Ghost Boxes: Reusing Abandoned Big-Box Superstores Across America - 99% Invisible
You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.
Submit Search
YouTube
TikTok
Threads
Discord
Bluesky
99% Invisible Newsletter
100% Fascinating
Email Address
Yes Please! By submitting this form, you acknowledge that you have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, that you understand them, and that you agree to be bound by them. If you do not agree to be bound by the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, you may not use the 99% Invisible website and services.
see recent newsletter
Close
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Leave a Comment
Big-box stores promise convenience and jobs for suburbs and small towns, but have a mixed reputation with designers and citizens. Many see big boxes as icons of unsustainable sprawl, reinforcing car culture with highway-oriented access and expansive parking lots. These boxy buildings not only take up vast amounts of land but often also require infrastructure around them to be overhauled. Later, when their super-sized occupants leave: a giant empty structure is left in their wake, which can be difficult to reuse unless a similar retailer takes its place.
Entry to McAllen Main Libary (converted from a Walmart) via Alucobond<br>Some communities and architects, however, have started to turn these voids into opportunities, taking advantage of qualities unique to such megastructures. In one Texas town, a vacated Walmart has become the biggest single-story public library in the United States.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Located in McAllen, the 123,000-square-foot building in question was redesigned and retrofitted by architects from Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle. Their approach to the project turned some of the biggest challenges of big-box reuse into opportunities. The sheer volume of the structure provided an open framework, ready to be re-purposed.
McAllen Main Libray interior via Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle Architecture<br>The open floor area was strategically split into various sections, including public meeting spaces and computer labs, as well as an auditorium, bookstore and cafe. On the ceiling above, the designers left structural and mechanical elements exposed, coating them in white paint. Below, bright carpets, colorful floors and modern details distinguish various occupied zones and transitional areas. New colors and materials have transformed the entry and exterior.
The award-winning building has been lauded for tackling the tricky dilemma of deserted big-box structures: "The McAllen Main Library represents an important shift in American cultural attitudes toward tolerating big box, suburban structures," wrote the AIA National Honor Awards Jury. "The interior spaces have been dramatically transformed from a warehouse to a place with a sense of intimacy." Walmarts across America occupy over 700,000,000 square feet of space, and this library illustrates how some of that area might be put to good use.
99% Invisible
Ghost Plants: Reusing Huge Abandoned Sears…
Article
Ghost Plants: Reusing Huge Abandoned Sears Buildings Across Urban…
Inside the Box: Liabilities as Assets
Big Box Reuse book cover via The MIT Press<br>The footprint of a big box store extends beyond the space occupied by the building or even the parking lot. In many cases, "roads are widened, stoplights put in …. entire bypasses might be created," explains Julia Christensen, author of Big Box Reuse. "So all of this invested infrastructure remains after the retailer leaves the building behind." The result is a great deal of embedded energy both in and around big boxes, which in turn also creates a strong incentive for adaptive reuse.
The question then becomes: what kinds of new programs are best suited to such huge spaces after they are vacated? What new uses will take maximum advantage, of not just the buildings, but also their parking lots and surrounding infrastructure?
Former Walmart in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin with ‘Building Available’ sign by Brave New Films<br>After all, not every town needs or can support a library as large as the one in McAllen. Principles from that successful example can, however, be generalized to other reuse cases, since these similarly-constructed boxes share many common traits:
Volume (building and lot serve a larger number of people at once)
Openness (relatively open and flexible plans with high ceilings)
Orientation (linear alignment of lighting and structural bays)
Lighting (less natural light needed and/or artificial light preferred)
Location (regional accessibility via major roads and/or highways)
Of course, some of these vacated spaces will simply be occupied by replacement stores. Other reuses that can make use of the above traits, though, span a surprisingly wide spectrum. Big boxes have been turned into everything from commercial gyms, markets and offices to institutional museums, schools and churches.
In Eden...