The original vision of the regional mall was as the “new town square” — see Southdale outside Minneapolis as the prime example. Over time, malls became transactional rather than transformational places to shop and mall anchors suffered from sameness and weakening market share.

I don’t have a crystal ball about the future of the traditional mall, but I know it’s not going to be an easy road as long as the biggest tenants (Macy’s, for example) struggle with their own identities and growth strategies. No amount of tenant-mix tweaking (or adding dining and entertainment) can overcome that challenge by itself.

From other recent reading, I’m struck by the reality that a great many mall problems come from fundamental societal changes (like communities shifting from prosperous to struggling). Yet we, as an industry, are so susceptible to arguments like this that suggest a “concert promoter” approach.

Economic change means there are many depressed communities that cannot be saved by any amount of hyped-up entertainment draw. And where the economy remains strong, the key to mall strength is a good variety of product, well-merchandised and well-advertised, because that’s what draws people to shop.

The traditional mall can continue to be a destination for shoppers if both the real estate developers and retailer tenants design their business models beyond traditional leases. The brick and mortar retail landscape has forever changed in the world of online shopping and e-commerce. I believe that retail has always been a consignment business regardless of what contracts and agreements are in place (brands are expected to take back products that don’t sell) one way or the other. This reality is amplified in an “Amazon world.”

Technology and business processes exist today that allow brands and retailers alike to conduct a completely transparent consignment business with 100 percent accuracy. This not only helps brands introduce new products but immediately drops the 3 percent that retailers need for supply chain administration to the bottom line. Retailers that implement this technology and its associated business process into a flexible mall environment will flourish. It simply is the future of brick-and-mortar retail.

Malls aren’t dead but they have failed, along with their tenants, to deliver a compelling, relevant shopping experience, especially compared to Amazon and innovators like Warby Parker and Bonobos. Mall operators and retailers need to start thinking about customers first, which they are loathe to do, much as they have consistently failed to invest in technology to deliver the aforementioned better customer experience.

Malls are struggling because they are home to the chains that are losing marketshare to e-commerce (even if it’s their own e-commerce). That’s the definition of being overstored — customers can get product without so many stores in existence. So while the mall as a concept is not dead, it will shrink. Making malls more entertaining, more of a social attraction and more experiential will help to stem the demise, but it will not help grow the mall concept. Nothing will. It may not be so much up to the stores themselves as it may fall to the mall operators to improve the appeal of the mall.

Historically malls were aggregators of shopper traffic, and while it seems that the nature and intent of mall visits is evolving from what was exclusively a shopping trip to a shopping/entertainment/community gathering visit, I think it’s important to realize that shopping is still the primary purpose for most mall visits. Retail commerce underpins the entire economic mall business model and I don’t believe this will fundamentally change any time soon. Mall operators need to focus on their primary responsibility: driving shopper traffic to the mall. Beyond driving traffic, mall operators also need to do a far better job of providing their retailer tenants with data and insights for them to measure their performance including mall traffic data (which many do not) in addition to shopper demographic and behavioral data.

Shopping isn’t dead. Shopping as an activity, especially a shared activity, is alive and well. Physical destinations are still relevant for this purpose and likely will be for a long time to come. The reason? Shopping is fun.

So, the question becomes — what form will the “mall” take? To become a sought-after destination today, the shopping destination should include some local “boutiques,” not just national chains. It should incorporate some local architecture, not just a big, windowless box. It should include local restaurateurs and chefs, not just Orange Julius. Finally, the experience needs to have some porosity with the outdoor space — I don’t mean only a semi-landscaped parking lot. Make it a destination.

Have a look at Westfield Century City, which is nearly doubling in size. Malls in general aren’t disappearing — but bad malls are.

Like anything in retail, malls need to give the shopper a good reason to visit. The “assortment of stores” (and entertainment/restaurants) is critical. Done right, major malls continue to thrive. Done poorly and they start to look like derelicts. When do malls start to re-purpose empty space as Amazon Lockers? Would shoppers visiting to pick up purchases spend more time and money in other mall locations while they visit?

I don’t know how many of the BrainTrustees actually remember “Main Street.” I do. Main Street was the center of town. It was a gathering place. Though there were many stores, it was not a retail center. It was a social center. You would go almost everyday, if just to buy an ice cream cone or a newspaper. You would meet friends as planned or by chance. The merchants knew you.

Main Street disappeared because the mall moved retail to a central loction, killing the Main Street retailers. If you wanted to buy, go to the mall. The mall was driven by retail sales. Today, there are alternatives for the retail sales that don’t require going to the mall. Online is taking away their reason for being. They must find a new structure or they will go the way of Main Street.

Well, there are two points in the article that especially resonate for me. One, that we can’t keep looking at channel sales. Online needs to be combined with stores and success needs to be examined by geography of the customer, not by store location. Two, that mall owners need to adopt the mindset of concert promoters and, relatedly, that malls will be destinations first and commerce will be second.

When people say “shopping is not dead” and “the mall is not dead,” we need to be really clear about what we’re actually saying. Sure the mall is not dead and there will be malls in the future — new ones, even. But they already don’t look like the mall I grew up with and they will evolve even more in the future, pretty much along the lines that Lee talks about here. There are too many people who hear “the mall is not dead” and think they don’t need to change. And that, in my opinion, is a fatal error.

Malls as we knew them are dying … there are many malls which are thriving, because they have adapted instead of perishing. It takes an open model, a shift in perceptions and a reformatting of stores, requirements and consumer understanding to make this change. Like all changes this is often too painful for the current landlord and tenants to grasp. Instead, they expire. For those that understand this is their last chance at retail success, they change and survive.

The purpose of the mall is a gathering place for potential shoppers. They can be there for entertainment, dining, services and shopping. I think the key to future mall design is not in terms of big anchor stores in the corners to draw business to the smaller format stores in the middle, but a set of experiences and events that draws people in. The casinos in Las Vegas learnt the lesson well transforming from just a gathering of gambling tables to full scale entertainment complexes.