[hogFeast]

It is important to distinguish between malls and other types of property. Malls were built around cornerstone tenants, and the idea was agglomeration: one big tenant, lots of small single units, everyone wins. The death of malls is due to (often, but not always) location and amenities but, primarily, because the cornerstone tenants just sell things that no-one wants and they have way too much space.

Transportation is essential (and underrated). I am in the UK, we have a huge share of online retail but some large physical retailers are totally fine (Next is a well-known one)...if they pivoted their stores ten years ago to locations with strong traffic links. Local councils during the pandemic shut down parking, that basically finished small-time retail (not an exaggeration, most of these changes have been made permanent, single-unit operators won't ever be able to reopen because councils have shut down parking everywhere). And adding multi-use units (food, film, gyms, etc.) is also another strong play. But it is only easy to do this if your model doesn't revolve around a cornerstone tenant, and you have flexibility in your space. The locations doing well here have been able to flexibly add amenities (post-2008, these places were dead but slowly added restaurants as the economy recovered) and are composed of medium-sized units with no one cornerstone tenant.

The issue is largely structural. Most malls can't improve. They can't suddenly change the economics of having too much space. They can't change the price gap between warehouses and retail (or the debt backing these prices). The only solution is going to be BK and conversion into other forms of commercial property (largely warehouses but some offices/mixed-use). It will be other areas that thrive, not old areas being revived (look at what happened to inner cities when chain department stores took off and people moved to the suburbs...a lot of these places just died because the issue was structural).