A dead mall or greyfield is a shopping mall with a high vacancy rate or a low consumer traffic level, or that is dated or deteriorating in some manner. Many malls in the United States are considered "dead", having no surviving anchor store (often a large department store) or successor that could serve as an entry into, or attraction to, the mall. Without the access, the small stores inside are difficult to reach; without the pedestrian traffic in...
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A dead mall or greyfield is a shopping mall with a high vacancy rate or a low consumer traffic level, or that is dated or deteriorating in some manner. Many malls in the United States are considered "dead", having no surviving anchor store (often a large department store) or successor that could serve as an entry into, or attraction to, the mall. Without the access, the small stores inside are difficult to reach; without the pedestrian traffic inside that a department store generates, sales volumes plummet for the stores, and rental revenues from those stores can no longer sustain the costly maintenance of the malls.
In many instances, a mall begins dying when the mall's surrounding neighborhood undergoes a socio-economic decline, or a newer, larger mall opens nearby. Structural changes in the department store industry have also made survival of these malls difficult: a few large national chains have replaced dozens of small local and regional chains, and some national chains ...
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