Well-frastructure finds a home in shopping malls

Nashville – To meet the needs of the post-pandemic health landscape, sprawling suburban malls are being converted into medical facilities. In Tennessee, the Hickory Hollow Mall – which spans 1.1m square feet of retail space – is undergoing a complete healthcare transformation funded by Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Since the start of the pandemic, many US mall complexes have been converted into multi-purpose medical clinics. With acres of parking space, convenient suburban locations and palatial quantities of room, the dead mall offers many perks for the healthcare industry.

In the case of the Hickory Hollow Mall, the building is also in a diverse neighbourhood that requires increased access to care infrastructure. The mall's neighbouring zip codes had the some of the highest rates of Covid infections early in the pandemic and some of the lowest rates of primary care visits. The location of many mall facilities is also ideal for catering for the suburb’s ageing residents.

As medicine's repurposing of retail space expands well beyond the pandemic, it's evident that the mall-to-medicine concept is becoming a permanent Well-frastucture model.