America loves to shop, but while true, America certainly doesn't lack for shopping options, which, of course, includes shopping from home that is, via the internet, combined with the fact that Americans are extremely mobile with their cars meaning that Americans aren't stuck having to shop at their local mega mall, as they have a multitude of choices available to them. While the right shopping mall in the right place is still doing quite well, as reported by the nytimes.com, though: "About 80 percent of the country’s 1,200 malls are considered healthy, reporting vacancy rates of 10 percent or less. But that compares with 94 percent in 2006…" which signifies that a considerable amount of malls are not on the path of doing well, and probably won't recover to doing well anytime soon. This then, poses the problem as to what to do with failing shopping malls, or malls that are clearly on the path of failure, to which these malls already have the infrastructure built up and working but find their property being underutilized.
There are a lot of options when it comes to the conversion or re-making of malls, such as combining more entertainment options with malls, such as bowling alleys, movie theatres, play or musical theatres, fitness centers, good quality restaurants, small theme parks, traveling road shows, and other venues that appeal to people in general. So too, there is a lot to be said for restructuring shopping malls in a manner in which part of the mall will be devoted to business offices, condos, hotels, or apartment complexes, which will then serve the dual purpose of having a captive audience that readily appreciates all the advantages of a given shopping mall's conveniences. As for malls, which are beyond redemption, in disrepair, or on the wrong area or wrong side of time, the sheer size of these malls and the availably of infrastructure and parking at these malls, makes the conversion into a community college or a hospital a reasonable fit and function for what once was a mall.
In any event, the days of a shopping mall with anchor stores being built just anywhere and the feeling that they will surely come have effectively ended, as the overall playing field is far more complex, nuanced, and dynamic in today's marketplace. This means that shopping malls must change with the times, and therefore rely far less upon having store after store after store, and rely far more on providing the appropriate bells and whistles that will drive in customers more often for the new mall experience that will encompass more activities and viable options for the buying public.
The bottom line is that people vote with their dollars, and when a shopping mall begins its decline, it is of paramount importance for the shopping mall management to actively pursue all possible means to right the ship, as once a shopping mall is painted with the broad brush of, "nobody goes there anymore", things can get appreciably worse in a very short period of time. This means that the community at large, must band together, because monies not spent in their tax district, but spent outside of it, are tax dollars effectively lost, with no corresponding gain, along too with the corresponding employment losses from lost jobs.
America is a dynamic and competitive marketplace, and failing shopping malls, must find a way to re-construct themselves in order to stop the terrible effects and aftermath of a terminal downward spiral.