Prolly lots of 'em. Now here's the question: are malls truly doomed? Fundamentally, a place to congregate and purchase goods is not a post-WWII American tradition. That shit goes back to the Sumerians. I think we can all concede that the current implementation, with the current market conditions, is in a precarious place. But if malls were places where you wanted to bring your kids and hang out and relax and have a smoothie or a beer and maybe buy a couple used books while the kids watch magic tricks? Right now, nobody can afford to do that with a shopping mall. But I think critical mass will swing the other way in the next ten years. Malls are a useful Third Place, they're just configured awfully right now.
It's interesting seeing what some of the malls are filling themselves up with around here to try and stay alive. Bars, daycares, exercise studios, offices for lawyers and such, are just a few I can think of. Perception might be part of the problem though, because when I think of those kinds of businesses, the mall isn't the first place I'd think to go look for them.
I think that might be the key: a mall, fundamentally, is a village where nobody could live. During the Golden Age of Capitalism, with a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot, people were willing to drive to a central location where all their material shopping needs could be met; as soon as The Internet came along, it seemed pretty dumb to spend an afternoon looking at sweater options, particularly when your other choices were "eat pretzels" and "watch a movie." Malls started to decline right about the time municipalities started to reward mixed-use development, an acknowledgement that communities are those places where you don't need to get in the car to get something done. Not saying every mall needs to start building apartments... but the ones closest to where people actually live are the ones that are most likely to survive precisely because of the daycares, bars, exercise studios and offices. Got a friend who opened an ice cream parlor at one of the surviving (thriving) malls around here. he's paying $60/sf. We're paying a small percentage of that. If nothing else, that is causing dead malls - until they can afford to drop their prices to twenty percent of what they were, they can't compete with the rest of the world. I think that price is going to drop, and someone (Simon et. al) are gonna get skinned. Couldn't happen to a nicer group of people.
Since all the transportation and bus lines lead to malls, they are turning the almost failed malls into apartments and business parks as the retail leaves. There is a mall in town that has rides and non-shopping stuff to do as well in order to stay alive. Malls and Mall type places are going to keep existing, the form they take is going to change and adapt. As someone said in one of these threads a year or so back, the malls for rich people are thriving. The malls aiming at the middle class are doomed.