls in the past few years, A models really are doing just fine. Some of the most
productive shopping centers in the country are super high end. So I'm talking about Bal Harbor Shops down in Miami, Florida, there is Americana Manhasset
in Long Islands, Gold Coast, the Grove in Los Angeles. These are places that
have all high end stores and have done quite well. A lot of that has to do with
efficiency of their property. So their sales per square
foot are really high but also they've invested
a lot in their actual mall 'cause it has to look beautiful, it has to have all the services that a wealthy shopper expects. So what will the future hold for less sought after malls that can't revive their golden years? For many of these malls,
it will mean closure and then hopefully conversion. If they can't get a new use to come in, it's expensive but you
can just demolish it. And there are still quite a lot of sites just sitting waiting. Amazon has been picking
up more and more of those building their big fulfillment centers. Also, a lot of communities
see this as an opportunity to redevelop, reinhabit this dead mall to help that community meet the challenges it was never originally designed for. The number one reuse of an
existing mall is as workspace. It's actually pretty easy to
just throw some carpeting down, cut a few more windows and turn it into office space. Sort of number two reuse of malls is either medical,
healthcare or education. Lots of great examples
of community colleges all the way down to elementary
schools moving into malls. And then the third strategy
that I wish happened more is actually just demolishing
them all and regreening. Either reconstructing the
wetlands that used to be there And that frankly we never
should have built on in the first place or providing community parks and gardens. While most analysts say post
pandemic retail shopping could bring some life back
into the American mall, many are not long for this world. Depending on where you live, It might be time to make one last visit, grab some food, do some
shopping and say farewell.
