Converting shopping malls into apartments [video]
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Most successful conversions are of older buildings with small floors and many windows.[1] Modern buildings with a central utility core and large floors are not good candidates for conversion. There have been some attempts at long, narrow apartments to maximize access to the outside walls, but the result is a slum.
Tearing down malls to build apartments is more common than converting the big boxy spaces.
[1] https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/vacant-offices-housin...
I've come across many people that this type of housing seems to work quite well for. Of course, I wonder what might be the repercussions? Might require some oversight to prevent devolving into tent cities? But then again, I'm not personally aware of tent cities causing much harm (to anyone outside of the tent city)
Many of those in lower quality housing have jobs. The service workers and whatnot in every community have to live somewhere.
And these days all housing providers, whether for-profit, non-profit, or public, are running into the same issues with zoning, financing, rising costs, etc.
It's just the least insane option in an insane world.
18 wheelers on the parking lot fringes are a good indication that parking overnight is ok even if the signs say no.
It is not in any way shape or form a 'housing solution'
Cut out a square in the center and make it a courtyard. Now you can have windows on the inside and outside.
[1] https://www.citysignal.com/the-sordid-history-of-nyc-air-sha...
I am suggesting proper courtyards, not slots filled with human waste.
In Morocco, A/C is not common but many houses have a “square donut” shape with a courtyard in the middle where air can naturally cool the house. It’s pretty nice.
Enclosed malls have a better shot because they were built with (slightly) higher quality, but none of the strip mall boxes are worth saving.
Sadly in western world we don't build such high residential buildings - mostly 5 levels or less than 10 levels with not enough parking places around.
I would not want to live in an arcology.
And no, residents are not imprisoned.
I understand that Americans see driving and walking as pretty much the same thing, or walking as something undesirable and to be avoided at all costs, but that’s literally just in your small corner of the world.
Please reread the whole thread.
I'm right now living in those arcology and mostly only use grocery store and sometimes restaurants - but access to mall is still convenient. And better outdoor social area is just on the other side of street with 5 min walk.
However I do use a lot of residential shared cowork place, playground, gym and swimming pool. For swimming pool or gym you don't have to prepare how to dress properly before driving car - you can spontaneously early in the morning take few meters to lift and go there in your swimming or gym clothes. You don't have to worry only about driving but parking, paying for parking, that you forgot to pack some gym or swimming clothes. Undressing and locking everything in the locker - you just take a lift back and shower at your place (if you don't want to use showers in facilities)
There is also much more natural light in shared facilities floor because those residential buildings are towers so they have a lot of area on the edge where the windows are.
Not so at all. Malls are intentionally designed to be hard to navigate, so customers get disoriented, are forced to spend more time there and succumb to impulse buys. Search for ”Gruen Transfer” to learn more.
Cultures are different, so it is a bold assumption that a solution that works for one culture also works for another, different one.
Sign me up, I want to get paid by the CIA's urbanist YIMBY astroturf project, right now I'm just posting for free like a sucker.
The Arcade is a special case, because it's actually a central-city mall, located right in the heart of the city, near a bunch of other apartment and office buildings. It's basically the complete opposite of your typical suburban mall, miles from anywhere, surrounded by way too many parking lots.
The other examples this video briefly touches on are something completely different, and far more interesting. These aren't simple conversions of shopping mall interiors, they are projects that are tearing down large chunks of existing suburban shopping malls (and their parking lots) and attempting to re-invent them as a town centre, with added outdoor shopping, high-density housing (brand new apartment buildings), parks and office space.
It's far more than just converting malls into housing. It's an attempt at a completely new approach.
The closest I'm specifically aware of in the US in Santana Row in the South Bay but that's not really residential (maybe there's some but I'm only aware of the hotels)--and, while there are a fair number of restaurant options--you don't really have groceries or other retail that people would want on a day to day basis AFAIK.
ADDED: That was probably unfairly snarky. But I'm not sure how many people complaining about housing affordability really have in mind very small places in peripheral cities (even fairly nice ones like Providence).
I'm not saying it's impossible, but people drastically underestimate the complexity and cost of converting a commercial property into a residential one. All the codes are different, and all the requirements are different.
This is not some sci-fi shit, many places in Asia are doing it. The situation in the US is going from sad to pathetic.
Absolutely. For anywhere other than the biggest cities, I suspect you don't even need twenty stories if you have enough of these buildings that are about eight to ten stories above the tall first floor for retail AND an excellent public transit infrastructure so you don't need parking lots.
I think the big problem is people don't want bad public transit to replace cars and are rightly skeptical of any plans that promises good results long term after an initial period of pain where we don't have parking space but we also don't have an excellent public transit.
Even in Asia, those residential mall complexes usually house very expensive luxury apartments.
No. Some of them are expensive. Most of them are middle-class.
Fun fact: Ontario, Canada started mandating fire sprinklers in 4+ storey residential buildings started in the year 2010. Taking into account the lag in planning, design, and construction, it effectively means that any high-rise apartment building constructed after 2015 has sprinklers, and earlier ones don't.