Vacant buildings? Try housing, culture
The world of retail shopping is changing — even in little Santa Fe, we see empty buildings, abandoned spots in malls and other evidence that people are shopping elsewhere than in physical stores close to where they live.
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that in 2017, Credit Suisse has tracked some 8,600 stores believed to be shutting their doors. That is more than the number of stores that closed during the 2008 recession. What’s more, a quarter of all shopping malls are expected to go dark over the next five years, according to the same analysis by Credit Suisse.
The news is not all bad, the newspaper reports, since automation and e-commerce jobs could pay more than the jobs they replace. However, there’s still the question of what to do with the empty buildings, many of them built for now-struggling national chains.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States has more than six times the retail square feet per capita than Europe or Japan. There’s the potential for more than 1 billion square feet of commercial real estate space to be out of commission by 2022. What potential for blight ahead. In-store shopping for mass-market goods is not coming back. Younger shoppers want experiences and spend their weekends outdoors or at entertainment venues. They can grab what they need, quickly, online. As preferences change, uses for the buildings will change. In West Palm Beach, Fla., an abandoned 110,000-square-foot former Macy’s is being turned in to an immersive art experience (shades of Meow Wolf ). The shopping center, says the newspaper, will put “culture front and center — and relegating retail to a supporting act.”
Since Santa Fe already has its immersive art experience (in an abandoned bowling alley) we’re not sure that particular model will work here, although the new-style retail offerings that make shopping an experience, complete with wine bars or jazz musicians, do sound tempting. That may be too bigcity for Santa Fe, but, hey, we can hope.
Other ideas might work in Santa Fe, though. Around the country, malls and retail spaces are being repurposed — whether for fitness centers, churches, office buildings, public libraries and medical clinics, according to a December article in Business Insider. Those are certainly an improvement over empty buildings and boarded-up storefronts. These vacant buildings sit along Santa Fe’s commercial corridors, but empty shops downtown are unattractive and hardly a draw for either tourists or locals.
At the Providence Arcade Mall in Rhode Island, there is one concept we particularly like — micro-apartments. Most of the shops in the mall became 48 apartments, with cafés and hair salons still in the building. In New York, there’s talk of the White Plains Mall being torn down completely and turned into a 20-story residential building. These are developers who see the changing climate and are seizing opportunity. The mostly empty back parking lot at the Santa Fe Place mall might be a great place for studio apartments.
Smart planners need to start anticipating, rather than reacting. Abandoned storefronts or malls are ways to provide livework spaces that could face less opposition; they are not infill, they are repurposing structures already in place. As Santa Fe considers how to add to its stock of housing, inventorying plots of land and potential sites, don’t forget vacant commercial buildings. They shouldn’t be left to sit, empty, when so many people need places to live.