More healthcare organizations are moving into empty retail space that can fit a broad range of services in one building, Marketplace reported April 13.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced many retailers out of business. Thirty-two closed malls have been turned into healthcare facilities, a national database by Georgia Tech urban design professor Ellen Dunham-Jones found. About one-third of the transitions happened during the pandemic.
Inova Health System will turn the former Landmark Mall in Alexandria, Va., into a $2 billion hospital, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center is planning to purchase the site of the former Global Mall at the Crossings in Antioch, Tenn., for healthcare services.
Malls make for an especially good fit for big health systems because they can move everything except an emergency room and intensive care unit into them, former hospital administrator Andrew McDonald told Marketplace.
Most malls also come with convenient parking and are close to highways and interstates. And suburban shopping malls are convenient to reach for the older residents who often live near them and need more care.
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