{"id":1619,"date":"2014-03-11T15:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T03:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=1619"},"modified":"2014-03-11T20:03:34","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T02:03:34","slug":"frankston_on_th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=1619","title":{"rendered":"Are Malls Over?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A href=\"http:\/\/m.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/currency\/2014\/03\/are-malls-over.html\">Amy Merrick<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When the Woodville Mall opened, in 1969, in Northwood, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, its developers bragged about the mall\u2019s million square feet of enclosed space; its anchor tenants, which included Sears and J. C. Penney; and its air-conditioning\u2014seventy-two degrees, year-round! Two years later, the Toledo Blade published a front-page article about the photo-takers and people-watchers who gathered around the mall\u2019s marble fountain, \u201cthat gushing monument to big spending and the shopping spree.\u201d The story quoted an anonymous businessman: \u201cThe water has a great calming effect on a person, especially when you\u2019ve been badgered all morning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This week, Woodville is being torn down. So are countless other malls across the U.S.\u2014so many that there\u2019s a Web site devoted to \u201cdead malls\u201d that are out of commission. In some cases, the buildings have been converted into community colleges, corporate headquarters, or churches. Others, like the Woodville Mall, have become so damaged by water, mold, and asbestos that city officials are glad to demolish them. In January, Rick Caruso, the C.E.O. of Caruso Affiliated, one of the largest privately held American real-estate companies, stood on a stage at the Javits Center, in New York, and forecast the demise of the traditional mall. \u201cWithin ten to fifteen years, the typical U.S. mall, unless it is completely reinvented, will be a historical anachronism\u2014a sixty-year aberration that no longer meets the public\u2019s needs, the retailers\u2019 needs, or the community\u2019s needs,\u201d he told his audience, which had gathered for the National Retail Federation\u2019s annual convention.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amy Merrick: When the Woodville Mall opened, in 1969, in Northwood, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, its developers bragged about the mall\u2019s million square feet of enclosed space; its anchor tenants, which included Sears and J. C. Penney; and its air-conditioning\u2014seventy-two degrees, year-round! Two years later, the Toledo Blade published a front-page article about the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1619"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5774,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1619\/revisions\/5774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}