More grist for the mill about turning strip malls into housing.
Even though it's getting a decent amount of press coverage, I don't expect to see this move along very quickly or get much more than a smattering of conversions done. This only partially due to the zoning regulation problems.
The thing about strip malls is they take a different type of Real Estate developer than the ones who do residential construction, and have a different type of RE management. They are usually owned by small, local capitalists who acquire a piece of land zoned commercial, but too small to be built on by a big corporation that puts up the large malls with Anchor stores, big box places like Best But or Target, etc.
These smaller owners aren't experienced with or don't want the headaches involved with low income housing rental, and all the attending Goobermint regulation involved around finding qualified renters and meeting guidelines. So they would have to find a buyer for those properties who did want to take on such a burden,for what is likely a very low profit but fairly capital intensive business for a small time capitalist.
The only way it might work is if Da Goobermint took over the properties directly and managed it with some kind of public housing agency, but except for really big cities like NYC, most municipalities with these kind of strip malls empty and available don't have such an agency. Nor given the fact most such small munis are strapped for cash and personnel these days is it likely they will be voted into existence any time soon.
So in the meantime, these places will stay mostly vacant and will just rot, while homeless people set up tents in their overgrown parking lots that haven't been repaved in a decade. Gotta love Capitalism. Small or big, it always manages to not solve any problems that really need solutions.
https://fortune.com/2024/04/13/office-conversions-retail-residential-dead-malls-housing/
Tired: Office conversions to residential. Wired: Turning dead malls and suburban shopping strips into apartments
RE