Experts: Future of malls is food, services, AI

Imagine shopping in the future:

■ Stores are showrooms, and your purchases are delivered to your home.

■ Malls are places where you work out, eat, work and possibly even live.

■ An autonomous car takes you to and from other shopping centers, and parking lots are repurposed for a higher and better use.

■ Artificial intelligence makes it possible to order a piece of apparel without even trying it on or leaving the couch — but you still go out because you crave human interaction.

Such were the prospects offered recently by a panel of retail experts, gathered at a University of San Diego Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate forum that peered into the near-term future.

“Of all the (real estate) product types, retail is perhaps the most dynamic,” said panel moderator Brad Geier, co-managing partner at Merlone Geier Partners, a retail-focused real estate investment company.

“It’s particularly topical right now,” he added. “Everybody’s got some direct experience with it, everyone’s an expert and so that makes it much more interesting for a group like this.”

With the U.S. having seven times more square feet of retail than the next closest country, mall owners face the prospect of filling empty buildings after retailers downsize and embrace e-commerce, said Jim Young, CEO of the Realcomm tech conference planning group.

“You feel the old model is becoming obsolete,” he said.

Ryan Perry, general manager of San Diego shopping center Westfield UTC, used the facility’s near-complete $600 million expansion as an example of many changes retail centers will likely see in coming years.

Food and beverage will play a