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A while back ago, there was an abandoned mall, a company bought it and allowed anybody to rent a small space in the open mall as a small business shop. People would put up curtains as walls and rent was very cheap.
The place was full of small vendors, more classy than a flea market, especially with the AC, but many artists selling all forms, and many odd widgets being sold. There was even a place that did custom glass blowing, etc etc. it was a real pleasure to be in and a community thrived there.
Importantly it was open consistently each day, so you could just randomly pop in and see what's up.
From what I understand, the place was even making a profit, but apparently not enough. It was eventually sold and now it warehouses antique cars.
I think all those artists and small vendors vanished or moved online.
I miss it.
It was good.
I'd like more of those back, and to experience what community could develop from that.
So they could essentially make the mall business model work by not charging ridiculous rents? Maybe it's just greed that killed malls to begin with.
Haha, that's kinda what I was thinking, they turned the mall into a.. Mall
I mean, greed is what is killing our society.
But specifically about malls; I was a manager at a big department store inside a mall for a couples years. The year before COVID, the mall switched to a new renting model that was ridiculous. I can’t remember the exact details, but the price per square foot went up substantially for smaller stores. Later that year I remember having to do rounds of the mall to report to corporate how many stores were closing.
Probably got bought by a private equity firm trying to squeeze the last bits of profit out of it before offloading it to some sucker. I'm sure that one year they jacked up rent looked really good on paper until those shops had taken the time to figure out their next move.