Quote:
Originally Posted by chowhou
I mean, we have dead and dying indoor malls in the Lower Mainland and it doesn't seem like we have dead or dying "outdoor mall" commercial streets. Two or three successful indoor malls does not save the other indoor malls from their seemingly inevitable death spiral. And turnover is a good thing I don't know why you think it isn't. It means commercial activity is actively adapting to the needs of the local consumer. That's a healthy continuous renewal. It's when businesses are closing without replacements or old stores sit and decay with little traffic that you can say a commercial area isn't working.
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How could you ever tell if an "outdoor mall" or commercial streetor exterior shopping experience area were
"dying" in the same way that you can if with indoor mall is? (like,....say,..... the owners trying to sell up or redevelop. Or a high vacancy rate in the tenant stores)?
"outdoor malls" typically don't have singular or commercial owners or ownership groups to speak of - since they're invariably located on public streets, nor are they graded by the same metrics for success or viability that indoor malls are (revenue generated per square meter....because you can actually calculate and accurately measure those two variables....or foot-traffic generated).
And the only close to reasonable (and yet still probably largely unreliable) statistic you can go by, is the level of turnover in the nearby stores that front that outdoor shopping area.
And in virtually every example you had given earlier they have HIGH turnover rate.
It's not easy to maintain a retail presence in, or adjacent to these
"outdoor shopping" areas or malls, unless you have a high-profit margin product you're dealing in that can sustain your periods of lulls in sales activity and slow or low foot-traffic periods.
Hence the "high street" concept for outdoor shopping experience.
And just how viable are those for most areas in which you'd want to have a "mall" in the traditional sense of the word?
And it's not just two or three successul indoor malls that I pointed out as the examples.
They are two or three of the most successful in all of Canada.
Besides which, if the "indoor mall" concept were a dying concept on a death spiral then why would the likes of Oakridge and Richmond Center double down on what you think is a dying concept?
Shopping habits have changed thanks to the proliferation of online shopping and the likes of Amazon and delivery shopping, but that hasn't completely negated people's innate desire to socially connect or still go out to places that induce social interaction the way the malls have traditionally done.
Do they need to adapt to modern habits and technology?
Aboslutely?
Every business model does.
Adapt or die.
That's a mantra that's not only true in evolution but in business as well.
Those malls you pointed out previously were dying because their owners were slow or reluctant to adapt to a changing market and changing habits and predilictions of modern shoppers.
No shock or surprise there.
And obviously the pandemic and lockdowns and ensuing shift to remote-work/work-from-home only helped accelerate some of that slide to extinction for some of those malls.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chowhou
If you want some examples of suburban "outdoor malls" that are doing great with no nearby "indoor mall": Burnaby Heights, Fraser Highway in Langley, Lower Lonsdale, Central Lonsdale, Columbia Street in New West (unless you consider New West Station an "indoor mall") all come to mind. Notably these are all areas that densified before we became a car dominated culture. Brentwood is trying to replicate that model: Densify in a transit and pedestrian oriented way and try to capture the pedestrian traffic that comes about as a result.
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Again....
"doing great" by what metric,....exactly?
"great" seems to be doing a hell of a lot of work in your assessment.
Do you have any numbers at all that can back up that sentiment and opinion?
Because at this point that's all that that is.
And anecdotal opinion.
And by the way, as has been pointed out several times both on this very thread and in the forum in general, is that trying to create that
"outdoor mall"/shopping experience that relies in the
"pedestrian traffic that comes about as a result" (....of densification of transit and pedestrain-orientated development)... as you intimate,....BUT,.....in an area that has explicitly been poorly designed and planned for pedestrian foot-traffic and movement (i.e. Brentwood) - is in essence, a strategy doomed to failure.
Or at least, not the high-flying success you were once selling.
Hence the seeming inability of the Amazing Brentwood mall or plaza at its current location to capture what the initial concept was trying to sell.
A lot of people have pointed out that the developers were trying to replicate or recreate ( and indeed this WAS part of their initial marketing pitch),... a
"Yaletown of the suburbs" residential and commercial developmentexperience,.....but without the requisite actual Yaletown surrounding density, infrastructure or
resident income level.
It's no wonder therefore their expectations have been pared down considerably since those initial plans.
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The city planners really messed this one up. I sometimes wonder who gets voted on to make these decisions. I agree an outdoor mall does not work in Vancouver.
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