TOP COMMENTS FROM VIDEO BELOW
Speaking as someone who works in the building trade, the biggest obstacle are the zoning laws around natural light and ventilation.
If you look carefully at the structure of a mall you’ll notice that you can fit many regular-sized apartments in that area, BUT not all of them will have access to outside air and light. And nobody wants an apartment that doesn’t allow you to see the outside and is also completely dependent on artificial ventilation.
The single biggest cost of converting a mall to apartments is the demolition of sections of the roof and floors to make light wells to allow natural air and light to come to all apartments.
Escape from New York seems more and more like a documentary
