Those are also the "mall rat" generations, so it'd be pretty fitting lol.

Not even renovated, just set me up in a hot topic.

As a GenX, I would prefer seeing them made into some sort of public space? We are losing a lot of that, at least where I live. Indoor space in particular.

counterargument; malls, arcades, and bookstores should come back in style because they were amazing and we don't know what we missed until it's gone.

you have to go all the way down below the dirt to prep a site for residential units. With a toilet, shower, and sink per unit, the density of sewer and water plumbing is much higher than commercial. Fire codes also demand egress points (a.k.a. windows) for every bedroom - hard to do Inside a big box retail space.

As a millennial I can tell you that most millennials I know wouldn't want this but instead make it a place for none corporation and community events and such. A public place where your not forced to buy things where can just exist with others even if you have zero money and accessible to all genders and disabilities and races.

And yes retrofit part of it for people who need to get back on there feet, and homeless people.

If we could retrofit them into homeless shelters we could but it would require rebuilding mostly everything as malls are designed for stores not housing people (for instance the bathrooms are not private and not easily accessible if you live somewhere in it)

This isn't a too shabby of an idea. It probably won't be used but a mix of stores and homes in one building sounds great.

Stahp, I'm not even 40 yet.

mall walks!

But keep the appearance of a mall.
That way when we all have Alzheimer's from micro plastics, we can wander around it and feel young

In some places they're already doing it to revitalize the majority of the mall, convert a section and suddenly you've got people around 24/7 that want services.

As a millenial, all I want is the LAN party old folks home.

Knock these things down and plant trees and stuff.

While we're at it knock all the corporate 9to5 office work buildings where all the employees can work from home and plant trees and stuff there too.

Trees and ponds and natural parks and shit, hiking trails...etc.

As other people have mentioned, this can be a hard problem.

However, malls are typically surrounded by massive amounts of space used for parking. There is a plan for the largest mall in my region to convert all of that land into residential spaces, 2000 apartments. The parking will be moving underground.

Seems like a decent idea to me.

That would be really good, but this idea has been explored and unfortunately it is only viable on a very narrow amount of buildings. Most malls aren't properly built to be housing and the costs of adapting them for housing exceed the cost of just building new housing elsewhere. And the costs of tearing it down and rebuilding are even greater. Overall, Malls are economic net negatives for communities, all single use infrastructure constructions are.

I've seen some concepts for mall-like communities based around retirement homes and elementary schools. Add a library, some shops, and other services, and you're off to a great start.

The old-but-still-able folks can serve as crossing guards, read books to kids, play games with them, perhaps help with coaching or other tasks, etc.. The young kids benefit from the wisdom and time spent with good role models, the retirees get much-needed social interaction, structure, and purpose.

A man can dream.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the person who came up with malls WANTED them to be just as you described... Not some shopping centre thing

This sounds like such bad idea. Just demolish them.

I'm down and claiming the candy store in 113!

I would love to see this kind of repurposing of properties to be far more common! Malls tend to be fairly central, so they make ideal locations for being nearby everything a person could need in a residential setting.

Wait you guys are retiring?

It's funny you think millenials can afford to retire at 60

Cool idea but lack of natural light could be an issue.