Dead shopping malls are coming back. But not the way you’d expect. (This is about taxes).

See that empty shopping mall over there? The one that died during Covid 19? It has a huge footprint, but generates little to no tax revenue to fund the city. Not property taxes, not sales tax on purchases, not even income taxes for the state. It’s like a black hole. The NIMBY crowd wants to keep it empty. (see link below).

The nearest dead mall to me was reborn (around 2015?) as a “professional center”. Dentists, doctors, personal injury lawyers, real estate agents, kitchen remodeling showrooms. Plenty of parking. Public restrooms. A few spots reopened as sandwich shops for the customers and tenants. Win-win.

None of the malls near me have been reborn as affordable housing yet. That may require a much bigger investment for rehab. Radical partitioning. Ditching the building wide HVAC for individual air handlers for each unit. And a LOT of bathroom and kitchen creation. But it could work. Plenty of parking, and either the landlords or buyers will be paying property taxes again.

Now about your data center plan, Google Cloud. And your warehouse idea, Amazon. Not so fast . .

I get it. The opposition to repurposing malls is driven by headlines about soaring electric rates. And amazon warehouses create traffic, 24/7. But is the best idea just to leave those 5 acres of asphalt and graffiti festooned buildings vacant forever? Someone's fantasy is that it will all be bulldozed someday, and a scenic park with a tiny duck pond will magically appear? This will happen at the intersection of 2 major traffic arteries? What are you smoking?

Near my mother's home the preservationists wanted to protect the dystopian ruins of an 18th century paper factory. They said it was historic. Neighbors said it was an eyesore, and dangerous to the kids who climbed the fence to hang out there. Then someone found a dead body inside.

The paper plant was bulldozed. As a compromise the “historic” brick chimney, about 50 feet tall, was left standing. But the nobody had money to restore it. It collapsed one night, thankfully when nobody was standing beside it and gawking up in wonder like it was the leaning tower of Pisa.

Preventing a data center from using a vacant building will not prevent more data centers, or curb electrical demand. Data centers will simply be built on unincorporated county land. Some farmer will sell his cornfield in the blink of an eye. Same with Amazon warehouses. Warehouses will need serious road upgrades too, if you build one in the middle of nowhere.

MSN finds it “concerning” when vacant commercial buildings are brought back to life. This, in a nutshell, is why America is so screwed up. Cities will magically strike it rich without tax revenue and commerce?

I’m just sayin’ . . .


Dead shopping malls are coming back - and their new purpose is even more concerning