Photo: Closed and abandoned Lord and Taylor Department store at the Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax. (MelissaMN – stock.adobe.com)
The FWD #222 • 785 Words
The Rise and Fall of the American Mall
In the documentary “Secret Mall Apartment,” artist Michael Townsend and seven friends secretly built and lived in a hidden apartment inside the Providence Place Mall in Rhode Island from 2003 to 2007. They furnished their covert dwelling with a couch, cabinets, and other comforts—all somehow sneaked through the mall’s service corridors.
Originally meant to be a simple Jackass-style stunt, the covert annexation evolved into a years-long art project that challenged consumer culture and drew attention to lost community spaces. Inevitably, security guards ended Townsend’s guerrilla housing experiment. He was charged with trespassing and given a lifetime ban to the mall.
Ironically, as big-box retailers and online shopping took over by the 2010s, many malls probably would have been delighted to have some live-in foot traffic. Today, we now realize that the group’s feat inadvertently highlighted a solution for dying suburban malls: legitimate housing for millions in need.
The Perfect convergence
Across America, two separate crises are colliding to create an opportunity. Communities are struggling with a severe shortage of affordable housing—a deficit NLIHC estimates at 7.3 million nationwide. Meanwhile, once-thriving shopping malls sit sit abandoned or underutilized, victims of rapidly changing consumer habits.
the mall decline
For many of us of a certain age, the mall is nostalgia. Mallrats. Department store shopping with your parents or kids. That first job during high school or college. (I worked at a women’s clothing store for several years and then The Gap.)
But the glory days of American malls are past. In the 1980s, there were roughly 2,500 malls nationwide; today, approximately 700 remain active, with analysts predicting further decline. Department store anchors like Sears, JCPenney, and Macy’s continue scaling back operations, leaving massive vacant spaces within these structures.
As Matthew Christopher writes in Atlas Obscura, “The very size of malls became a liability: dead ends, darkened storefronts, and vacant corridors created eerie, lifeless pockets—and a death spiral.” Unlike strip malls, which can easily demolish and rebuild underperforming sections, indoor malls are “static islands surrounded by seas of asphalt.”
from art project to housing solution
What Townsend and his friends did may have been protest art, but the core concept has been gaining traction as a serious housing solution for years. In Rochester, New York, the former Sears store that anchored the Irondequoit Mall was retrofitted into 73 senior rental units. Right outside, a new 4-story multifamily building with 84 additional units was built on an adjacent abandoned parking lot.
Cities like Phoenix are embracing this approach on a larger scale, with three major malls being converted to mixed-use developments that will include thousands of apartments. This effort aligns with Phoenix’s commitment to create or preserve 50,000 housing units by 2030.
mall-to-housing advantages
It’s safe to say no architect designed malls to be reborn into housing. Financial and technical challenges to these projects abound, but they do have some important things working in their favor.
- Strategic locations: Malls typically occupy prime real estate with existing infrastructure and transportation access
- Community integration: Many malls “already fit in the neighborhood”
- Mixed-use potential: Former retail spaces can accommodate grocery stores, healthcare facilities, and other community services
- Environmental benefits: Repurposing existing structures reduces construction waste and carbon emissions
- Economic revival: New residential communities can revitalize surrounding areas that suffered when malls declined
policy support growing
California passed legislation in 2022 making it easier to build housing on land zoned for commercial use. Other states and municipalities are exploring similar zoning reforms and offering incentives for developers to convert retail to residential. In Virginia, the mall-to-residential conversion has been happening already.
The redevelopment of Springfield Town Center in Fairfax County has been long awaited. In 2023, the County Planning Commission approved an apartment building with over 400 units where a surface parking lot once was.
In the Richmond region, several malls and shopping centers are being targeted for mixed-use redevelopment. Virginia Center Commons in Henrico County is being redeveloped into a mixed-use center anchored by the Henrico Sports & Event Center. Down in Hampton Roads, many of its malls have been eyed for redevelopment for several years.
What started with artists secretly occupying unused mall space could evolve into a nationwide solution to our housing crisis. In a beautiful irony, these temples of American consumer culture might be transformed into the answer to one of our most pressing human needs: affordable places to call home.