Showerthought: I finally understood why the old Northgate Mall died after I saw a new one being built

I drove past the construction site for the new Riverwalk Plaza on the edge of town yesterday. They were pouring concrete for a huge parking lot, and it hit me. The old Northgate Mall, which I explored last year, died because it was built for a world that doesn't exist anymore. Northgate was from the 1970s, built right off a single highway exit with that classic inward-facing design. The new plaza is just a strip of big box stores with their own doors facing the road, no central hallway at all. It's not a 'mall' in the old sense. I realized the closure wasn't just about shops leaving. It was about the whole idea of a shared indoor public space becoming too expensive to run when people just want to drive up, grab one thing, and leave. Has anyone else had a moment where seeing a new development made an old dead mall's fate totally clear?

3 comments

3 Comments

ramirez.caleb29d ago

See the thing about Riverwalk is it's not really a new idea. That layout with stores facing the road and a big parking lot out front is just a modern version of a strip mall from the 1950s. So it's more like we're going back to an older model than inventing something new. Northgate died because it tried to be a destination with a food court and seating areas, but people stopped wanting to walk around inside for fun. The new places aren't trying to be destinations at all, they're just efficient boxes. And yeah, in 20 years those boxes could totally feel empty too if online shopping keeps taking over. The difference is nobody is trying to make them feel like a community space, so there's less to lose when they fail.

noah3262mo ago

Do you think the new places will feel dead in 20 years too, or is this just how we build stuff now?

kim.stella2mo ago

Maybe we're losing more than just a roof over the stores. Those old malls were the only walkable place in a lot of towns, a weird kind of public square for teenagers and seniors. The new model kills that third space completely, doesn't it?

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