Coffee Talk VI: The Undiscovered Country

[Comeds]

A proposal closer to me that I kind of see both sides of is for part of a once thriving local mall to be converted into apartments. The plans look like its mainly some of the original anchor store buildings to be converted to apartments. And some of those buildings, semi-attached to mall are huge. And tall. Parts of the mall as I understand it, would remain retail.

I have doubts about the viability of the plan. I have no idea how it will work or look but the area around the mall is still thriving and they are still putting up new expensive house and apartments directly across the street - so is having a ghost town mall stay right in the middle of the area a better idea?

 

[forty_three]

Not that I'm rushing to defend Trump, the guy is a massive fraudster, but these financial institutions essentially taking him at his word when it comes to financial evaluations are somewhat complicit in my opinion. The bottom line is that Trump did way overvalue his properties to get these loans and then really undervalues them for tax purposes, he knew what he was doing.

Spent 12 years investigating stuff like this at a bank and one thing always rang true. Bankers will sell their own mothers for 50 cents. You incentivize individuals to make money for themselves they will cut every corner and walk away laughing because the company assumes all the risk. And faces the consequences. The bigger the bank, the harder it is to know who to trust in your ranks.

And if you're big enough, the government will just bail your poor decisions out anyway. That man made a shit ton of money for bankers with the PPP loan scam.

 

[jstewismybastardson]

I have seen students as young as 8 years old come over for this program as well. blows my mind that parents send the kids that young away from home to a strangers home in another country

"We had friends"* that lived in South Delta that provided home stay for 3 Brazilian high school students in early 2010's. I always remember that chump saying all he did for them was buy them a vat of Costco sized peanut butter and brought it down to the basement where they stayed.


/ * the amount of couples that my wife has tried to befriend and bring into our lives that I judged as trash within the first couple of hours of meeting them ... and I end up being proven right ... is staggering lol

 

[forty_three]

Baltimore too. First floor retail/office space - above floor apartments is a trend being used more and more here.

This is happening here too, and it is awful.

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

A proposal closer to me that I kind of see both sides of is for part of a once thriving local mall to be converted into apartments. The plans look like its mainly some of the original anchor store buildings to be converted to apartments. And some of those buildings, semi-attached to mall are huge. And tall. Parts of the mall as I understand it, would remain retail.

I have doubts about the viability of the plan. I have no idea how it will work or look but the area around the mall is still thriving and they are still putting up new expensive house and apartments directly across the street - so is having a ghost town mall stay right in the middle of the area a better idea?

Pretty much every mall in Toronto and Vancouver at this point are currently or have plans to fill in their parking lots with condos. Even some older ones where it’s like “why not just demo the mall completely and make this more neighborhood-ish?”.

Most of the malls here are owned by pension plans and so will the property managers for these buildings so I guess it’s a good thing overall.

 

[jstewismybastardson]

A proposal closer to me that I kind of see both sides of is for part of a once thriving local mall to be converted into apartments. The plans look like its mainly some of the original anchor store buildings to be converted to apartments. And some of those buildings, semi-attached to mall are huge. And tall. Parts of the mall as I understand it, would remain retail.

I have doubts about the viability of the plan. I have no idea how it will work or look but the area around the mall is still thriving and they are still putting up new expensive house and apartments directly across the street - so is having a ghost town mall stay right in the middle of the area a better idea?

every mall in Burnaby where I live has undergone a transformation. The malls have shrunk as large anchor retailer have disappeared and have been replaced by huge towers. Some former mall properties having as many as 11 high density resi towers. And finally, something I have been saying should happen for years is finally being planned for. Schools in these towers on the bottom floors

 

[dash]

See ya, Kev.

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

First of all, I probably agree with you - at least for a few generations.
However climate change does not just affect humans. A few degrees of change, changing weather patterns, and changes in sea level could wreck havoc on some animal species. And that could affect us in ways we do not even realize yet. So could population consolidation.

And while its 100% evident that doomsdayism does not work or get much done, I am not sure a more balanced calm effort would do any better.

I think there’s a line we need to draw where we aren’t making young people think there’s no tomorrow so don’t even try. Young people are apathetic as hell to begin with, tell them that they have no future, everything will be unaffordable and also the world will overheat and melt you and, I dunno, would you really strive to make anything of yourself in that scenario?

 

[mattola]

"We had friends"* that lived in South Delta that provided home stay for 3 Brazilian high school students in early 2010's. I always remember that chump saying all he did for them was buy them a vat of Costco sized peanut butter and brought it down to the basement where they stayed.


/ * the amount of couples that my wife has tried to befriend and bring into our lives that I judged as trash within the first couple of hours of meeting them ... and I end up being proven right ... is staggering lol

I was part of a similar program back in the 80s but I went to South Indian Lake in Northern Manitoba for 2 months. We participate in this program and only do it to share in our city, culture and life. It actually is alot of fun when you get good kids lol

we dont skimp on food or entertainment ,I knew a guy that only fed instant noodles. clown

 

[jstewismybastardson]

@forty_three would like what they have done with this mall in North Vancouver lol

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/indoor-bike-park-open-capilano-mall-vancouver-1.6898088

 

[forty_three]

@forty_three would like what they have done with this mall in North Vancouver lol

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/indoor-bike-park-open-capilano-mall-vancouver-1.6898088

There was one for a while in an old Circuit city here before liability issues closed it. Every time I go into a dead mall, my mind imagines something like this going in there.

Here's a place where it works:

Ray's Indoor Bike Park | Cleveland, OH

www.raysmtb.com

 

[buffhockey]

There was one for a while in an old Circuit city here before liability issues closed it. Every time I go into a dead mall, my mind imagines something like this going in there.

Here's a place where it works:

Ray's Indoor Bike Park | Cleveland, OH

www.raysmtb.com

This too:

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/19/1194077043/pickleball-indoors-malls-noise-tennis-courts

 

[Comeds]

Hear me out, are there any emptyish malls in Phoenix?

So in the malls with residences attached, is it possible to go downstairs and walk to the food court. bars, or shops, without ever going outside?

 

[Comeds]

I think there’s a line we need to draw where we aren’t making young people think there’s no tomorrow so don’t even try. Young people are apathetic as hell to begin with, tell them that they have no future, everything will be unaffordable and also the world will overheat and melt you and, I dunno, would you really strive to make anything of yourself in that scenario?

We should probably also draw a line where we stop criticizing the young for being coddled, not having a good work ethic. staying at home longer, and not smoking as much cigarettes as previous generations. A lot of which is either not true or is true mainly because of the way they were raised and/or the conditions left for them by the previous generations.

 

[jstewismybastardson]

There was one for a while in an old Circuit city here before liability issues closed it. Every time I go into a dead mall, my mind imagines something like this going in there.

Here's a place where it works:

Ray's Indoor Bike Park | Cleveland, OH

www.raysmtb.com

it works here for now but yah i think this bike park will end up being just a stop gap tenant. That mall will end up being developed into towers as well

Capilano Mall redevelopment planning resumes after pandemic pause | Urbanized

Quadreal Property Group has resumed the planning process for its proposal to redevelop Capilano Mall in North Vancouver.

dailyhive.com

You would think Oprah was a city planner in our parts ... you get a tower and you get a tower and you get a tower lol

When my cousins came to visit from Italy we were out on our deck and they were like oh ... downtown vancouver is beautiful ... and Im ... no thats Metrotown in Burnaby ... oh is that downtown then ... no ... thats Brentwood ... that? No thats Burnaby Edmonds

 

[thedddd]

The "15 minute city" concept (essentially tearing down the old and building new apartments, retail and restaurants) is booming in the Atlanta suburbs. The challenge with them are the housing costs are way too high. So the folks that work there can't afford to live there.

 

[jstewismybastardson]

We should probably also draw a line where we stop criticizing the young for being coddled, not having a good work ethic. staying at home longer, and not smoking as much cigarettes as previous generations. A lot of which is either not true or is true mainly because of the way they were raised and/or the conditions left for them by the previous generations.

its just lazy sterotypical narratives that people pick up from media that they ingest like a fat kid eating donuts and regurgitate on the regular


/btw ... try telling teens about smoke pits that existed at high schools back in the day

the kids:

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

We should probably also draw a line where we stop criticizing the young for being coddled, not having a good work ethic. staying at home longer, and not smoking as much cigarettes as previous generations. A lot of which is either not true or is true mainly because of the way they were raised and/or the conditions left for them by the previous generations.

Every generation's done that though. Can't fuck with tradition.

Frankly, it's incredibly that anybody my age has anything to their names at this point - in your country the economy collapsed as they were leaving school and there weren't any jobs anywhere because of Obamacare (I think) and in my country if you didn't enter the real estate market in major markets by 2015 you probably were shit out of luck of ever owning anything unless you moved to Saskatchewan. But somehow we weren't "picking ourselves up by the bootstraps" somehow.

 

[dash]

We should probably also draw a line where we stop criticizing the young for being coddled, not having a good work ethic. staying at home longer, and not smoking as much cigarettes as previous generations. A lot of which is either not true or is true mainly because of the way they were raised and/or the conditions left for them by the previous generations.

It always cracks me up when George says, "Well, I can't stop now"

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

The "15 minute city" concept (essentially tearing down the old and building new apartments, retail and restaurants) is booming in the Atlanta suburbs. The challenge with them are the housing costs are way too high. So the folks that work there can't afford to live there.

Good thing Atlanta has an excellent public transit network.