'Let's go to the mall': Why malls in America are cool again

"For about 20 years, [going to the mall] was the thing," Naveen Jaggi, president of retail advisory services at commercial real estate firm JLL ( JLL ), told Yahoo Finance's Brooke DiPalma (video above). "So you think back to the '80s, right? So 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' and movies like that talked about malls. Then malls kind of went on the down slope."

Now, he said, "the 13-, the 14-, the 15-year-old kid, mall's a cool place to go: 'Let's go to the mall."'

A key aspect of the comeback is subtraction: The US has "demolished around 500 or 600 malls over the last 10 years," Jaggi said, going "from 1,500 malls to roughly 950 malls."

"So when you get rid of the bad malls, what do you have left? The good stuff," he said.

The survivors got expensive makeovers. Operators such as Macerich ( MAC ) and Simon Property Group ( SPG ) spent "billions of dollars making their malls attractive," Jaggi said, turning them into places to "shop, eat, entertain, movies. You can do it all in one stop."

Food is a big part of the pitch. "We don't see food courts anymore," Jaggi said. "Now we see actual curated food options," from a Cheesecake Factory ( CAKE ) to an Eataly.

Given that the average US household eats out four times a week, Jaggi noted, if malls give "people options for eating out, they will eat out, and they'll stay longer."

Internal AI tools help analyze interview transcripts and draft. Editors reviewed, edited, and fact-checked this post before publication.