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America’s malls are finding their way back into the social and commercial spotlight after years of decline. Naveen Jaggi, president of retail advisory services at commercial real estate firm JLL, says a younger generation once again sees the mall as an appealing destination.

“For about 20 years, [going to the mall] was the thing,” Jaggi told Yahoo Finance’s Brooke DiPalma. The shopping center was not merely a place to buy goods, but a prominent setting in American entertainment and everyday life.

“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,” Jaggi said. That decline changed how consumers and property operators viewed the traditional mall.

Now the social appeal appears to be returning among teenagers. Jaggi said children ages 13, 14, and 15 increasingly regard the mall as a cool place to visit and are again embracing the idea of going there.

The comeback has not depended on rescuing every struggling property. Instead, a major part of the shift has involved removing hundreds of weaker malls while concentrating shoppers and investment among the locations that survived.

The United States has “demolished around 500 or 600 malls over the last 10 years,” Jaggi said. He added that the total number of malls declined “from 1,500 malls to roughly 950 malls.”

That sharp reduction left a smaller collection of properties positioned to attract customers. “So when you get rid of the bad malls, what do you have left? The good stuff,” Jaggi said.

Surviving malls also benefited from substantial spending by their operators. Jaggi said companies including Macerich and Simon Property Group invested “billions of dollars making their malls attractive,” giving the remaining properties a significant physical and commercial overhaul.

Those investments helped broaden what customers could do during a single visit. Rather than depending entirely on conventional retail, operators developed destinations where visitors could shop, eat, watch movies, and find other forms of entertainment.

Jaggi described the renovated properties as places to “shop, eat, entertain, movies. You can do it all in one stop.” The range of activities gives customers more reasons to visit and more ways to spend their time at the property.

Dining has become an especially important part of the renewed appeal. The familiar food court is giving way to restaurant choices that operators select more deliberately, including established destinations capable of attracting customers on their own.

“We don't see food courts anymore,” Jaggi said. “Now we see actual curated food options,” ranging from a Cheesecake Factory to an Eataly.

That restaurant strategy is tied directly to existing consumer habits. Jaggi noted that the average household in the United States eats out four times each week, giving mall operators an opportunity to serve demand that already exists.

“If malls give people options for eating out, they will eat out, and they'll stay longer,” Jaggi said. Dining therefore does more than fill space because it also helps extend the amount of time visitors spend inside a mall.

The transformation described by Jaggi combines fewer properties, major operator investment, broader entertainment, and stronger dining selections. Together, those changes have helped the remaining malls become more attractive to consumers, including teenagers looking for a place to gather.

For Macerich and Simon Property Group, the strategy has involved spending billions to remake their properties rather than relying on the old mall formula. After a long slide, the surviving destinations are once again giving Americans a reason to say, “Let's go to the mall.”

DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.