[dcolkitt]

In most suburban areas, the land malls sit on are worth far more than the structure. There's also a desperate need for housing in most metros. Particularly high density single family homes near the center of town.

It's cool to imagine alternate uses for existing malls, but I'm guessing the best thing to do would be to demolish them, then convert the land to small, dense housing developments.

[bsanr2]

Better yet, set aside some of that housing for small business owners who would have their locations in the development. Explicitly zone it for commerce as well as residential, like all of the old small town and city neighborhoods people are clamoring to get into.

[notacoward]

A while back I was hearing about large department stores, especially Sears/Primark, considering conversion to data centers. They're everywhere, so not hard to find one in a desired location, and they usually have good access to relevant kinds of infrastructure (especially power). And sellers who are desperate to wring some money out of them before they literally fall apart. Conversion wouldn't be free, of course, but it seemed like a way to get a new DC for far less than it would cost to build its equivalent from scratch. Haven't heard about the idea for a while now, though. Not sure why.

[telotortium]

The cloud happened, probably. The big cloud vendors have DCs in rural areas that have access to even cheaper power and unlimited land. I could see some colocations there, perhaps.

[wyre]

> the best thing to do would be to demolish them, then convert the land to small, dense housing developments.

This could be said about most real estate, I think.