2025 SPE Annual Conference: Adaptations
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print this pageThe American Mall
Stephen Crompton
Saturday, September 26 - 9:00AM to 9:50AM
University of Oklahoma - FJC 203
In the 1950’s, with suburban flight on the rise, the shopping mall was created as a new and improved, climate controlled, town center. As indoor private properties, developers attempted to engineer an environment that could instill a sense of euphoria in shoppers, and fuel the need to spend in order to heighten the satisfaction. But ultimately, when tax incentives run dry, when newer retail spaces are constructed, and when Internet shopping becomes the standard, the malls struggle to survive. With ever-increasing vacancies, the decline of the shopping mall as retail properties has prompted repurposing. Throughout the nation malls are finding new occupants in unconventional, often local, independent retail and non-retail tenants in an attempt to prolong the life of the mall. Occupants such as karate schools, dance studios, artist studios and even churches, combined with the ever-present cult of the so-called “mallwalker”, show a movement of the shopping mall away from retail mecca and towards community center. As the mall was originally conceived with the intention of tackling the isolation of suburban sprawl by bringing the people together in a communal space, are these places now a vision restored?
speaker
Stephen Crompton
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