Nieman Marcus, Macy's, and Major League Soccer

What is a city to do with a mall that has essentially turned into a miniature ghost town? The most sensible solution is to turn it into a soccer stadium…

The Riverfront Times reports that the new owners of fledgling Union Station Mall, Lodging Hospitality Management, are considering turning the sparsely populated retail space into a stadium for a Major League Soccer franchise. The once modern hub for the railroad industry, was converted into a retail space in the 1970's when planes and automobiles proved to be more convenient. While it is unknown if this proposed conversion would lead St. Louis residents to MLS games, the chances are a lot better than suburbanites venturing to Union Station for a unique shopping experience.

For years the mall has been relegated to kitschy tourist shops and a couple of chain restaurants designed to entice out-of-town dollars. Locals have very little incentive to go unless they work at a building next door and want to eat lunch at the Hard Rock Café or Landry’s Seafood.

The lack of businesses occupying the Union Station Mall is not a problem facing St. Louis alone. Many once prominent shopping centers in major U.S. cities are losing retailers who once based their sales strategies on consumers visiting the mall not just for shopping, but also entertainment.

One of Oculus’ Market Leaders recently attended the ICSC 2012 Chicago Deal Making Conference where directors of real estate from some of the largest retail companies in the country met with municipality leaders, building owners, and vendors to network in an open-air free-for-all in order to get projects off the ground. While discussing the latest real estate trends with industry experts, the consensus was that more money was going into making higher-end retail locations better while focusing fewer resources on expansion into markets without as much opportunity for profit.

Nothing like a an deal making conference in Olde Tyme Chicago!

This trend is not just common in St. Louis, where suburban sprawl has taken money out of the city and into the suburbs, it is happening to malls throughout the country. Instead of shopping at large retail anchors like Sears and Macy’s, big box stores like Target and Wal-Mart offer better variety at lower prices. Malls have lost a lot of their luster as variety shops because the Internet makes it possible to purchase virtually anything.

Instead of investing in traditional mall locations, most real estate directors opt to develop in higher end malls because of the high income bracket population surrounding the area. The construction of new mall buildings is also becoming a relic of the past because of the growth of lifestyle centers in upper-end locations which provide drastically better dining and entertainment services compared to large malls.

Right now it might sound far-fetched to turn malls across America into soccer stadiums, but in the coming years when people start purchasing more goods online they will want to have a “shopping experience” when they actually do visit retail centers. Unless consumers are willing to travel to the "ritzy" part of town and want to put down primo dollar on high-end fashion brands, the retail trend may continue to go towards Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon for middle-class Americans. The real question that should be occupying the minds of developers is if America can actually get into soccer?