I've been watching a lot of videos on YouTube lately about shopping malls and once great retailers (K-Mart, SEARS, et al.) all shutting down or dying on the vine. There's no way to save them all. Most of them screwed themselves out of business one way or another and if they didn't, Amazon sure did. So, I got to thinking about what could be done with that kind of real-estate. For the purposes of this idea, I used a local mall in my hometown that has been slowly dying for years: The Esplanade in Kenner, LA. Here's what I would do in 12 easy steps...
1.) Win Mega Millions OR Powerball Lottery & buy mall from current owners.
2.) Tell most of the current tenants that their leases will not be renewed and hire an architect/contractor to begin the planned remodel/redesign.
3.) Close the place down, except for the Target location there. You'll see why in #6.
4.) Turn stores on the 2nd floor into condos, except for the one-time GameStop location turned overpriced retro game store called Just4Play (assuming it still exists), the Arcade and food court.
5.) Turn stores on 1st floor into office space, preferably for businesses that the condo owners will use. (Barbershops, Dollar Tree, pharmacy, Insurance Agents, et al.)
6.) Use the Target being right next door as a selling point for the condominiums.
7.) The old Gamestop location on the 2nd floor near the food court & Arcade becomes the office for mall security. The Arcade remains an Arcade, but is reserved for residents of the condominiums. Condo residents will all be given a special key to access the Arcade. We may also set some (or all) of the games to free play. Food court is open to both residents and businesses on 1st floor. The movie theater behind the mall will remain open to the public and unaffected by changes at the mall.
8.) Fence off all of the parking lots, except the one by the anchor store that was once Macy's. That one will be used by the businesses on the 1st floor and their customers. The others will be reserved for residents and employees of the property management company. Each spot will be numbered and assigned to condo residents. They will be able to pay a small fee to get a closer spot to the main building. We will also probably have to build a parking garage.
9.) Turn one of the now closed anchor stores (preferably the old Dillard's location) into my Secret Hideout/Mad Scientist Laboratory/Super-villain lair... (Y'all had to know this was going to happen.)
10.) Turn the other anchor stores into more office space and/or long-term storage facilities that are open to the businesses and condo residents that have rented/leased/bought into the property.
11.) Zombie-proof the place, just in case the Zombie Apocalypse isn't complete non-sense...
12.) HOPEFULLY turn a profit.
And that's my idea. It probably wouldn't work but, it sure would be hilarious to see actually happen.
- Lord Publius
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