Would You Want to Live in a Shopping Mall?

My heart stopped when I came across this possibility. 

Living in a mall. Would it be a shopaholics dream or nightmare?

I might be willing to give it a shot, how about you?

History in the making is just up the road a piece from Connecticut. America's first shopping mall, the Westminster Arcade in Providence, Rhode Island, has a portion of it converted into micro lofts. Yes, you can live inside a piece of history, while you do a bit of shopping!

According to arcade.com, The Westminster Arcade opened in 1892, introducing the English-style indoor shopping experience to the United States. We've all seen in recent years, many malls across America go belly up. So was the case with the Arcade when  the space closed its doors in 2008 due to economic reasons.

Clever developers decided not to tear it down but instead give it a whole new vibe. Voila, living space! The first floor is still being rented out as commercial space, but the top two floors have been turned into micro apartments / lofts. Welcome to the Arcade Providence.

Now, they aren't kidding when they call then micro, the units range in size from 225 to 800 square feet, as you can see on the arcadeprovidence.com website. And they have a waiting list, so it seems as if this idea has taken off. One has to think this is pretty perfect for young professionals who don't have much stuff yet, or people that are tired of having too much stuff and they want to downsize in a seriously big way!

That is very cool, but also, YIKES! This shop til you drop girl couldn't do it. But the idea makes total sense.