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The Great Mall Shakeup: Enclosed Shopping Malls Supply Fertile Ground for Infill and Redevelopment

July 14, 2025 10 Minute Read

Development plans are in the works at over one dozen of New York Tri-State’s enclosed shopping malls, bringing a mix of uses to sites that, historically, offered only retail.
Accounting for recently completed, underway and planned projects, Tri-State’s inventory of enclosed retail and adjacent pad sites is set to shrink by 4.3 million sq. ft. while new development will densify these properties with a net gain of 1.3 million sq. ft.
The great mall shakeup unfolding across the region offers suburban communities an opportunity to reimagine or enhance their retail landscape, either by building town centers and vibrant, outdoor public gathering places, reorienting their obsolete enclosed shopping malls into lifestyle centers.
For retailers, these redevelopments create fashionable and vibrant centers where shoppers want to linger and enjoy a variety of experiences, opening the door for a diverse roster of potential tenants.
For developers, the combination of large and graded plots of land, a strong political will to maintain the relevance of centers of employment and tax revenue, and a trend toward mixed-use lifestyles offer a rare opportunity to create dense developments in some of the most desirable and regulatorily restrictive communities in the region.