Malls on our Minds
Although the malls built in the 1970s are no longer thriving, they still have locations that can be reformed for commercial use. According to a Wall Street Journal video on May 6, 2019, Amazon is buying up malls because they are located in good commercial locations with access to massive spaces for building and parking, population centers for labor, and highways for shipping. In addition, the infrastructure is already in place. Amazon has bought Randall Park Mall in Cleveland, OH and Euclid Mall in Euclid, OH for fulfillment centers.
Although online purchasing is taking a toll on brick and mortar establishments and causing mall closures, many creative uses for the buildings and parking have been devised: data centers, microlofts (in providence Rhode Island), office space, film studios, charter schools, resorts, medical centers, and self-storage units.
With online purchasing comes the need for warehouses. Take a lesson from Amazon and when you are looking at commercial real estate to purchase, fix and flip or fix and rent, look for these 4 features of the location:
- Big space, massive space
- Residential areas nearby for the people who will work in the building
- Nearby highways with good access on and off
- Infrastructure already in place.
Let me know if you have found any deals this month that you know you can turn around and resell with enthusiasm. I hope that I can be of help to you this month.
I can be reached at
Patrick@REICapital.cash
512-213-2271
Austin, Texas
References
WSJ.com, commercial real estate, video.
Mall image: Alina Zienowicz Ala z [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)%5D
