经济学人339:"拯救"大型购物中心

 　　THE old Rackspace headquarters was stuffed to the gills. In 2007 the company, which offers cloud-computing and web-hosting services, had more than 1,000 employees in downtown San Antonio. People were crammed 1 at folding tables in the hallway. They often had to go to a different building or shuttle around the lifts to talk to people in other departments.

　　Rackspace公司总部的旧楼曾人满为患。该公司提供云计算和主机托管服务，2007年在圣安东尼奥市区已拥有1000多名员工。公司走廊里放了很多折叠桌，连这里都挤满了人。要是想找其他部门的人谈点事，都得跑到另一栋楼或者坐几个来回的升降梯才行。
　　Still, when Graham Weston, the company’s co-founder and chairman, suggested that they move into a shopping mall, staff were sceptical. The mall was vacant. Its site, the encircled suburb of Windcrest, was slightly grotty, not least because of the huge dead mall right off the highway.
　　即便如此，当公司的创建人之一兼主席Graham Weston表示他们要搬到一家购物中心时，员工们都还将信将疑。那时候商场是空置的，地点位于Windcrest这个被包围着的郊区，外观不太好看，相当重要的原因是这座空无一人的大型商场正位于公路的出口处。
　　Building a campus from scratch, however, would have taken several years at least. Anyway, the place was cheap. “Nobody wants a mall any more,” says John Engates, the chief technology officer. Except Rackspace, and others like it, who have come to see a dead mall as a blank canvas. In 2008 it opened its new headquarters, and won a prize for community economic development. Now it has more than 3,000 workers on site, withplans to hire hundreds more by the end of the year.
　　不过要想从零开始建立一座办公楼至少得花上几年的时间，而且不管怎么说，用现成的购物中心是比较省钱的作法。“现在已经没人想要购物中心了”技术总监John Engates说到。如今只有Rackspace，和其余像它那样把空置商城看作是一张空白画布的公司对购物中心还有好感。2008年Rackspace的新总部投入使用，还得了一项“社会经济发展”奖。如今，现场的员工有3000多人，计划到今年年底还要雇用几百人。
　　Plenty of enclosed malls are, of course, still thriving. And after several abstemious 2 years, shoppers are perking 3 up. In February, according to the Commerce Department, retail 4 sales were 1.1% higher than they had been in January—higher than expected, and a welcome sign of recovery.
　　当然，还是有为数众多的封闭式商场生意很好。经历了几年节制消费，购物者们又活跃了起来。根据美国商务部的数据，2月份的零售额同比1月份增加了1.1%——比预期值高，是可喜的复苏迹象。
　　But many American malls had run into trouble before the recession started, and the country’s nascent 5 recovery is not likely to revive them. America’s retail sector 6 is probably overbuilt; in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to the National Association of Realtors, its vacancy 7 rate was 16.9%. Malls are vulnerable to systemic shocks; if an “anchor” stores closes, or if vacancies 8 linger, other vendors 9 quickly suffer. And many of the malls that were built in the heyday 10 of the genre 11 are starting to look shopsoiled. The new fashion is for mixed-use developments, or the outdoor malls that are designed to look like a friendly downtown shopping district. In some cities, people are returning to actual downtown shopping districts, as new urbanists always dreamed they would.
　　但是许多美国人开办的购物中心在经济衰退期来临前就已陷入困境，而美国新生的复苏势头不太可能让他们得到复苏。美国的零售业很可能建设过度了，根据美国房产经纪人协会的统计，2011年第四季度的房屋空置率为16.9%。购物中心容易遭受系统冲击带来的影响，如果某家“锚”店停业了，或者房屋持续空置，其余的商家也很快遭殃。还有很多类似在繁荣时期建立起来的购物中心开始变得陈旧起来。新的时尚是提倡“多用途混合式发展”的建筑群，即户外购物中心要建得像个市中心的购物区。在一些城市里，人们回归故态，爱去真正的市中心购物区，这可是新生代城市规划家梦寐以求的事。
　　The result is that even if Americans are heading back to shops, they may not be heading to malls. That has left many cities and suburbs with dead and dying malls on their hands: boxes of blight 12 surrounded by acres of hot asphalt.
　　因此，即使美国人又开始购物了，却未必会去购物中心这样的地方。这就导致许多城市及郊区出现一些停业和即将停业的购物中心亟待处理——这些毫无生气的像盒子似的建筑，周围是大片炎热的沥青地（指周围的停车场）。
　　Some of these will be used as canvasses 13 for graffiti. Some will be razed 14. Others, happily, will find another purpose. One strategy is to turn the mall itself into a mixed-use development. The Natick, a high-end mall in Boston, has added condominiums. Another idea is to bring in unconventional tenants 15. In Cleveland, Ohio, part of a mall has been given over to indoor gardens, with the idea that it might be a model for other urban agriculture programmes. Schools and universities are another settler group. The University of the Incarnate 16 Word has leased part of another mall in San Antonio. Vanderbilt, in Tennessee, has leased some space to open a clinic; patients are given pagers so that they can get a snack from the food court while they wait. Hundreds of high-school students in Joplin, Missouri, are taking classes in a converted mall after the town’s high school was destroyed in a tornado 17 last summer.
　　其中有些购物中心将成为涂鸦者们的好去处，有些则要夷为平地，还有一些很幸运，将另作他用。有一个好办法是把购物中心改造成综合性建筑。Natick是一家位于波士顿的高级购物中心，这里增建了些公寓（condo）楼。还有个办法是引入非传统租户。在俄亥俄州的克利夫兰市（Cleveland），有家购物中心里的一块地建起了室内花园，其他的都市农业项目也许可以借鉴此案例。另一类居住人群是中小学校和大学。美国圣道大学（The University of the Incarnate Word）租用的是圣安东尼奥市的另一座购物中心原址；田纳西州的美国范德比尔特大学（Vanderbilt）租用了某购物中心的一些空地建起诊所，给就诊的患者都发了呼机，让他们在候诊时能去购物中心的美食街吃点东西；密苏里州小城Joplin的高中校园被去年夏天的一场龙卷风摧毁了，现在成百上千的高中生到一家购物中心里改造成的教室去上课。
　　These projects may be more sensible than enclosed retailing 18. Universities and offices do not depend on passers-by as shops and restaurants do. But turning these spaces to fresh purposes requires some expense and experimentation 19.
　　以上这些项目也许比封闭起来做零售更可行。大学和事务所的运营模式不像商店和饭店那样需要依靠客流量。只是要找到新用途需要耗费财力，还要多实践。
　　Rackspace, for its part, has spent more than $100m gutting 20 and redoing the space. Windows were carved into the walls, and skylights installed. Workers were getting lost, so the conference rooms are now grouped by category rather than numbered. If someone makes it to the game-show zone, he can usually figure it out from there. There is, at the moment, an internal debate over whether to preserve the fountains. Allan Nelson, the facilities manager, warns that overenthusiastic “Rackers” would try to go swimming in them.
　　在这方面，Rackspace公司花费了一亿多美元的资金把该购物中心的内部设施全部打掉重建。在封闭的四周外墙上开了窗户，顶上装了天窗。以前的布局设计让员工经常走错方向，所以现在会议室不像以前只是编号，而是用具体的类目陈列加以区分。假设有人好不容易来到了“娱乐节目区”，那他一看周围的环境就知道身处何处。目前的内部小争议是要不要保留原有的喷泉。设备部经理Allan Nelson提醒说，要是保留喷泉，可能就会有些超级热情的公司员工跳进去一游为快。
　　And the idiosyncrasies of the space have spurred some creative thinking. Freestanding conference rooms adorn 21 the walkways, their glass walls cut from the old shopfronts. A loading dock has been converted into apresentation room, with a rolling industrial door so that groups can spill over outside. Workers can take a break from their desks to work at a bistro table, or check in at the human-resources kiosk, or play catch in the vaulted 22 interior. “I don’t think people think about it as a mall any more,” says Mr Engates. Some might think about it as an example.
　　此处原有的一些特殊风格也激发了很多新创意。和其他区域不挨边的独立会议室点缀于走道两旁，这些独立会议室的玻璃幕墙是由原来的商铺门面裁切出来的；原来的货物装卸台被改造成了一个展览室，装上了工业卷帘门便于人多时能及时走出来；员工可以离开办公桌到小咖啡馆里找张桌子继续办公，换下心情；或者到人力资源自助机的小亭子里签到；或者在屋顶呈拱形的室内玩传接球。“我觉得大家不会再把这里当成是购物中心了”技术总监John Engates说，也许有些人会把它当作此类改建的典范。