[HN Gopher] Epic Games just bought a North Carolina mall for its...
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Epic Games just bought a North Carolina mall for its new
headquarters
Author : Reedx
Score : 79 points
Date : 2021-01-05 17:28 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| I used to work for a company in NYS that used a section of a
| converted mall for office space. God, that was the worst office
| space I've ever been in -- the floors moved a ton when you moved
| your chair, echoed when you walked around, the temperatures were
| absolutely all over the place depending on how close you were to
| a heater/cooling vent, and worst of all... malls don't really
| have windows.
|
| Working in a converted mall might as well be working in a prison,
| for all I can tell. The walkway through the middle was kind of
| nice (and the food court still functioned as a cafeteria, so you
| could walk fully indoors during cold winter/hot summer days to
| get a coffee or lunch)... but I think I'd still rather be able to
| see the outdoors from my desk.
| quesera wrote:
| Epic will be redeveloping the entire 87-acre site, for
| reopening in 2024.
|
| The mall is in Cary, NC (Raleigh-Durham / RTP area).
|
| Ironically, I was thinking it'd be kind of cool to work in an
| old mall building (with the typical US indoor shopping mall
| layout). Inefficient in many ways (parking, space utilization,
| HVAC), but the idea of locating teams in small (fishbowl?)
| office-like pods seems interesting.
|
| Natural light would be a problem. The food court could be
| appealing...
|
| Some of the complaints you mention sound like they might be
| specific to that building? Commercial floors should be standard
| build slab/tray concrete in a mall or office building. Retail
| HVAC should be adequate if inefficient.. Then again, a failed
| mall might have failed for a long list of reasons, and a crappy
| physical plant is definitely one of them!
| xnyan wrote:
| I did some construction work at this mall in college. Of the
| many many problems, natural light is probably number 1. It's
| an absolute dungeon, dark and oppressive. I don't see how you
| fix it besides blowing it up and starting over.
| Grazester wrote:
| Anything can be done especially if you have the will and
| the money.
| r00fus wrote:
| I thought Epic was moving there _because_ of the money
| savings...
| falcolas wrote:
| Money's not infinite (not even Epic's money). Much of the
| time, it's better (cost-effective) to demolish and start
| fresh, especially if the foundation and infrastructure
| are even remotely sketchy.
|
| Demolishing isn't really _that_ expensive, at this kind
| of scale.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| It actually is! The reserve requirements are 0%, which
| makes money effectively infinite
| ACow_Adonis wrote:
| actually there's a case of problems that involve natural
| evolution, survivorship over time and distributed actors.
| It can be argued this is also possible if you have the
| will and the money, but it practically never happens
| (arguably a minority of vc money maybe?) that people with
| will and money give it away to a large number of
| distributed decision makers over a time period to produce
| a single specific goal.
|
| It might seem like I'm splitting hairs, but actually
| urban design and working/living environment is exactly
| hypothesised to be one of those cases. It's why some
| people argue successful downturn areas and urban
| environments with walkability and diversity of
| use/design/ spectacle (so not most US cities), because
| they have evolved that way from lots of little
| distributed inconsistent designs, but with individual
| members tested, repurposed and surviving due to evolution
| over time.
|
| When a big developer or mega Corp develops or designs,
| you don't get natural evolution and diversity of design
| over time, you get mass sameness and waterfall design.
| It's why you get planned community aesthetics and
| corporate brand + policy rather than what organically
| works. The best of them might be bright and shiny (see
| Apple office/campus), but they still have the overarching
| ethos of singular design and absolute central/corporate
| control. Some people like that environment, personally I
| don't like working in it (don't get me wrong, i'd rather
| work in a good one rather than a bad one though).
|
| In practice they don't get it perfect. I imagine a lot of
| people could list problems with the Apple campus in
| practice, and I'd be good money this isn't going to be
| the Apple campus...
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| The article mentions that "some structures" will be
| demolished, but that other plans are far from certain. I'll
| definitely keep an eye on this to see if they do a better job
| converting this mall than the converted mall that I've
| experienced!
| notional wrote:
| Amazon bought the upper floors of the Seattle downtown Macys
| building. I worked in there for a few days to get a feel for it
| out of curiosity (my team was in a dif building). It was awful,
| it was completely dark inside, almost no natural light, the
| building is old as shit and super janky as a result. It's also
| across the street from McStabs so once they moved in, every
| Seattle employee started getting emergency stay inside texts
| because of the street level problems outside that building.
| ionwake wrote:
| Sorry I am from the UK what do you mean? Is there alot of
| crime in Seattle around the MC restaurants?
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Not McDonalds in general, but one particular McDonalds in
| Seattle is located at a spot with a large number of
| homeless people, where crime and open-air drug use is
| pretty common.
| ionwake wrote:
| That is odd, I dont think there are any locations in the
| UK where there is open drug use. I also remember seeing
| clearly mentally ill people on the streets in Miami,
| something you dont see here ( though you do see homeless
| every now again - rarely tents ). Is that just a normal
| feature in cities in the US?
| nradov wrote:
| It's a normal feature of many large cities in the US,
| particularly those run by more progressive politicians.
| No city has adequate mental health treatment facilities
| or homeless services. Open drug use has been de facto
| decriminalized: elected District Attorneys refuse to
| prosecute and thus police don't bother making arrests.
|
| I do support treating addiction as a health problem
| rather than a crime. But the current approach in cities
| like San Francisco is wrecking quality of life for
| regular people.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Rackspace did a similar thing in San Antonio. There are many
| photos of the transition here:
| https://www.mysanantonio.com/lifestyle/slideshow/Photos-show...
| notwhereyouare wrote:
| did I miss the after photos? That seems to be all before photos
| Rendello wrote:
| My adblocker blocked the "after" photos for me
| crftr wrote:
| If you have an active adblocker, try disabling. I had a
| similar issue.
| msisk6 wrote:
| Yeah, that was fun. I worked in the Rackspace Austin office (an
| old call center building with it's own problems) but I often
| had to be in San Antonio for meetings.
|
| The noise was crazy. Even after taking steps to address the
| noise it was still an issue. Not much you can do with all the
| concrete a mall is typically made of.
|
| And the 2nd floor shook and moved around a lot after folks
| moved in. It was actually nauseating.
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| I'm no expert, but I have a little experience with sound
| mitigation.
|
| IME, the effort needed to reduce unwanted noise depends a lot
| on the frequency range.
|
| _Very_ roughly speaking, dampening high-frequency sounds can
| be done with relatively thin and light sound-absorbing
| materials. Lower-frequency noise, including vibrations that
| shake the building 's superstructure, require more extensive
| modifications.
|
| It would be awesome if an actual acoustic engineer or
| architect could weigh in on this.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| I wonder if you could use active noise cancelling on the
| floors
| Rendello wrote:
| uBlock origin blocks all of the "after" picures but none of the
| before ones, I was confused for a good two minutes!
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Is that really what typical tech office space looks like these
| days? I know I'm really lucky to have my own office (pre-
| pandemic), but that looks absolutely miserable. Acres of half-
| wall cubicles without an ounce of thought for blocking auditory
| or visual distractions?
| corysama wrote:
| Probably got a good deal on it. Malls were overbuilt for quite a
| while and oversupply has had many of them struggling for over a
| decade.
| mhh__ wrote:
| They're all rammed with tricks to get you to consume, too.
| entangledqubit wrote:
| I believe the Google X building in Mountain View on San Antonio
| used to be the Mayfield Mall. They did a nice job renovating it
| for their purposes but you still feel like you're at a mall when
| you go through the building.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Will Former Malls soon become the new Former PizzaHuts?
| wowzers123 wrote:
| Meh, Tencent owns a huge portion of them. At least there are
| still good American game dev jobs though.
| wowzers123 wrote:
| Pray tell, the downvote without an explanation. Business with
| China is good and all until you remember what happened with
| Blizzard and what happens with Disney, NBA...
| acheron wrote:
| They should release a new ZZT world set in an office/mall to
| celebrate.
| xnyan wrote:
| In college, I pulled a gas line through 30 feet of existing
| retail space at this very mall for a retrofit asian bistro. It's
| an absolute dump, no natural light, sprawling and fundematly
| unfixable early 80s bad mall architecture.
|
| I have a friend who lives across the street from Epic's existing
| HQ. It looks like a fun-looking building to work in, I have a
| hard time imagining Cary Towne Center not being a downgrade no
| matter how much cash you throw at renovation. Just getting the
| all-permeating smell of stale roasted popcorn out of the concrete
| is going to take a small fortune.
| wyldfire wrote:
| "no natural light" -- don't most indoor malls have lots of
| skylights? I suppose that's only in the common/transit areas
| and not in the shops (where offices are)?
| xnyan wrote:
| So, fun story. I did not know this at the time, but I then
| (and now to much lesser degree) had pretty significant
| sensory overload/over-sensitivity issues particularly with
| light. I vividly remember being taken to Cary Town Center by
| my parents and for some reason feeling an overwhelming sense
| of relief, though I did not understand why at the time. Going
| back as an adult, I realized it's because the place was a
| freaking cave.
|
| I think even mid 80-90s malls had much more natural light,
| but Cary Towne Center was built in 79 and I think even if
| they turned the roof into a sheet of plexiglass that the
| layout would keep large sections dark. The food court for
| example is on the first floor and is lined with shops,
| preventing easy windows of any kind.
|
| Maybe they can use a series of mirrors?
| Gabriel_Martin wrote:
| You say "no matter how much cash you throw at renovation", but
| I think you may be underestimating just how much Fortnite alone
| makes, apparently in 2019, Fortnite brought in revenues of $1.8
| billion. With costs of labor in NC, I'm betting they're feeling
| pretty confident about the renovation.
| Animats wrote:
| In 2020, Epic's revenues were somewhere above $4 billion.
|
| I'm sure they got that mall really, really cheap. Here's the
| current store list.[1] They're down to 22 small tenants,
| including the co-working space and the model train club.
|
| [1]https://www.shopcarytownecentermall.com/directory
| wtallis wrote:
| I've seen a $95 million figure reported for Epic's
| purchase. They're buying it from a group who picked it up
| in 2019 for $31.5 million after IKEA cancelled plans to
| build a store there.
| eurodancemag wrote:
| Thats wow now it's time to beat PUBG
| sli wrote:
| If the teams are small enough, they could be put in the vacant
| shops. It would probably still feel a bit open-plan, though.
| kingnothing wrote:
| Sounds terrible unless they're able to add windows to all of the
| current stores.
| AceyMan wrote:
| Google is in the middle of refitting the former Westside
| Pavilion, located at Westwood & Pico, as a new Los Angeles
| office. The last I'd seen a few months ago, it'd been taken down
| to the floors and structural risers; all the walls and other
| partitions are gone, so they'll be able to include natural light
| however they see fit.
| gallamine wrote:
| If anyone is curious, here is the mall in question:
| https://goo.gl/maps/pdJPjXz1zbrNmXSn8
|
| I grew up down the road from this place.
| morsch wrote:
| Here's a video from inside: https://youtu.be/SqhMhJ-uFGY
|
| There are a couple more like this on YouTube. Dead mall videos
| are a genre.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Epic seems to be the one company in the Research Triangle that's
| been making the news often, recently. Wonder how the startup
| scene has been in Raleigh-Durham-Cary.
| generj wrote:
| That's one way to encourage your employees to walk a certain
| amount per day.
| exrackthrow wrote:
| They should call it "Castle".
| [deleted]
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| I've long said that if I ever struck it stupid rich, I'd buy a
| mall to live in.
|
| It would still have stores. I'd pay to have those stores stocked.
| Ideally it would have a 90s-era movie theatre in it, too. But
| otherwise it would be empty.
|
| Why? So that I can live every day like I'm the last surviving
| human. Dawn of the Dead, minus the flesh eaters.
|
| (Alternative plan: buy up a ghost town. Same plan, otherwise.)
| Yoofie wrote:
| Tangent: You may or may not be interested in this Youtube
| channel [1] where a guy buys a Ghost Town.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/c/GhostTownLiving/videos
| Rumudiez wrote:
| Brent Underwood actually did buy a ghost town to live in! He
| has a YouTube channel called Ghost Town Living which shows him
| exploring the abandoned mines and restoring original buildings
| in the ghost town of Cerro Gordo. I believe his plans are to
| one day open it as a retreat destination.
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > I've long said that if I ever struck it stupid rich, I'd buy
| a mall to live in.
|
| > It would still have stores. I'd pay to have those stores
| stocked. Ideally it would have a 90s-era movie theater in it,
| too. But otherwise it would be empty.
|
| Remember that 90s kid movie 'Blank Check?' I wrote a short fan
| art film script as a 13 year old that followed a similar
| premise, the origin of the funds were that the kid was a
| 'hacker' so the kid stole the funds from a crooked stockbroker
| firm trying to launder their money and ended up taking so much
| he ended up living in an abandoned mall and 'sold warez' out of
| the stores with various business models.. I recently saw the
| notebook and I had clearly recently just saw that movie with
| Angelina Jolie and Swordfish when I wrote that as that was
| around the time I had just discovered Newsgroups.
|
| I somehow managed to get to the beginning of the 2nd act and
| just forgot about it entirely until the day I re-read it, haha.
| Which for being 13 was more resolve than I thought I had.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| I'd watch this movie. Especially if it somehow had Hackers-
| era Angelina Jolie, Mathew Lillard, and Jonny Lee Miller. Or,
| plot twist: Those 3 are now the old/lame parents of the young
| hacker(s).
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > I'd watch this movie. Especially if it somehow had
| Hackers-era Angelina Jolie, Mathew Lillard, and Jonny Lee
| Miller. Or, plot twist: Those 3 are now the old/lame
| parents of the young hacker(s).
|
| Maybe I should revisit that script then... I've definitely
| gotten more ideas about where it would go now that we're in
| 2021 and I have way more to work with to flesh it out. It
| probably wouldn't end up appealing to the Disney crowds
| like the original, though. Ha.
|
| How is the book app going?
|
| I found more old scripts in boxes I want to update when I
| have the time, some of my other fan art pilots are digital
| but lack the proper format of a script and your project
| sounds interesting for amateur writers as I imagine you
| have specific templates for the specific type of writing
| one would use.
|
| All of my formatting is all off and looks like I just wrote
| long format stories in paragraph with quotes for dialogue
| as I didn't know any better and just did what I saw in
| books and wrote with total abandon in a way that only made
| sense to me.
|
| What would be cool would be able to denote where the arcs
| and acts are as you're writing to be able to go back to
| after long pauses.
|
| I'd pay for that! ;)
|
| Sidenote: I think I enjoyed finding out out Ray Bradbury
| wrote Farenheit 451 on a rented typewriter at UCLA just as
| much as reading the book, and especially more than watching
| the movie.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| > How is the book app going?
|
| Thanks for asking! PaperbackAuthor is coming along.
|
| > [...] I imagine you have specific templates for the
| specific type of writing one would use.
|
| Right now I'm shooting for the absolute minimum viable
| product, so on day one it will be a super simple editor
| that can export to ePub and PDF.
|
| But I've got lots of idea of features I want to roll out,
| including support for different types of writing. My
| theory is that what makes most editing software
| problematic is they try to create one approach to writing
| many types of things, so they fail to be particularly
| good at any one of them. With PaperbackAuthor, I'm
| building the editor I've always wanted for the purpose of
| writing novels and novellas.
|
| Later, I might roll out support for, say, screenplays. Or
| graphic novels. Or text books. Or illustrated books. Etc.
| Each format deserves its own dedicated editor.
|
| > What would be cool would be able to denote where the
| archs and acts are as you're writing to be able to go
| back to after long pauses.
|
| I've got some ideas around this, too. But, I need to make
| sure they're genuinely useful. Some of my ideas, in
| hindsight, amount to little more than "Trello-like cards
| in a sidebar", which isn't much of an improvement over
| simply keeping Trello in a separate tab or window.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Plot twist 2: Unknown to the kids, all three "old/lame
| parents" are actually super hackers, hiding from the
| government.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| This story keeps getting better.
| jlack wrote:
| Here's a youtube channel if you'd like to experience living in
| a ghost town vicariously.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEjBDKfrqQI4TgzT9YLNT8g
|
| Guy bought an old silver mining town and has been living there
| over the pandemic
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| Love his channel. This may be what initially caused me to
| think it would be cool to own a whole town.
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