Would be even better if instead of 2000 apartments, it was something like 1100 condos, then the rest split between offices, shops (including groceries), parks, and some sort of community recreation center. Do the same with the surrounding area, changing up the specialties of the locations a bit so that it’s worth it to leave your mall-sized area and visit others.
Then set up a mass transit system that goes between them, including consideration for people wanting to move large purchases like furniture and appliances, like one of the cars on the train has large doors, collapsible seats, and hardware for securing things too big for one person to safely hold. Or set up a parallel delivery system for things while the people ride the delivery system for people.
Then you don’t need the underground to go to parking and can increase the density of the area or put more space towards parks and recreation.
psmgx@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yeah the malls themselves are hard to convert. Ditto for those unused office buildings downtown. Takes a lot of work to change commercial space into residential.
Easier to start from scratch, honestly. Those empty parking lots make it simple to put up medium density housing, and then put commercial spaces back into the mall. Aka the Reston Town Center model.