Dead Mall As Urban Hotel

The suburbs needs strong and dynamic places to face-to-face gathering. Revitalization of dead malls can play this role -- but only if the re-do is done intentionally and not just as hole-plugging.

Eighty years after Victor Gruen invented the regional shopping mall – weirdly, as his attempt to bring Viennese urbanity to suburban America – we are in the middle of the Great Mall Dismantling. Real estate experts say we are in the midst of shrinking from 3,000 regional malls in the country – essentially, at least one in every community of any size – d…