shopping mall rehab

Growing up in a small town on the East Coast, the mall was the groovin' joint, the centralized hub of Friday night activity, the hangout joint. Sure, these were the nostalgic days before Walmart dominated the small towns with big box culture, but hey, you had variety of things to do and goings on.

Now, after living in Columbus and personally seeing the death of an urban center after the downtown mall's demise, I wonder what can be done to reactivate these centers without massive reconstruction? The suburban mall, with its sea of parking, seems to offer hope after seeing the success of such shopping centers as Santana Row, the Groves, or even Easton, where a combination of indoor shopping is joined with street front, 1-2 story retail streets nestled with residentaial apartments, condos, offices, and hotels. This would require a shift in thinking, however, to move away from spattering big box stores on the periphery of the parking lots, dismissing any potential of pedestrian connectivity, and providing strategically placed parking garages to replace the surface parking(goodbye heat islands, hello additional retail leasing sf!). But, the potential is there, we just need to hope that some day mall developers develop some civic-focusded morals ;)