The following excerpt is from an article by Tory Parrish that was published in the Sunday, October 31st, 2021 edition of Newsday on page A29. You can read the entire piece here.
Based on the 21st century consumer trend of shoppers shifting more of their spending from brick-and-mortar stores to online, Long Island — and the U.S. overall — has too many malls, said Richard Murdocco, an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University focused on urban planning and land use.
That has led planners and developers to propose new uses for malls in decline. Mall redevelopments across the country have taken the form of new open-air retail centers, apartments or offices, or a combination of all three.
Examples include The Arcade Providence in Rhode Island, where a redevelopment added 48 micro-loft apartments on the upper two floors, while the first floor has small-business retail.
In Dallas, a developer is transforming the struggling Red Bird Mall into a $200 million mixed-use project with apartments, hotels, offices and retail.
Suffolk County doesn’t have the wastewater infrastructure to support some of those proposals, such as high-density apartments, Murdocco said.
The majority of Nassau County has sewers, so redevelopment of larger retail sites could be supported from a wastewater perspective, he said. “The issue in Nassau is antiquated roadways that have trouble sustaining current traffic demands, let alone those brought about by more intense growth.”
On the policy side, local government has to work with mall owners to figure out ways to move forward in both economically and environmentally sustainable ways, Murdocco said.
You can read the rest of the piece from Parrish here.
