Rethinking our vacant spaces
Commentary about design and architecture usually centers on new construction in a real estate boom. But in the next generation, America (and Connecticut) will experience more reuse of abandoned buildings than any time since World War II.
There are millions upon millions of square feet of built space that is either unusable or will be soon. Part of this imperative is that our culture has determined that existing buildings are a moral asset as well as an economic value. Sustainability is becoming a core design criterion — where the energy embodied in every building, the energy needed to remove a building, the energy required to build a new one and the toxins imposed on our environment in their construction or demolition, are becoming morally unacceptable and economically punitive, given the regulations and costs imposed.
Some of these changes are not new. We have all seen churches that have been converted to become apartments. All through New Haven and Fairfield counties these structures are often in prime locations and are exquisitely built. But a generation of declining attendance has closed many places of worship — this is nothing new to their neighbors, or the church hierarchy.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Catholic Pontifical Council for Culture, said in 2010 that “many churches, which until a few years ago were necessary, are now no longer thus, due to a lack of faithful and clergy.” Now that the pandemic has offered virtual services where no one has to be in a place of worship to be with God, the need for buildings in religious use has been further reduced. The state’s historic preservation group, Preservation Connecticut, recently lauded architect and furnituremaker Andrew Peklo III who recently completed the adaptive reuse of the former Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Conn.
It is beyond obvious to say that the advent of the internet has radically changed everything. But nothing has been more affected by this massive overhaul of our lives than the way we buy and sell things: retail. This long term change has been ratcheted up by the COVID pull back from on-site shopping rendering millions upon millions of stores unusable, while the space needed for retail distribution is exploding.
The Westfield Trumbull Mall has had 260 apartments built on its site. The Meriden Mall is converting some of its space to medical use. Since 2016, Amazon has converted 25 mall spaces into distribution centers, according to Coresight Research. Eight million square feet of big-box stores are being turned into distribution centers according to Matthew Rothstein of Bisnow Philadelphia. According to a report from CBRE (Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis), nearly 14 million square feet of big-box retail space in the US has been converted to industrial space.
But the pandemic and the internet have not only affected retail and worship, the way we entertain ourselves may be needing fewer structures as well. Many Multiplex Movie Theaters are empty. Before COVID, Netflix, Disney and streaming made the cost and hassle of going to a movie theater less enjoyable for more and more consumers. Regal Cinemas alone closed 7,000 screens in Washington, D.C., and also its complex in
Branford. The AMC Classic Bloomfield 8 closed this spring. John Fithian, head of the National Association of Theatre Owners said “probably around 70% of our mid and small-sized members will either confront bankruptcy reorganization or the likelihood of going out business entirely.”
This is not just a question of functional fit. Europe has long had a tradition of retrofitting history found in old buildings with complementary re-thinking. Putting new wine in old vessels is a fundamentally different design challenge than the American history of clear-cutting our built landscape to build new, as when Urban Renewal tried to reinvent changing cities.
Architects are at the edge of new technologies, both in the design and building of our buildings, but America is awash in a sea of existing structures, with a new value in a world that is being undone by excess carbon to the point that anything we restore is less dangerous to our future than anything we build new. Our churches, shopping malls, movie multiplexes, and commercial spaces are becoming ominously silent all around us. Are architects able to step up to see the possibilities in so many dead and banal structures?
Architecture never leads us, but our designs catalyze the time, the resources and the perspectives that create opportunity in all cultures. It is time to think creatively about the buildings we have and do not use anymore.