Calling the eventual closure of the nation’s malls “inevitable,” the Federation of Upstate Commercial Kingpins Enabling Development decided at its annual meeting last week to take pre-emptive action and close all malls in the state of New York north of Westchester County.
“Every winter, we hear of more iconic stores closing, hollowing out our once-great capitalist cathedrals into mere husks, dying a slow, depressing death for all to see,” said Victor Aurora, owner and CEO of the Aurora Property Group, which operates 26 malls in the Northeast and Midwest, including six in Upstate New York. “We all know where this is going. Let’s end the Chinese water torture already.”
Rather than persist in the Sisyphean task of trying to make malls profitable, which is obviously doomed to fail, the owners have decided to clear out all remaining stores and demolish the structures as soon as possible.
“We’ve tried getting other tenants,” said Aurora. “Hospital outpatient services, senior living, community college annexes. But the malls were built way beyond the scale of what those uses require. Maybe we could limp along with that for a while longer. But it’s better to just rip off the band aid.”
In a vision document released by the organization, they suggest the simultaneous demolition of Upstate New York’s derelict and empty malls could serve as a “big bang” that would launch a new era for the economy.
“Instead of trying to do something else with aging, windowless monuments to late-20th century suburban consumerism, we believe it’s best for Upstate communities to put what is often excellent real estate to an entirely new use,” states the document.
Mall owners are partnering with the New York State Department of Labor and the state’s community colleges to retrain the workforce in a career with a future.
“Retail workers need to stop sitting around waiting for the hammer to fall,” said Labor Commissioner Geneva Rome. “Do you really want to be trying to learn to code when you’re 50?”
“Bezos, you magnificent bastard, you did it,” she added.
