The Mall Lives—But Not for All

Once upon a mall...

Much has been written about the demise of that beloved marketplace, the shopping mall. Once the Way of the Future and then Where Everyone Shopped, malls have been a long time a-dying. Some turned into mixed-use spaces with various degrees of success. Many others were left to deteriorate as mementos of another time, Stranger Things indeed. 

Recent reporting suggests that malls are not dying but morphing into retail spaces for luxury shopping, leaving the majority of customers out of the picture. I can only report with any accuracy what I see from my perch here in Houston, Texas. 

Malls are changing. "Mixed use" never really caught on here, but some malls did sit empty or nearly so for a very long time. They may have been held up by their anchor stores—a Sears or JC Penney—but those behemoths are now gone. 

Some malls changed tenants to reflect changes in the surrounding neighborhoods. "Better retail" in Houston's Memorial City Mall moved out as the population did, replaced by smaller brands and mom-and-pops that catered to the new, less affluent shopper.

The Galleria Mall, long known as Houston's premier shopping center, has seen changes as the numbers of luxury clients left, turning those spaces into one-offs catering to the younger and less affluent. Mid-price stalwarts like Ann Taylor and The Gap remain. 

Houston's Galleria, complete with ice rink

In a phenomenon possible in a place like Texas, with lots of urban sprawl, along has come a resurgence of the "strip mall" or outdoor marketplace. Baybrook, a traditional mall outside Houston proper, is now surrounded by acres and acres of them, from the "big box" to the conventional storefront. Texans are surgically attached to their cars, so driving from place to place is no big deal. What they don't like, however, is the new policy of charging for parking. 

Much to my surprise those affluent shoppers who left The Galleria found a new home in a luxe outdoor mall, River Oaks District. Barely into tony River Oaks itself, this is a hybrid of retail and residential, laid out to resemble a village of luxury shopping and dining. One parks (or valets) in a garage and wanders about. The place always looked pretty deserted when I've visited, but it's deemed a success, with new luxury clients moving in (replacing those who didn't catch on).

River Oaks District, Houston

What about the traditional strip center on the boundary of a neighborhood that once provided needed services—a dry cleaner, drug store, movie theater, coffee shop or moderate priced restaurant—along with selected retail (a smaller Gap or AnnTaylor than the one in the mall)?

I work in one of those centers and have seen it turn into a place of non-essential services (various forms of body and facial torture and enhancements) and high-end restaurants (sprawling onto the sidewalk in a vain attempt to emulate "cooler" cities) and extremely select retail (a Steinway Piano Gallery?).

How long can the Lovely Boutique where I work hang on? The death knell may be that now, yes, customers have to pay for parking.