Old malls turn into claw-machine arcades as community retail hollows out

A local mall built in 1982 was described as a 'dead mall' — cinemas, comic shops and camera stores almost entirely replaced by claw-machine arcades and eateries, sparking wide discussion about the slow transformation of older malls. Residents report that old malls commonly share the same plight of 'dim lighting, dated corridor design and a one-note line-up of ground-floor brands'; the arrival of claw-machine arcades is seen as landlords' stopgap of 'better than an empty unit' rather than long-term transformation, with the whole mall effectively propped up by a few restaurants during the lunch rush.

Hong Kong's older malls are owned by a mix of different landlords, housing estates and churches, and fragmented ownership makes overall rebranding and reorganising the internal flow hard to drive; meanwhile the government offers no revitalisation subsidy, building-renovation tax incentive or local-small-shop matching scheme for old malls, so community shopping spaces hollow out further under the pressure of online retail. For grassroots residents and the elderly who rely on community malls as daily-life and social hubs, the 'dead mall' phenomenon means longer walking distances, fewer choices and higher transport costs; Hong Kong lacks neutral planning resources, landlord-collaboration frameworks and community-participation mechanisms for old-mall transformation, turning 'decline → claw machines → further decline' into a cycle.