Is "Main Street" the future design of all Malls?

This week we learned of the plans that General Growth Properties has for the Owings Mills Mall.  It will soon be de-malled. As the Carroll County Times reports:

"De-malling is what the process has come to be known as - with Hunt Valley Towne Centre a local example of what the results can be when an aging enclosed shopping mall is transformed into a Main Street-style collection of avenues lined with out-facing shops and restaurants. Like Hunt Valley, Owings Mills mall has a movie theater, which will be retained in the redevelopment."

Our Columbia Mall still seems to be popular with shoppers but it does make you wonder how long before the Mall reaches the point or a redesign.  We have already seen this change with some of our village centers. Oakland Mills and Owen Brown centers used to be enclosed in design and now have an open design. Also we saw how the once enclosed Chatham Mall was changed to the new open shopping design.


Last June Christopher Leinberger spoke to a large group in Columbia and indicated that the enclosed mall in America was dead.  Apparently no new enclosed mall has been built in the past 9 years and that the "main street" design seemed to be the new design. There is even a website called deadmalls.com