New uses for struggling malls

Speaking of Westdale Mall, The Wall Street Journal has a piece today on the trend toward non-traditional, non-retail uses for sprawling, largely empty, shopping malls.

A sampling:

Mall giant Simon Property Group Inc. opened an aquarium in July at its Grapevine Mills mall near Dallas. Real-estate brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. put a fencing academy in a former Old Navy store in Florida's Tallahassee Mall, and a community theater on the lower level of a former Boscov's store in Harrisburg, Pa.

Aqua Tots Holdings LLC, a business that teaches youngsters to swim, has expanded to 14 locations in Arizona, Texas and Georgia and has 10 more on the way, nearly all in former retail shops. Jumpstreet, an indoor trampoline facility, is buying or leasing former grocery stores, filling them wall-to-wall with trampolines and charging patrons for hourly access.

Perhaps the most unusual use of a former big-box store is William James's Arms Room gun shop and shooting range, which opened last year in a former Circuit City store south of Houston. Mr. James spent nearly $5 million to buy the 20,000-square-foot space and convert it into a shooting range...

The persistent buzz around CR is a buyer and redevelopment plan for Westdale will emerge any minute now. Of course, that's been the buzz, and the hope, since I got here in October 2007.  Cautious skepticism. But whatever happens whenever, new, non-retail uses are likely - residential, services, shooting, fencing, swimming who knows? I hope the buzz is accurate this time.