A couple different thoughts/stories invoked this question recently.

First, walking by Starbucks on Decatur Square last weekend, I got to thinking about the unique quality of that national chain.  As I ambled by, watching a few customers sip their hot, caffeinated beverages at the outdoor tables on a chilly pre-Winter day, I thought to myself, you know people chide Starbucks for being on every street corner and in every mall, but that very flexibility to set up shop in any reasonably stable economic environment is a real rarity in the retail marketplace these days.  In short, there aren’t really that many brands found in both malls and downtowns.  While other chain restaurants are also found in both locations, Starbucks is certainly the most extreme exception to that rule.

The second event that revived this train of thought a couple days later was an AJC article that documents the decline of many malls in the Atlanta area.  This again got me thinking.  Do the lower occupancy rates of many Atlanta-area malls (chief among them North DeKalb) and recent bankruptcy filings of mall owners signal a new, less dominant retail role for malls in the second decade of the 21st century?

And if so, what does the urban retail future look like?

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