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Comment by replicatorblog | Hacker News Reader

Author here. My point is that if a mall that is by all accounts one of the success stories can only fill space with low-quality retailers, maybe the situation is more dire than we're being led to believe. I live in that area and was shocked to see how many storefronts had suddenly gone low-rent. But YMMV.

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I was surprised to see you didn’t mention the ubiquitous cell phone repair kiosks in every mall. I co-own a chain of cell phone repair stores, and although we don’t have any mall locations, the people in our industry who do have mall locations generally do well with them.

These small services type of businesses are able to pay larger rent and are more stable clients than the “boxes of clothes or accessories from China” types of stores. And since phone repair is an in-person service, it’s less likely to be hurt by online retailers.

I believe more malls will move toward service businesses. One here in Austin allowed a giant trampoline park in what used to be a flagship store. The store is packed with kids and parents.

I’m very interested in this area and how it will continue to play out!

It's a great point! I'm always skeptical of the "move to experiences" narrative, but it sounds like you're having success there! I think that's definitely one route to go. I'm mostly curious about how Simon and similar companies are viewing this landscape? Are they planning on managing these malls indefinitely? Or do they largely view them as depreciating assets that they'll milk until they are demolished?

A common critique on malls is that they are all the same, always the same stores, no variety.

So I don't see how some independent operation that brings something new to the table could be a bad thing.

Unless it upsets your taste to having to deal with some unpolished store that lacks cooperate design.

This was my take away as well. "Shame" in this case is defined as independent retailers with "low quality goods." In this case, it appears that "low quality" is synonymous with anything not Mainstream Luxury.

Beyond that, this is the reality of how modern mall development works. Mall properties are basically ephemeral pump and dump real estate schemes. When the anchors move out to the latest highly subsidized mall with bigger and better TI incentives, little guys move in. Some of them are garbage, but many are not. Sometimes the mall makes it, sometimes it doesn't. Nothing new or special here.

Fair enough. From my perspective I'd say the mall is a success story _because_ it can still fill storefronts with independent operators. Is that a sign of impending doom? Maybe, or a sign of a transformation in progress, and I give you credit for perceiving that change as it's happening.

I'm much more familiar with the other NH mall in Nashua (Pheasant Lane). I guess I would have said that it, at least, has long been midrange at best--not that I've made a study of it. It does have an Apple Store which is something of an outlier for the mall as a whole but, as you allude to, Salem and Nashua are both somewhat unusual because of the sales tax situation.

I was at the Pheasant Lane Mall the weekend it opened! You are 100% right, it's decidedly middle-brow, compared to something like the Copley Mall in Boston.

For more context for people not in the area, the Pheasant Lane Mall is close enough to the border that part of the parking lot is in Massachusetts.

Also, the Merrimack outlet mall that opened a few years ago is also almost certainly taking foot traffic away from the southern NH malls.

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