I really wish the US would do something about the dying mall spaces. In the failing commercial real estate market they are just being left to rot away.
Turn them into small communities. Build housing within or above the mall space, develop the space into a walkable city of sorts. One of the things preventing comfortable walkable neighborhoods in my area is the 6 months of winter. Creating that with the indoor mall, similar to the intent of the mall, would really make them useful.
That or just waste 100,000 sq ft of covered and climate controlled space while the housing market continues to skyrocket. Every new apartment being build around me, and seemingly everywhere, are that 5 on 1 design. Retail spaces on the first floor, apartments above. A dying mall lends itself to that style of living with an opportunity to create a really large and vibrant indoor park space.
A friend of mine lives in the J.B. White building in Augusta, GA. It’s the old headquarters / warehouse of the department store chain, but it’s been subdivided and made into studio apartments. They’re pretty nice.
Meanwhile where I live, in a city of only 100,000 people, we have 5 full sized shopping malls and 3 of them are dead or dying. Out of the 2 that survive, one of them is a shopping/living space like you described.
I want inside pics!
Ah yes my dead mall peeps have made it to Lemmy!
