Heading Back To The American Mall

1A

NPR

News

4.3 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2023

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Retail experts have long said that U.S. malls are dying out. But a recent market analysis paints a different picture.

According to a report from Coresight Research published in June, foot-traffic in top-tier malls was up 12 percent in 2022 compared to before the pandemic. Last year, these same malls had more than 95 percent occupancy rates.

Younger shoppers are in part driving this resurgence. Approximately 73 percent of Gen-Z shoppers said they visited a mall in the past month.

We discuss why malls are making a comeback and how they're keeping up with online shopping.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this podcast and the following message come from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation,
0:05.8	where young scientists pursue bold ideas.
0:08.7	100% of your donation funds groundbreaking research. Donate
0:12.9	donate today at Damon Runyon.org slash donate. Let's take a trip to a place you've probably been before. It's somewhere you can spend the entire day and a lot of money.
0:32.0	There are department stores, restaurants, a food court, maybe even a movie theater. Have you
0:36.6	guess where we're headed yet?
0:38.1	I think my favorite mall memory was when I was a child and going to the local malls and seeing all of the crazy
0:45.9	fountains and waterfalls. I don't know if that's what has not created my love of
0:51.8	the outdoors and of natural waterfalls, but I just remember staring at the waterfalls at the Hickory Hollow Mall, what seemed like forever when I was a kid.
1:02.0	I used to go to the mall as a middle schooler and a high schooler in the 90s to go to movies and eat in the
1:09.0	food court and buy new clothing with my babysitting money and what is about to bring me back to the
1:17.2	mall is our Finger Lakes toy library where you can borrow toys and what's kept me
1:22.4	from the mall is the strong fragrances, but I'm going to
1:26.1	brave it anyway while my daughter is in the age range.
1:29.7	One of my favorite memories of going to the mall was in sixth grade when my grandmother
1:34.8	taught us how to budget by taking us to the mall. Now that I am an educator, I'm
1:41.4	taking my Gen Z and younger teens to the mall to learn how to budget and that's
1:48.3	per their request so the mall is alive and thriving. That's right, we're going to the mall. Retail experts have long
1:55.2	said that U.S malls are dying, but a recent market analysis paints a different picture.
1:59.8	Foot traffic and top-tier malls was up 12% in 2022 compared to before the pandemic.
2:06.5	Last year the same malls had more than 95% occupancy rate.
2:11.2	That's according to a report from Corsite research published in June.
	...

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